Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
“The Marrakech I once knew doesn’t exist any more”, filmmaker and photographer Daoud Aoulad-Syad reflects, as he gazes at a photograph he took in 1986 of a violinist performing in Jemaa el-Fnaa, the famous city square. Aoulad-Syad documented the vibrant street arts of Jemaa el-Fnaa (described by some as Marrakech’s open-air museum) for more than 30 years, in thousands of images of dancers, musicians and storytellers. His stirring black and white picture now belongs to the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (Macaal) and is one of 150 works included in an energetic and intoxicating display, Seven Contours, One Collection.
The show, curated by Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet, charts the sharp shifts experienced in Marrakech in the past 70 years, witnessed by artists such as Aoulad-Syad, as part of the wider artistic, social and political evolution in Morocco and across the continent. It also marks a new chapter for the institution as it reopens after an 18-month, $1mn renovation. It is the first time since Macaal opened in 2016 that it has devoted so much space to its collection, which until now has remained mostly in storage and unseen.
Started by the property developer Alami Lazraq 50 years ago, it is now considered one of the most extensive and important collections of contemporary African art on the continent, bearing comparison with those held at Zeitz Mocaa, Cape Town and Benin’s Fondation Zinsou. Its roughly 2,000 works range from an exquisite portrait of a seated figure in a pale pink suit by the prominent Moroccan painter Hassan El Glaoui, rendered in expressive, impressionistic brushstrokes, to abstract masterpieces by Moroccan modernist painters Mohamed Melehi, Farid Belkahia, and Mohamed Ataallah, major figures of the 1960s Casablanca School who were influenced by both Bauhaus and Berber styles. Melehi’s sensuous later works — squishy soft forms — are especially lovely.
Other highlights from across the continent include rare ink drawings from 1929 by Congolese artist Albert Lubaki, folk depictions of village life rendered in bright, loose swashes of colour on paper, and heady artworks by the Mozambican painter and poet Malangatana Valente Ngwenya, who revived African indigenous aesthetics in his politically charged anti-colonial pictures, scenes crowded with creatures, figures and symbols.
Lazraq’s son, Othman Lazraq, president of Macaal, has continued to acquire works for the collection in recent years, broadening its scope, while still centring Moroccan artists: there are now prismatic photographs of musicians and performers from Marrakech by Hassan Hajjaj, enshrined in recessed frames holding local produce, such as Cartier black olives. You can find emerging names, too: a sumptuously crafted textile piece by Amina Agueznay, “Talisman of Henna” (2024), fashioned with naturally dyed wool, cotton and metal, is shown alongside a minimalist white relief work by Safaa Erruas. The latter — barely there porcelain spheres tracing an organic form on canvas — creates “an infinite space for all visible and invisible possibilities”, the Tétouan-based artist explains, using delicate materials and a monochrome palette to explore notions of “fragility, purity, and ephemerality”.
The display brings these works from different periods, countries and mediums together in an eclectic and evocative display, divided into themes rather than chronology, such as the influence of African symbology on the development of abstract art, and the impact of magi, herbalists and healers (the latter is presented in a room with lighting designed to look like hanging vines, and tomblike plinths). While the collection now takes precedence across the 1,000 sq metres of exhibition space, arranged around a central atrium that nods to the traditional Moroccan riad, temporary shows will rotate in the “Artist Room” (currently host to an exhibition by French-Moroccan multidisciplinary artist Sara Ouhaddou).
Macaal will also commission two annual site-specific installations; the first is architect Salima Naji’s series of soaring, domed structures built on site with vernacular techniques using rammed earth and adobe, spectacularly filling the museum’s central atrium.
The new premises seem better fit for purpose, transforming the drab former office buildings into sleek galleries flooded with light and large windows offering views of the lush surrounding garden and the Atlas Mountains beyond. Features like tadelakt plaster walls and jewel-like zellige tiles are combined with a café, terrace and library to entice visitors to linger longer — perhaps with mint tea and crescent-shaped kaab al ghazal cookies.
Macaal’s location on the outskirts of Marrakech, set in the gated Al Maaden golf resort, provides a serene setting. Yet it is hard to reach, especially with the city’s limited public transportation. “We knew from the beginning it would be a challenge here”, says Meriem Berrada, Macaal’s artistic director. In a city with a lively and long-established tradition of culture outside institutions, contemporary art museums can go unnoticed. “Even if we were located in the heart of the medina, accessibility would be a concern, as it is often psychological as much as it is geographic or economic,” Berrada adds. The museum has an extensive outreach programme, offering free transport and tours every week to the many schools and NGOs they work closely with. They also host free, open-to-all couscous nights on Fridays.
The hope is that alongside Macaal’s international crowds, more visitors will get to know its polyphonous, self-described “feminist, decolonial and conscious” story of contemporary Africa. In Marrakech’s fast-changing contemporary arts scene that has seen significant developments in the past decade, including a host of new commercial galleries — among them Loft Art Gallery and Comptoir Des Mines — opening in buzzing Gueliz and the annual 1-54 art fair, Macaal’s role is still being forged. But its ambition, Lazraq says, is clear: “to position contemporary African art within a framework of openness, inclusion and global recognition.”
Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
Other Articles
No Comment! Be the first one.