One afternoon in March 2016, I met artist Simohammed Fettaka at Cafe Imlil, a historic café in Marrakesh’s Gueliz district that has become popular with creatives of all stripes. Our conversation quickly turned to the Marrakchi art scene. ‘The infrastructure here is very limited,’ he said. ‘Philanthropy is scarce, there are no grants. Artists are very vulnerable.’ A week ago, in the same café, he continued: ‘The scene needs a bit of shaking up.’ Fettaka was referring to the ever-growing constellation of artists, dealers, critics, curators, and brokers working in the city, which, alongside Casablanca, Rabat, and Tangier, is one of the country’s art centers. Almost seven years separated these two conversations, but the underlying observation is the same: the art scene is still emerging. The difference between the two statements lies in the sense of urgency conveyed in the second: surviving is conditional upon emerging right now.

A quick ethnography of the Marrakesh art scene reveals how it has shaped up over the years to become an important center of contemporary non-Western art production. In practice, the new institutional structure is implemented in the form of galleries, museums of contemporary art, and through the initiation of various public art programs. On the one hand, historical galleries and dealers cater to an older generation of art collectors as well as tourists. Their main focus is on outsider art and Modern paintings, and are generally perceived as existing at the margin of the contemporary art world. On the other hand, contemporary art galleries such as Comptoir des Mines Galerie, Galerie 127, Gallery SINIYA28, or the recently founded MCC Gallery, display exciting work that propels Marrakchi art beyond the time warped folklore and Arabian Nights exoticism associated with the city. 

The interest of Western art professionals hastened the creation of two major private institutions that opened within two years of one another: Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL) and Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech. MACAAL, founded in 2016 by Moroccan entrepreneur Othman Lazraq, features his family’s private collection of contemporary art and draws transnational connections with the entire continent. The six editions of the now stalled Marrakesh Biennale, founded in 2004 by Vanessa Branson and Abel Damoussi, positioned Marrakesh as an international art destination. Additionally, Touria El Glaoui’s 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, which launched in the city in February 2018, also contributed to putting Marrakesh on the map.

In the old medina of Marrakesh, LE 18, a multidisciplinary cultural and residency space, proposes a rigorous program including exhibitions, residencies, conversations, workshops, and publications. Founded in 2013 by artist Laila Hida, it centers on collective learning and relies on a fluid network of collaborators. This seemingly prosperous situation led many Moroccan artists, as well as foreign ones, to establish their livelihood here and take part in an emerging scene.

A young artist who lives and works in the city describes the situation: ‘Marrakesh is neither a no-man’s-land nor a well-oiled economy. As young artists, we exist in a space between the dominant Galerie Comptoir des Mines and the not-for-profit LE 18 Marrakesh.’ Conversations about the local art scene all seem to follow the same pattern. While most cultural players agree that it’s buzzing and counts several exciting projects, it is also often defined in terms of what it lacks: public institutions, archives that are not accidental, opportunities for young artists, capable technicians, and good exhibition equipment. Yet, many of the protagonists in the scene are reluctant to look at the situation as a provisional, developmental phase, in which the art scene here is running behind its international counterparts.

Marrakesh-based curator Soukaina Aboulaoula believes in the power of curatorial work – such as organizing public events, workshops, and educational programs – to activate unused spaces and to address gaps in an infrastructure. In 2021, she co-initiated a discussion-based program at the Al Maqam artist residency entitled ‘Our teaching takes shape as we go’. Artists and speakers included Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro and Hamedine Kane (collaborators on ‘The School of Mutants’ project), curator Aude Christel Mgba, and scholar Mamadou Diallo. The nine-day event provided an opportunity for collective experimentation and exchange around critical artistic education in Africa.

In the heart of the city, LE 18 takes on critical topics such as image-making in Morocco and the region, the politics and poetics of water and ‘commoning’, and indigenous arts. When invited to documenta fifteen, LE 18 turned its exhibition space into ‘a place for conversations and exchanges around the processes, challenges, and failures that emerged during the preparation for and participation at documenta fifteen... addressing a sense of exhaustion and (self)-exploitation triggered by major art events.’ LE 18’s subversive participation asks the question: what happens when a small-scaled, process-based work is subsumed into the art market? Their proposal is also symptomatic of the increasing incorporation of ‘social practices’ as a strategy to support art scene consolidation in Morocco. How do social practices from this context function within contemporary curatorial culture?

To answer this question, Marrakesh-based artist Éric Van Hoven inaugurated a socially conscious and collaborative approach to art making through the Mahjouba Initiative. Located at his studio Fenduq in the outskirts of the city, the Mahjouba Initiative aims to reinvigorate the local craft market by developing an electric moped that utilizes the local artisanal network alongside the formal industrial economy.

Locally, industrialization has often been seen as harming the quality of Moroccan arts and crafts. Due to foreign imports, traditional craft practices are on the brink of dissipation. Van Hove and his collaborators (craftsmen, engineers, and experts) envision the initiative as a platform to connect a new generation of creatives to their making heritage. It makes a case for the potential of artistic and design research to restore the social function of artisanship. ‘The Mahjouba moped is a multi-cultural art object that combines old and contemporary techniques and that is reflective of Moroccan, Maghreb, African, and European sensibilities,’ says Van Hove. He refers to this approach as ‘living art,’ arguing that artisanal practices do not need safeguarding and are, contrary to popular belief, a vector of modernization. Mahjouba is an old Arabic female name, which is in turn derived from the Arabic word ‘mahjoub’ which means ‘covering sacredness with a veil.’ For Van Hove, the name of the initiative carries the promise of unveiling the power of modern craftsmanship.

A newcomer in this constellation, Malhoun is an art center that comprises an exhibition space, an artist residency program, and an experimental laboratory. Open to the public since February 2022, it builds on notions of collectivity, transmission, and rituals of community building. Its inaugural exhibition, ‘The Promise of a Trace’, invites architects, designers, and artists – including Youness Atbane, Simohammed Fettaka, Jumana Manna, M’Barek Bouhchichi, Sammy Baloji, Carlos Perez Marin, and Driss Benabdellah – to reflect on traces found in the building of Malhoun and to reimagine what an art space can be from a collective perspective. How to create a space that is congruent with its environment and with the urban fabric of the neighborhood of Gueliz? ‘With an aim to subvert traditional hierarchies in the arts, Malhoun advocates for the central role of artisanship, design, music, poetry and architecture in art and society,’ says Malhoun’s co-director Phillip Van Den Bossche.

These selected examples among many demonstrate that in Marrakesh the emphasis is on collectivism and participation. Collective learning, as exemplified in the practice of Marrakchi artists or in the exhibition spaces that showcase their work, has become the ultimate strategy to survive an oligopolistic system and the main vector of the ‘emergence’ of Marrakesh.

Chahrazad Zahi is a writer based in Marrakesh.

French translation: Henri Robert. 

Published on February 9, 2023. 

Captions for full-bleed images and videos, from top to bottom: 1. A resident of the Al Maqam artist residency painting. 2. Works on view at the Jardin Rouge, an artist residency run by the Montresso Art Foundation. 3. Works realized by a resident of the Al Maqam artist residency. 4. A person browsing traditional garments in a shop in Marrakech. All photos and videos by Yasmine Hatimi for Art Basel.