Kacimi – Mucem – eye.on.art

Kacimi 1993-2003, an African transition

Mohammed Kacimi (1942-2003) is one of the most important post-war Moroccan plasticians. An innovative artist with a deep sense of commitment, and both an instigator and a witness to the globalisation of contemporary Arab art, he has had a major and lasting influence on the evolution of his country’s artistic landscape and served as a model for a number of young Maghreb artists, who today are internationally recognised.

The exhibition is devoted to Mohammed Kacimi’s « African period » (1993-2003)—the high point of his oeuvre—which sees him break with western art and the different aesthetic trends that influenced him in his journey, to open up a new, far more personal sphere of work, characterised by an unrestrained, free and ever more transdisciplinary expression.

By shining a light on this major period, the goal is to better understand how the work of Mohammed Kacimi was able to participate in the construction of a new Mediterranean imaginary.

Via a selection of exemplary works and significant archival documents (325 works made up of paintings, sculptures and also archives: manuscripts, texts, drawings, photographs, videos), this exhibition reveals the key role played by this plastician, who opened up the way for new generations of artists from the Arab world to make the jump towards a new contemporaneity, fed by his own cultural anchors— « an African transition ».

General curator: Nadine Descendre, art historian and critic

Kacimi
23 Nov 2018 – 3 March 2019

Musée des civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MUCEM)
7 promenade Robert Laffont (esplanade du J4)
13002 Marseille
France
www.mucem.org