Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Visual Art
Perhaps because it has been relegated to a marginal position, Moroccan contemporary art
has particular poignancy and a sense of urgency, expressing aspirations and frustrations that
can be understood instinctively - while eluding media censorship.
The new artworks emerging from Morocco are not kitschy paintings of eyelash-batting
veiled women and scowling turbaned warriors, though you'll still find these in tourist
showrooms. These form a 19th-century French Orientalist tradition made largely for ex-
port, and contemporary Moroccan artists like Hassan Hajjaj are cleverly tweaking it. Haj-
jaj's provocative full-colour photographs of veiled women are not what you'd expect: one
tough lady flashing the peace sign wears a rapper-style Nike-logo veil, emblazoned with
the slogan 'Just Do It' across her mouth.
Morocco's visual-art scene put down roots in the 1950s and '60s, when folk artists in Es-
saouira and Tangier made painting and sculpture their own by incorporating Berber sym-
bols and locally scavenged materials. Landscape painting became a popular way to express
pride of place in Essaouira and Assilah, and abstract painting became an important means
of poetic expression in Rabat and Casablanca.
Marrakesh's art scene combines elemental forms with organic, traditional materials,
helping to ground abstract art in Morocco as an indigenous art form. The scene has taken
2005, the first School of Visual Arts MFA program two years later, and Morocco's first In-
ternational Art Fair in 2009.
Calligraphy
Calligraphy remains Morocco's most esteemed visual art form, practised and perfected in
Moroccan
medersas
(theological colleges) over the last 1000 years. In Morocco, calli-
graphy isn't just in the Quran: it's on tiled walls, inside stucco arches, and literally coming
out of the woodwork. Look carefully, and you'll notice that the same text can have an in-
credibly different effect in another calligraphic style. One calligrapher might take up a
whole page with a single word, while another might turn it into a flower, or fold and twist
the letters origami-style into graphic patterns.
The style most commonly used for Qurans is Naskh, a slanting cursive script introduced
by the Umayyads. Cursive letters ingeniously interlaced to form a shape or dense design
are hallmarks of the Thuluth style, while high-impact graphic lettering is the Kufic style
