The new Marrakech Museum for Photography and Visual Art, designed by British architect Sir David Chipperfield and opening in 2016, will house a permanent collection of lens-based art from the 19th Century to the present as well as contemporary art exhibitions. BBC News Africa
* Marrakech hosts a new photography exhibition — 10 Contemporary Moroccan photographers – at El Badi Palace, the first in a series leading up to the opening of the permanent home for the new Marrakech Museum for Photography and Visual Art in 2016 *
BBC News Africa (September 13, 2013) — The Moroccan city of Marrakech is hosting the first in a series of exhibitions in the lead-up to the opening of a permanent home for the new Marrakech Museum for Photography and Visual Art (MMPVA), scheduled for 2016.
Until the new MMPVA opens, the museum is using the city’s El Badi Palace, pictured here, as a temporary space.
The exhibition — 10 Contemporary Moroccan photographers — has just opened at the palace. As well as looking at the work of established photographers, it showcases a younger generation of artists such as Tangier Diaries by Hicham Gardaf.
Inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Franck and Richard Avedon, Marrakech-born Daoud Aoulad-Syad captures black and white images during his solitary journeys across Morocco. Here a man transports a TV in the capital, Rabat.
Yasmina Bouziane’s untitled Self Portrait is her signature work. “It turns the tables,” explains David Prochaska in the book Modern Art and the Idea of the Mediterranean. “Instead of the Western male photographing Arab women in an Orientalist studio setting, the Arab woman turns the camera on the implied Western male viewer.”
Born in Larache in 1961, photographer Hassan Hajjaj left Morocco for London at an early age. He combines the visual elements of contemporary fashion photography and pop art in works such as this entitled Dotted Crew.
This is the concept artwork for the MMPVA’s new building, designed by British architect Sir David Chipperfield. It is due to open in 2016.
The new MMPVA will house a permanent collection of lens-based art from the 19th Century to the present day as well as presenting a program of contemporary art exhibitions.
10 Contemporary Moroccan Photographers runs until 25 October and includes work by Yto Barrada, Hicham Benohoud, Carole Benitah, Daoud Aoulad Syad, Hassan Hajjaj, Hicham Gardaf, Lamia Naji, Leila Sadel, Ali Chraibi and Yasmina Bouziane.
