L’ AFRIQUE EN CAPITALE &THE MONTRESSO FOUNDATION

Preparation is underway for an initial event this April, in Rabat, to celebrate

contemporary African culture in the wake of the speech by His Majesty the King

Mohammed VI, during the 28th African Union Summit and national impetus for

continental development.

Coordinated by The National Foundation of the Museums, the event "L’Afrique en

Capitale" was thought in partnership with severals culturals and institutionnals

actors of the capital city : The Ministry of Communication, the Ministry of Culture,

the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, the Mohammed V university, the Mo-

hammed VI museum of Modern and contemporary Art, the National Council of

Human Rights, the International University of Rabat, Moroccan Agency of Inter-

national Cooperation, the Theater Mohammed V, the Bank Al Maghrib museum,

the National library of the Kingdom of Morocco, the Institute of the Studies Afri-

cans, Barid El Maghreb, National office of railroads, the Higher institute of Broad-

casting professions and the Cinema, the CDG foundation, the ONA foundation

and the Montresso foundation.

This will be a large-scale, multidisciplinary artistic event comprising exhibitions,

concerts, films, urban art and conferences programmed throughout the month of

April hosting a whole vibrant and contemporary continent of creativity, positio-

ning Rabat, the ‘City of Light’, as a major African cultural capital.

As part of this partnership, the Montresso Foundation* will present an exhibition

within the Mohamed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat and

action will take place in public areas outside the confines.

The Montresso* Foundation

Partner of the event

« L’ AFRIQUE EN CAPITALE »

From 03.28 to 04.28 2017 in RABAT

The Montresso Foundation* expresses its determination to also instigate action

in public areas, eager to cultivate the curiosity of citizens, in Morocco and inter-

nationally. In the frameworks of the event “L’ Afrique en Capitale”, the foundation

will act outside the walls throught mural frescos in the city with Hendrik BEIKIR-

CH (Born in Germany) and AbeilOne (Born in the Reunion Island).

Montresso* Foundation

Partner of the event L’Afrique en Capitale

03.28 to 04.28 in Rabat

Exhibition Common Presence at the Mohammed VI

KOUKA & Wahib CHEHATA

Museum of Contemporary Art of Rabat

Murals in the public space

Hendrik BEIKIRCH, AbeilOne

Under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, within the

framework of the event L’ Afrique en Capitale, the Montresso* foundation will

present the work of the artists Kouka NTADI and Wahib CHEHATA inside the

exhibition « Common Presence « in one of the space of the Museum Mohammed

VI of Contemporary Art of Rabat and on the outside square.

Supported by the Montresso Foundation*, Kouka NTADI and Wahib CHEHATA

are regular guests of the Jardin Rouge artist residency, located in Marrakech. At

the heart of this space, the artists are invited to bring their personal artistic pro-

jects to fruition and in this context have produced works that will be presented at

the Mohamed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat.

Kouka Ntadi will exhibit a retrospective of his four years of pictorial research on

Bantu warriors within the museum space. The works presented by the artist will

have historical resonance with his end-of-residency presentations, Bantus in 2015

and Back to the Wall in 2016 at the Jardin Rouge. ‘The Warrior of the Republic’

installation was exhibited in May 2016 at the Dakar Biennial, on Gorée Island, and

will be on the forecourt of the Mohamed VI Museum of Modern and Contempo-

rary Art in Rabat.

For the Common Presence exhibition, Wahib Chehata will reveal to the public for

the first time his Renaissance series. Mali has been home to the artist since 2014

and where he invented a new mythology,

bringing image references to the history of art together with exceptional African

civilisation. The artist sheds light, literally and metaphorically, on the splendour of

Africa. The photographs by Wahib Chehata are the essence of this Divine.

Download the press release online (Photographs HD) HERE

KOUKA

The land of Africa has inspired Kouka and enabled him to encounter ancestral African civilisation: Bantu peoples. He has since wished to honour their memory and carried out lengthy work examining the question of identity. The quintessence of his pursuit of origins, these Standing Warriors question life and death, the past and present but also traditions and cultures. Certain traditions resist modernity. Kouka fuels a triangular relationship in his work between nature, man and the sacred. Viewers therefore act as conscientious witness.

Common Presence - Museum Mohammed VI - Rabat

L’aulne du printemps, 2014, mixed media on wood, 200 x 480cm

La préservation, 2016Mixed media on wood190 x 130 cm

A Mundo Condito, 2016Mixed media on wood190 x 130 cm

WAHIB CHEHATA

Enthused by the paintings of Caravaggio, Turner and Delacroix, Wahib Chehata constructs his photographic portraits like paintings, waiting hours for the ideal light that will remove any racial, social or ethnic consideration from the subject. Wahib Chehata has an eye for capturing the significance of body and soul, and, gives individuals humanity of a new kind. His works are stories of encounters, in-fluences and discussions where he lays the foundations for new questions shaking up artistic norms. The artist therefore conveys and asserts the protagonists of a new mythology combining “primordial dawns with apocalyptic turmoil”.

Dans la solitude des champs de coton, digital printing, inks on baryta paper, laminated, 150 x 225 cm

Innocent, digital printing, inks on baryta paper, laminated, 150 x 150 cm

Materdigital printing, inks on baryta paper, laminated, 150 x 150 cm

Common Presence - Museum Mohammed VI - Rabat

Mural of the «Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion » - Rabat

Hendrik BEIKIRCH

Outside the walls - Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion - Rabat

Eternal wanderer of his time, Hendrick Beikirch, in collaboration with the Montresso foundation, wanted to pay a tribute to Moroccan lines of work that are slowly going out of business, at least the way they nowadays persist. Hendrik Beikirch is fascinated by ordinary people.

The Tracing Morocco project of Hendrik Beikirch was initiated in 2014 and et ended in 2016. Hendrick Beikirch immortalize men and women throught the realization of 22 canvas, presented at the artists residence Jardin Rouge in Marrakesh in December 2015, the realization of 12 murals worldwide, the edition of a book, silkscreen prints and a photographic serie.

Within the framework of the event «L’ Afrique En Capitale», at the request of the National foundation of the Museums of Morocco, Hendrik Beikirch will realize the new and last portrait of the series Tracing Morocco.

AZIZ, Mural in front of the train station, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2016

ABEILONE

Mural of the Fire station - Rabat

Outside the walls - Fire Station - Rabat

A graduate of the École supérieur d’art de la Réunion, AbeilOne operates in a duality of traditional learning and in the street. It inspires him, modern tales with their allegations and stories. The urban legend of the human rooster leads the ar-tist to examine the bestiality of mankind, through personification of our impulses. Humans with animal heads are at the core of the artist’s aesthetic, trying to com-prehend the links and imbalances of our relationship with animality.

Drawing of the mural project of AbeilOne

e.lavigne@montresso.com www.montresso.com

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PRESS RELATION