Farid Belkahia

Farid Belkahia (1934-2014) is one of the pioneers of contemporary art in the Maghreb. Beginning in the 1960s, he focused his attention on new ways of self-expression, examining his own identity and relationship with the “other.” Belkahia abandoned the practice of traditional painting to research with copper, which he hammers, burns and oxidizes in order to achieve emblematic traces, undulations, and flexible, rhythmic bas-relief effects.

Rajae Benchemsi, writer and curator, has been a professor at the École normale supérieure de Marrakech, Morocco.