$210,000

Artwork Description

| About the work Mohamed Melehi was at the forefront with the late Ahmed Cherkaoui in 1964 (The Mount of Olives), Jilali Gharbaoui in 1969 (The Eyes of Anger) and Mohammed Kacimi in 1969 (Compositions) in tackling the resistance cause. The graphic design of its black vibrating flame has become one of the most emblematic representations of the movement of artistic resistance initiated by so-called ‘Arab’ artists, but more generally by artists from the global South, as this cause has also brought together artists from Latin America and Asia, who have identified with it. In addition to the recognisable graphic design of the flame, Mohamed Melehi's compositions used colours that Moroccan artists of the period would borrow to support the social and political causes, in particular orange, red, green, yellow and white. This 1974 composition is part of the research that Mohamed Melehi associated with important causes, and a very similar representation dating from 1969 was exhibited at the Bronx Museum in New York in 1984 on the occasion of his major monographic exhibition ‘Melehi Recent Paintings’ and appears on page 21 of the dedicated catalogue. | About the artist In 1968, Mohamed Melehi (1935-2020), a pioneering artist of Moroccan artistic modernity and teacher at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, was selected among sixteen other artists representing different sensibilities from around the world to create a series of sculptures entitled ‘Ruta del Amistad’. His monumental work ‘Charamusca Africana’, named after a Mexican delicacy, already demonstrated his preoccupation with inventing an artistic modernity based on symbols of ancestral Moroccan culture. The vertical ‘wave’ that appeared in this project, and will continue to appear in other forms, is often associated with the rebirth and resistance, but also with the transcendental spiritual movement that frees us from barriers and restrictions. Between 1965 and 1974 Mohamed Melehi, along with other artists of his generation, most of whom were teachers at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, revolutionised artistic practice in Morocco by reintroducing the study of national cultural and craft heritage alongside Western art education inherited from the colonial era. For him and the artists of the Casablanca Movement, “Modernity” could be drawn from tradition, unchanging gestures and traditional materials specific to particular cultural or regional characteristics. Mohamed Melehi was born in 1936 in Asilah. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tétouan from 1953 to 1955, he left for Spain to attend the École des Beaux-Arts Santa Isabel de Hungria in Seville. In 1956, he trained at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid. From 1957 to 1960, he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. From 1960 to 1961, he attended an engraving workshop at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, before perfecting his training from 1962 to 1964 in New York and Minneapolis, where he was a lecturer at the Minneapolis School of Art. He broadened his painting practice by opening it up to other fields. Between 1968 and 1984, Melehi carried out numerous commissions for architects such as Faraoui and De Mazières. The murals he initiated in 1978 in Asilah, as part of the town's cultural Moussem, are a convincing example of how visual artists have taken over public spaces. An artist with an acute contemporary awareness, Melehi aspires to ‘draw the work more towards the concept than the craft’. His paintings are dominated by undulating motifs. Collections | Élisabeth Bauchet-Bouhlal · Barjeel Foundation · Dalloul Art Foundation · Guggenheim Abu Dhabi · Bronx Museum · IMA · Centre Pompidou · Tate Modern London · Attijari Wafa Bank · Mada Foundation · OCP · Bank Al Maghrib · QMA Qatar · Mathaf Museum · Alliances · TGCC · CDG