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Lot Essay
Conceived in 1965, this work belongs to a defining moment in the emergence of modern Moroccan art and marks a point of convergence in Mohammed Chabâa's artistic practice. The following year, in 1966, the artist joined Farid Belkahia and Mohamed Melehi in presenting their groundbreaking exhibition Belkahia-Chabâa-Melehi at the Théâtre National Mohammed V in Rabat. A manifesto-like presentation, it challenged the conventions of Morocco's official art institutions and articulated a new vision for artistic practice in the newly independent nation. The present work was exhibited alongside works by Chabâa's fellow teachers at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, Belkahia and Melehi, placing it at the heart of the artistic and intellectual ferment that would come to define the Casablanca School. Rejecting the established model of easel painting and the official salon, the three artists advocated a more collective, interdisciplinary and publicly engaged approach to art. Large-scale works were installed directly onto the concrete walls of the theatre foyer and onto removable panels, transforming the exhibition space into something closer to an urban artistic intervention than a conventional gallery display.
This radical rethinking of artistic practice was inseparable from the cultural politics of postcolonial Morocco. The artists believed that national cultural independence required a corresponding decolonisation of visual culture. Rather than simply adopting European models of modernism, they sought to develop a contemporary Moroccan artistic sensibility rooted in local traditions, popular culture and craft. The Casablanca School became a crucial site for this experiment. Chabâa was responsible for its decoration, graphic arts and calligraphy workshops, introducing Arabic calligraphy and encouraging experimentation with geometric forms and architectural structures. The school's wider pedagogical reform sought to reconnect artistic production with Morocco's indigenous cultural heritage and to dissolve the distinction between fine art, craft, design and architecture.
Chabâa's engagement extended beyond the classroom into the broader intellectual and cultural networks of the period. He collaborated with the poets Mostafa Nissaboury and Abdellatif Laâbi, whose journal Souffles, founded in 1966, became an important platform for exchange between visual art, literature and cultural politics. The magazine embraced questions of cultural decolonisation and provided a space in which the ideas associated with the Casablanca Group could be articulated and disseminated. Chabâa became closely involved with its visual identity, reinforcing his belief in art and graphic design as forms of social practice and public communication.
Within this context, this untitled work can be understood as a particularly compelling expression of Chabâa's search for a new Moroccan visual language. Its composition reflects the artist's earlier career as a designer and interior decorator, and the painting reads in its form as a manifesto in its own right. It is a pivotal work, combining decorative elements, elements inspired by decorative vocabulary, and typography with a human presence. This appears in the symbol of the figure, visible in the red oval with a black contour, which recalls the stylised faces in the artist's contemporary paintings. Elements from across the artist's repertoire are distributed over off-centre spaces, while a graphic line and a central white rectangle draw them together in the manner of a graphic design, reinforced using flat colours: orange, red, black and white.
The composition is built from interlocking geometric forms, dominated by a bold red field sharply contrasted with lines of black and white. Chabâa's architectural training is evident in the precision of his geometry and his command of line. The forms appear to interlock and unfold across the surface, drawing the viewer's gaze through a constantly shifting network of shapes. The resulting tension between structure and movement, and between positive and negative space, transforms geometry from a purely formal device into a dynamic visual language. This rigour also reflects Chabâa's broader interest in integrating art with architecture, design and the everyday environment. Rather than treating the picture plane as an autonomous field, he approached abstraction as a means of organising space and experience. In this synthesis of architectural order, graphic experimentation and geometric abstraction, Untitled embodies the radical spirit of the Casablanca School: a modernism conceived not as an imported language, but as a means through which Morocco could articulate its own contemporary cultural identity.
Executed at the very moment when these ideas were being formulated and disseminated, Untitled occupies a particularly rare position within Chabâa's oeuvre. Its date places it at the inception of the Casablanca School's most radical period, while its provenance offers an unusually direct connection to the artist himself. The work thus brings together three intertwined histories: the development of Chabâa's own visual language, the emergence of the Casablanca School and the broader cultural project of postcolonial Morocco. In its rigorous geometry, vivid chromatic structure and enduring connection to the artist's Estate, Untitled stands as a powerful testament to a generation of Moroccan artists who sought to redefine modernism through the reclamation of local visual traditions and to transform abstraction into an instrument of cultural renewal.
Born in Tangier in 1935 to a master mason father, Chabâa became interested in design at an early age. After completing his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tetouan in 1955, he worked in the architecture department of the Ministry of Sports and Youth alongside a French architect. The role taught him the fundamentals of architectural design, training him to sketch and draw up plans while nurturing his appreciation for aesthetics. Encouraged by these experiences, he pursued further studies in interior design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome from 1962 to 1964 on an Italian government scholarship. His studies informed his interest in spatiality, which would become an inherent element of his artistic practice.
