After Casablanca

In 1962, six years after independence, Farid Belkahia took over the Casablanca art school and threw out the colonial syllabus. With Melehi, Chabâa, Toni Maraini and Bert Flint he built a modernism out of what was already here — zellij, carpets, tattoos, craft — and against orientalist figuration. Those painters are still in copyright, so nothing of theirs is reproduced here. What we take is the argument, and the flat hard-edged language it was made in.

The artists of this movement are still in copyright and none of their paintings are reproduced here. What we take is the grammar — the flat fields, the hard edge, the refusal of the easel — the way a painter takes a manner without taking a picture.