Written by Wafa Roz

Born in 1942 in Meknes, Morocco, Mohamed Kacimi was a painter and writer whose nomadic lifestyle led him to find poetic wonder in new places, experiences, people and environments. He was an avid reader and an avant-garde thinker with an early interest in visual and performance art. Having studied Arabic literature at the University of Fes, where he enrolled in 1960, Kacimi was essentially a self-taught painter; he only briefly studied painting in 1963, when he was granted a year-long scholarship to Paris’s ABC School of Art. In 1972, Kacimi began writing for various journals and newspapers in Morocco and the Arab world and became the founding member of the journal Alischara (Signs) as well as a member of the Association Marocaine des Arts Plastiques.

Kacimi’s artistic career was sparked by a revelation in 1959, when the young artist first laid eyes on the works of Jilali Gharbaoui in Meknes. He was captivated by Gharbaoui’s audacious approach and highly gestural technique. Four years later, Gharbaoui would become his close friend and mentor, encouraging Kacimi to explore the world. From 1964 to 1968, the artist toured Europe, discovering the drama of the Spanish golden age, the classical revival of the Italian quattrocento, and the vibrant realism of early modern Flemish art. He visited the Louvre in Paris, returning over and over again to explore the work of the Old Masters and the department of Egyptian art, which fascinated him the most. During this time, he also familiarized himself with the work of renowned Western artists of the 20^th century, including Nicolas de Staël, Afro Basaldella, Hans Hartung, and Georges Rouault, which played a key role in the development of his style. Though he learned much from his time in Europe, he did not lose touch with the Arab art world, maintaining close contact with several influential artists such as Jewad Selim, Ismael Fattah, Ahmad Cherkaoui and Dia Al-Azzawi.

Kacimi’s unique artistic style is most celebrated for its mystical elements, with his canvases featuring haunting, often indistinct figures set against abstract backgrounds of varying contrasts. In his early stages, from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, he adopted abstractions of different leanings, beginning with a loose, vibrant, lyrical style and later investing in earth-toned compositions of strong lines and bold geometrical shapes. Nearing the 1980s, his style shifted drastically. He abandoned oil paint almost entirely, taking up acrylic-based paints and creating the blue pigment that would become iconic of his work. In 1979, the artist moved to the coastal town of Harhoura-Temara with his wife, Noëlle Piron, and their daughter Batoul. Inspired by the waves of the Atlantic against the Moroccan shore, Kacimi discovered new windows into the world, creating a series of paintings entitled “Les Océanides” that featured graphical reverberations of footsteps traveling away from the vista of his painting to an unknown destination. He integrated fingerprints, visa stamps and texts within a gridded composition and an earthy palette, depicting the difficulty of migration. His paintings developed into wild, bright calligraphic forms that splashed on loose hanging canvases.

Following a voyage into the deserts of Morocco and the Atlas Mountains, the 1990s were the artist’s most creative and prolific years. During this time, he created “Les Atlassides,” a haunting series inspired by the ancient civilization of the Amazigh (Berbers). Drawing on cave art, this work evidences primitivism and spontaneity whilst maintaining confidence and mastery of composition. In densely textured gestural strokes, Kacimi introduced eerie ghostlike bodies that wander his canvas as if in search of a getaway. Another body of work entitled “Le Temps des Conteurs” tells the stories of his travels in sub-Saharan Africa, marking Kacimi’s signature style. Characterized by an economy of line and simplicity of form, this work features shapeless bodies floating in an open space with symbolic figures, texts, and codes, its color scheme dominant in ochre, burnt orange, black and blue. The almost paradoxical relationship between his dark tonalities and his soft lines ultimately imbues the work with its originality. During this period, Kacimi experimented with different materials, introducing paper, bitumen, chicken wire, and plaster into his canvas. His art portrayed an existential struggle and reflected on his relationship to the figure of ‘’the demiurge’’- the creator. A cosmic feel governed his last works, almost giving the sense that the artist anticipated an interplanetary journey between the spiritual and the material.

Kacimi would have painted the world if he could. In 1992, he presented a project at the 4^th Cairo Biennale entitled Éloge de I ‘imagination-La Pyramide bleu that proposed projecting color onto the Pyramids of Giza via laser light, essentially ‘painting’ the pyramids blue. This was deemed unacceptable, with detractors protesting that it would disturb the soul of the Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops); no one, it was argued, messes with the holy wonders of the ancient world. Kacimi responded sarcastically in Egyptian Arabic, “Koullo illa el haram ya Kacimi” – “Anything but the blasphemous, Kacimi.”

Towards the end of his life, Kacimi engaged in public art projects, urban installations, and performances, expressing a commitment to making art accessible to ordinary people. For instance; he painted abstract murals on the houses of Assila during the annual art Moussem (festival) in Morocco, and portraits on huge baskets fixed on the shore of Ouida in Benin. Similarly, in 1996, at the Maison de la Culture in Bourges, France, Kacimi executed three iconic large-scale (11x2.5m) paintings in situ depicting the barbarism of the Gulf War, entitled “L’Oracle des temps.” This installation was complimented by the performance of a dancer. Kacimi was also committed to humanitarianism and social work; in 1997, along with his friend psychoanalyst Jalil Bennani and his second wife, psychiatrist Chafika Sekkat, he undertook a project that used art as a form of therapy to help psychologically disturbed teens.

Having started as a teenage amateur from Meknes, tortured by the colonial French police, Kacimi arrived at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in 1998 as a renowned artist and a founding member of the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights (OMDH). It is fair to say that the artist’s journey was a remarkable one; sadly, it ended in 2003, when Kacimi passed away in Rabat due to Hepatitis-C related complications. The artist’s legacy lives on, however, and he is considered one of Morocco’s most inspiring contemporary artists to this day.

Sources

Descendre, Nadine. Mohammed Kacimi catalogue raisonné. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Rabat, Morocco : Art'Dif éditions, 2017.

Descendre, Nadine. Mohammed Kacimi catalogue raisonné. Vol. 2. 2 vols. Rabat, Morocco : Art'Dif éditions, 2017.

ALIPLAGE1. "L'ARTISTE MOHAMED KACIMI." YouTube. April 25, 2008. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTssRvBZgH8

Badre Belhachemi. “Mohamed kacimi (Namadij 2M).” YouTube. November 23, 2012. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hj4vvvrtJk

Kacimi Mohammed, Parole Nomade, Al Manar. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.editmanar.com/peintres/Kacfr.htm.

Le360Live. "Le360.ma • "Résistance" : Une Exposition Hommage à Mohamed Kacimi. YouTube. October 20, 2016. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZrSRomYJ0g

Matin, Le. "L'africanité De L'œuvre Mohamed Kacimi Dévoilée à Casablanca." Le Matin. Accessed April 11, 2018. https://lematin.ma/journal/2014/arts-plastiques_l-africanite-de-l-oeuvre-mohamed-kacimi-devoilee-a-casablanca/209219.html.

"الجزيرة نت - طباعة الخبر". Accessed April 11, 2018. http://www.aljazeera.net/home/print/f6451603-4dff-4ca1-9c10-122741d17432/dbf99973-c421-4c7e-a0ee-74127a402002.