Upon returning to Morocco, Chabâa joined the pedagogic team at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts. His works are held in prominent collections including Tate, London; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi; Bank Al-Maghrib, Rabat; the Al Mada Foundation, Casablanca; the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rabat; the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, Rabat; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; and the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), Beirut, among others.
This radical rethinking of artistic practice was inseparable from the cultural politics of postcolonial Morocco. The artists believed that national cultural independence required a corresponding decolonisation of visual culture. Rather than simply adopting European models of modernism, they sought to develop a contemporary Moroccan artistic sensibility rooted in local traditions, popular culture and craft. The Casablanca School became a crucial site for this experiment. Chabâa was responsible for its decoration, graphic arts and calligraphy workshops, introducing Arabic calligraphy and encouraging experimentation with geometric forms and architectural structures. The school's wider pedagogical reform sought to reconnect artistic production with Morocco's indigenous cultural heritage and to dissolve the distinction between fine art, craft, design and architecture.
Chabâa's engagement extended beyond the classroom into the broader intellectual and cultural networks of the period. He collaborated with the poets Mostafa Nissaboury and Abdellatif Laâbi, whose journal Souffles, founded in 1966, became an important platform for exchange between visual art, literature and cultural politics. The magazine embraced questions of cultural decolonisation and provided a space in which the ideas associated with the Casablanca Group could be articulated and disseminated. Chabâa became closely involved with its visual identity, reinforcing his belief in art and graphic design as forms of social practice and public communication.
Within this context, this untitled work can be understood as a particularly compelling expression of Chabâa's search for a new Moroccan visual language. Its composition reflects the artist's earlier career as a designer and interior decorator, and the painting reads in its form as a manifesto in its own right. It is a pivotal work, combining decorative elements, elements inspired by decorative vocabulary, and typography with a human presence. This appears in the symbol of the figure, visible in the red oval with a black contour, which recalls the stylised faces in the artist's contemporary paintings. Elements from across the artist's repertoire are distributed over off-centre spaces, while a graphic line and a central white rectangle draw them together in the manner of a graphic design, reinforced using flat colours: orange, red, black and white.
The composition is built from interlocking geometric forms, dominated by a bold red field sharply contrasted with lines of black and white. Chabâa's architectural training is evident in the precision of his geometry and his command of line. The forms appear to interlock and unfold across the surface, drawing the viewer's gaze through a constantly shifting network of shapes. The resulting tension between structure and movement, and between positive and negative space, transforms geometry from a purely formal device into a dynamic visual language. This rigour also reflects Chabâa's broader interest in integrating art with architecture, design and the everyday environment. Rather than treating the picture plane as an autonomous field, he approached abstraction as a means of organising space and experience. In this synthesis of architectural order, graphic experimentation and geometric abstraction, Untitled embodies the radical spirit of the Casablanca School: a modernism conceived not as an imported language, but as a means through which Morocco could articulate its own contemporary cultural identity.
Executed at the very moment when these ideas were being formulated and disseminated, Untitled occupies a particularly rare position within Chabâa's oeuvre. Its date places it at the inception of the Casablanca School's most radical period, while its provenance offers an unusually direct connection to the artist himself. The work thus brings together three intertwined histories: the development of Chabâa's own visual language, the emergence of the Casablanca School and the broader cultural project of postcolonial Morocco. In its rigorous geometry, vivid chromatic structure and enduring connection to the artist's Estate, Untitled stands as a powerful testament to a generation of Moroccan artists who sought to redefine modernism through the reclamation of local visual traditions and to transform abstraction into an instrument of cultural renewal.
Born in Tangier in 1935 to a master mason father, Chabâa became interested in design at an early age. After completing his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tetouan in 1955, he worked in the architecture department of the Ministry of Sports and Youth alongside a French architect. The role taught him the fundamentals of architectural design, training him to sketch and draw up plans while nurturing his appreciation for aesthetics. Encouraged by these experiences, he pursued further studies in interior design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome from 1962 to 1964 on an Italian government scholarship. His studies informed his interest in spatiality, which would become an inherent element of his artistic practice.
Upon returning to Morocco, Chabâa joined the pedagogic team at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts. His works are held in prominent collections including Tate, London; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi; Bank Al-Maghrib, Rabat; the Al Mada Foundation, Casablanca; the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rabat; the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, Rabat; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; and the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), Beirut, among others.