La Galerie 38 in Casablanca has launched an online exhibition showcasing the works of one of Morocco’s most significant painters, Mohamed Hamidi. Currently featured at the prestigious 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale 2024, Hamidi’s inclusion underscores the continuing relevance of the Casablanca School in the global art scene, as noted in a statement by La Galerie 38.
This year’s Venice Biennale, themed “Foreigners Everywhere,” resonates with the universal themes explored in Hamidi’s work, including identity, memory, and cultural diversity. The online exhibition by La Galerie 38 aims to celebrate Hamidi’s legacy and provide a unique opportunity for audiences to discover or rediscover his major works.
Born in Casablanca in 1941, Mohamed Hamidi is a prominent figure in post-independence Moroccan art. After a bohemian period in Paris during the late 1950s, he enrolled in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1962. By 1967, he had become a professor at the Casablanca School of Fine Arts. Alongside artists like Mohamed Ataallah, Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Chebaa, and Mohamed Melehi, Hamidi participated in the landmark “Plastic Presence” exhibition in 1969, held outdoors in Marrakech’s Jemaa el-Fna square, marking the advent of modern Moroccan art.
Since 2020, Hamidi has been deeply involved in a new creative process thanks to a research residency at La Galerie 38 in Casablanca. This residency has allowed him the freedom to explore new variations in his work, incorporating modern techniques such as cellulosic paint and cutouts.
Over nearly five decades, Hamidi has traversed various artistic expressions, from figurative to abstract, nudes to still lifes. Drawing from an ancestral repertoire of forms rooted in Moroccan heritage, he has forged a new aesthetic in plastic arts.
His works, which embody the history of modern Morocco, are now part of major international public collections, including the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, the National Museum of Modern Art-Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF) in Beirut. The DAF, dedicated to making modern and contemporary Arab art accessible to local and international audiences, houses works from nearly two hundred artists.
