Casablanca Art School: A Postcolonial Avant-Garde 1962–1987

From July 12 to October 13, 2024, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presents the unique and influential work of the Casablanca Art School in a first major, long-overdue exhibition. Just a few years after Morocco gained independence in 1956, Casablanca became a vibrant center of cultural renewal. The main representatives of this innovative school—Farid Belkahia (1934–2014), Mohammed Chabâa (1935–2013), Bert Flint (1931–2022), Toni Maraini (b. 1941), and Mohamed Melehi (1936–2020), together with students, teachers, and associated artists—quickly became the central driving force for the development of postcolonial modern art in the region. In realizing their aims, they combined an openness to local history with the new social reality. Engaging with the ideas of the Bauhaus movement, they reevaluated the connection between the arts, crafts, design, and architecture in the local context, fusing Western metropolitan arts with elements of the vernacular heritage that had been undermined during the colonial era.

Sebastian Baden, director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, comments: “This is the first institutional exhibition to comprehensively present the Casablanca Art School’s influential legacy. After Morocco’s independence, the school’s teachers and students created a special space and reimagined Moroccan art and arts education. Their collective mission aspired to decolonize and liberate arts and culture, situating their artwork in everyday life and creating paintings, posters, magazines, open-air festivals, and outdoor murals. It is time for a long-overdue appreciation of this international artistic movement. This show expands the previous Western interpretation of the development of modern, abstract painting and provides a significant new international perspective that allows us to make more precise distinctions in the canon of art history.”

The exhibition, divided chronologically and thematically into eight sections, presents the works and central aspects of the Casablanca Art School artists and their associated positions, supplemented by documentary material. The Schirn will present some 100 works by 22 artists, including dynamic abstract paintings and urban murals, crafts, graphic design, interior design, and typography. Rarely seen archive material, such as film footage, vintage journals, photographs, and prints, complements these displays, revealing a transnational Moroccan art scene. In the Schirn’s publicly accessible rotunda, three films from the video series School of Walking (2023) by the artist duo Bik Van der Pol (Liesbeth Bik and Jos Van der Pol) will also be shown.

According to the exhibition’s curators, Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet (Zamân Books & Curating), “‘Casablanca Art School’ explores a distinctive vision for modern life driven by five influential teachers at the school: Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chabâa, Bert Flint, Toni Maraini, and Mohamed Melehi. Known informally as the ‘Casablanca Group,’ this legendary collective of artists developed into an international network that spanned generations. This Morrocan ‘new wave’ proclaimed a new art for Morocco that grew out of Afro-Amazigh heritage and sparked an urban, social, and cultural movement that continued into the future.”

The exhibition “Casablanca Art School. A Postcolonial Avant-Garde 1962–1987” is supported by Stadt Frankfurt and Hessische Kulturstiftung, with additional support from Fraport AG.

An exhibition organized by Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Tate St Ives, and Sharjah Art Foundation.

School of Walking was produced as part of the residency program School of Casablanca, initiated by KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin) and ThinkArt (Casablanca) and realized in 2020–24, in a partnership with the Sharjah Art Foundation, IFA, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Goethe-Institut Morocco, and Zamân Books & Curating.

Artists in the exhibition: Carla Accardi, Malika Agueznay, Hamid Alaoui, Mohamed Ataallah, Herbert Bayer, Farid Belkahia, Mohammed Chabâa, Saâd Ben Cheffaj, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Anna Draus-Hafid, André Elbaz, Abdelkrim Ghattas, Mustapha Hafid, Mohamed Hamidi, Abdellah El Hariri, Mohammed Kacimi, Miloud Labied, Mohamed Melehi, Houssein Miloudi, Ali Noury, Abderrahman Rahoule, Chaïbia Talal

A catalog Casablanca Art School. A Postcolonial Avant-Garde 1962–1987, edited by Morad Montazami, Madeleine de Colnet, and Esther Schlicht, with contributions by Maud Houssais, Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa, and Morad Montazami, as well as a foreword by the director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Sebastian Baden, has been published in a German-English edition.

Director: Dr. Sebastian Baden / Curators: Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet (for Zamân Books & Curating) in cooperation with Esther Schlicht and Luise Leyer (Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt) / Press contact: Johanna Pulz (Head of Press/Public Relations): presse [at] schirn.de, T +49 (0) 69 29 98 82 148 / Press material: here.