- An exhibition at Morocco’s Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art showcases Cuban art.
- This was one of the first displays of Cuban art in an African museum.
- Themes explored in the exhibition range from isolation and economic blockade to heritage and identity.
When Morocco’s King Mohammed VI visited Havana in 2017, Cuban-American gallery owner Alberto Magnan impressed the king with his “total immersion” in the Caribbean island’s art and culture. , drew a line between the cultural and historical themes tackled by Cuban artists and those themes. From all over Africa.
Seven years after that encounter, one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art in an African museum is being held at Morocco’s Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.
The museum director says this is part of an effort to offer visitors a perspective beyond European artists, who often remain part of school curricula in the North African country and other former French colonies. said Abdelaziz El Idrissi.
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“People in Morocco may know Giacometti or Picasso or the Impressionist painters,” El Idrissi said. The museum exhibited them all. “We have seen them and are looking for others as well.”
Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, where the Cuban Art Exhibition is being held (April 1, 2024, Rabat). (AP Photo/Mosaab Elshamy)
The Cuba exhibition includes 44 works by Wifredo Lam, and comes more than a year before New York’s Museum of Modern Art will honor him with a career retrospective in 2025. will be exhibited on a large scale.
“We’re kind of beating MoMA head-on,” Magnan said.
The Moroccan exhibition is also the first time that the work of another celebrity, José Ángel Toilac, has been exhibited outside Cuba. Previously, his paintings, which depict the late anti-capitalist president Fidel Castro in American advertising and consumer culture iconography, were prohibited from leaving the island.
Other works in “Cuban Art: Across the Atlantic,” on view through June 16, illustrate themes prevalent in Cuban art, from isolation and economic blockade to heritage and identity.
In Cuba, nearly half of the population identifies as mixed-race, and more than 1 million people are Afro-Cuban. The island’s diversity is a recurring theme for painters and artists, including Lamb. That’s why it was important to exhibit his work in Africa, including his African-inspired mask paintings and use of vibrant colors, Magnan said.
Morocco is one of the countries that has shown renewed interest in Cuban art since the United States restored diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2014 and Mr. Castro passed away in 2016. American art dealers and major museums have flocked to the previously difficult-to-visit island.
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But the plot was curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic and former President Donald Trump’s decision to redesignate the country as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” Magnan said.
Meanwhile, Morocco is increasing funding for arts and culture to increase its “geopolitical soft power” in North Africa and the rest of the world.
In both Morocco and Cuba, 20th century artists responded to political transitions (decolonization in Morocco, revolution in Cuba) by drawing on history and addressing trends shaping contemporary art around the world. Did.
However, the current program does not mention diplomatic relations between Morocco and Cuba, which were restored after King Mohammed VI’s visit to Cuba in 2017.
The two countries severed ties decades ago over Cuba’s position on the disputed Western Sahara, which is claimed by Morocco. Cuba has historically trained Saharawi soldiers and doctors and supported the Polisario Front’s policies at the United Nations.
