On Friday, Oct. 24, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery celebrated the opening of its newest show, Memory, Place, Desire: Contemporary Art of the Maghreb and the Maghrebi Diaspora. The Maghreb, a term generally used to describe the major North African countries to the west of Egypt (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco), is home to one third of all Arabs in the world, and this new show is the first exhibition in the United States devoted exclusively to the contemporary art of the region and its diaspora. Memory, Place, Desire doesn’t aim to uncover a unifying Maghrebi aesthetic, but instead uses its titular themes to celebrate the area’s multifaceted identity, confronting home and migration, exploring mystical journeys, and speaking to socioeconomic injustice.
Curated by Visiting Associate Professor of Art History Carol Solomon with contributions from students in her spring 2014 class “Curatorial Praxis: The Making of an Exhibition,” the exhibit features the works of 13 artists whose practices encompass painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, and video installation. Solomon and her students gave a curatorial talk prior to the exhibit’s opening reception.
Artists featured in the show include Mustapha Akrim, Kader Attia, Yto Barrada, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Mohamed El baz, eL Seed, mounir fatmi, Hassan Hajjaj, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Willis from Tunis, Driss Ouadahi, Zakaria Ramhani, and Younès Rahmoun.
Catch the exhibition for yourself in the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery through Dec. 14.
Photos by Lisa Boughter.