Moroccan Modernism

This study focuses on modernism in the visual arts in Morocco, particularly on the artists of the Casablanca school. Their activism, engagement, and interventions in the discourse of postcolonial national culture defined and energized the Moroccan modernist movement. The book follows the artists associated with the group, highlighting Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chebaa, and Mohammed Melehi, among others. Of particular interest is the long-term collaboration between these artists and the cultural journal Souffles, founded by Abdellatif Laabi. Holiday Powers argues that the pedagogy, structural engagements, and transnational solidarities of this generation of artists are intrinsic to their broader artistic projects and are grounded in the same ideology and stakes. The actual art objects compose only one part of larger multifaceted, consistent, and wide-ranging artistic projects and must be analyzed in relation to these other activities. Powers argues for a reading of Moroccan modernism rooted in a contemporaneous national context yet also arising from a cosmopolitan foundation in dialogue with transnational anticolonial, pan-African, and pan-Arab intellectual movements. This reading does not suggest the existence of a center of global modernism that was being copied in a national context; it instead shows how global discourses were played out and experienced within specific historical, political, and cultural circumstances. Rather than explaining away these transnational connections, Powers posits that they are at the crux of modernism itself--particularly Moroccan modernism. To force a solely national narrative onto Moroccan modernism is to ignore the rich intersections and explorations fomented by the globalism of these artists and their training.