«INTRODUCTION
Platforms and patterns for a postcolonial avant-garde
1962–1987
In the exhilaration of Moroccan Independence (1956), staff and students at the Casablanca Art School (CAS) prompted an artistic revolution. They integrated abstract art with Arab and Amazigh (Berber) traditions, inspired by the region’s rugs, jewellery, calligraphy and painted ceilings. Declaring a new art for Morocco grown from Afro-Berber heritage, they created a social and cultural uprising.
When French colonial powers established the Casablanca Art School (École municipale des beaux-arts de Casablanca) in the 1920s, students were assigned by ethnicity, gender and social status. Western teaching prevailed in the School, disregarding the traditional arts and crafts of the region. In 1960s Morocco – a country now liberated from French and Spanish colonial powers – Farid Belkahia was appointed CAS director (1962–74). He broadened access to the CAS to include Moroccan and women students and enrolled like-minded teachers. The staff and students radically reimagined Moroccan art and arts education. They placed their art into everyday life, creating paintings, posters, magazines, outdoor murals and festivals. This Moroccan ‘new wave’ triggered an urban movement, eventually contributing to artistic solidarities between Africa, Latin America and West Asia. (...)»
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