MOHAMMED KACIMI (1942 – 2003) – THE FRAGRANCE OF LIBERTY.
By Nii B. Andrews.
By the time Mohammed Kacimi passed on in Rabat on October 27 2003, his prowess as a painter, philosopher and poet had been recognized throughout the art world.
In 2007, a Kacimi painting sold for 67 000 USD in Christies; the pre – auction estimate was 30 000 – 40 000 USD.
His portfolio was far removed from the orientalist mishmash of kasbahs, camels and harems.
Kacimi traveled widely but always kept Morocco – his home country, as his base in spite of many inducements to settle in Europe.
He visited and worked throughout North Africa, Iraq, Palestine, West Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Kacimi was particularly proud of his collaborations with African artists in Senegal, Burkina Faso and Mali. These led to pieces that were exhibited in the Dakar Biennial and other important international art exhibitions
He worked hard at fostering more frequent partnerships with sub Saharan African artists.
Human rights were a lifelong concern of his; he always took an uncompromising stand for individual liberty and the broadest interpretation of personal freedom.
Passport controls and visas particularly irked him and he often railed at them in his paintings.
The invasion of Iraq in the early 1990s was especially traumatic for Kacimi because of the savage destruction of human lives that ensued.
His anguish was expressed in his artistic production with several dark, melancholy and somber paintings featuring tortured and surreal human forms floating in a background of black smoke, flames and overcast skies.
He even enlisted poetry and proceeded to write with a deep pathos to emphasize his aversion and grief towards the event.
A close examination of his artistic creativity and expression spanning the over four decades of his working life cements Kacimi’s place as a powerful voice within modern and contemporary art.
Fortunately, 74 unpublished pieces by Kacimi have been assembled into the inaugural exhibition at the Comptoir des mines Gallery in Marrakech.
The pieces date from 1965 to 2003.
They are arranged in several separate gallery spaces (all within a drop dead gorgeous fully refurbished 1930s Art Deco apartment building in Gueliz) thus enabling the visitor to follow the chronological evolution of Kacimi’s style and expression.
Curiously, his early works and researches portray a circumscribed or embryo like format…..varied curvilinear forms within demarcated boundaries.
His later productions appear to show a flowering of his consciousness; illusive human forms are often depicted in a flux within a swirling cosmos; he was concerned with life’s larger questions and man’s place in the universe.
That Kacimi is human centered is obvious from his compositions; he continuously probed the human condition with all its potential and failings.
His lifelong humanism therefore comes as no surprise.
Kacimi searched long and hard; he tested many memes and techniques; he rejected some and accepted others that he then deftly incorporated into his work.
But, he was always true to himself as he reached within and tapped into Africa’s rich culture and his own inalienable rights.
Perhaps if we are perceptive enough, we will even sense the fragrance of liberty from his work.