The Easel

30th May 2023

Morocco’s Iconic New Wave: The Casablanca Art School

North African art can boast its own modernist heritage. Six years after Morocco’s independence in 1956, an art school opened in Casablanca. It aimed to build post-colonial artistic traditions spanning both art and design. While not immune to Western influences, the school developed a signature style – highly coloured abstract works incorporating Berber and Islamic designs. These tangibly expressed the founder’s dictum, “tradition is the future”.

Tate Britain’s Rehang: A Zombie Social Art History

Social and economic factors help our understanding of older art, although most agree that art is about more than just social history. But where to strike the balance? A re-hang of Tate Britain’s collection sparks an acrimonious debate on that issue. One critic calls the result a “hectoring history lesson”. The above writer is equally annoyed.  The rehang “[insists] on turning art into a cipher for social history, into illustrations for a contemporary version of what Britain might have been about”.