With contributions by Bik Van der Pol, Céline Condorelli, Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa and Gilles Aubry, Manuel Raeder, Marion von Osten, Peter Spillmann, Abdeslam Ziou Ziou with Fatine Arafati, Sophia Attigui, Grocco-Trick 54, and Nassim Azarzar
Press visits can be arranged by appointment. Please contact us at: ifa-Galerie-Berlin(at)ifa.de or mail(at)corinnawolfien.com.
School of Casablanca is a collaborative initiative of ifa Gallery Berlin, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), and ThinkArt (Casablanca) with support from Sharjah Art Foundation, Goethe-Institut Morocco, and Zamân Books & Curating. Launched in 2020, the project draws on the legacy of the Casablanca Art School and its innovative pedagogical methods, modernist aesthetics, and exhibition strategies during the 1960s and highlights a pivotal moment in Moroccan art history following the country’s 1956 independence.
During this period, Casablanca developed a completely fresh self-image and radically broke with tradition. The Casablanca Art School played a seminal role in these developments with its modern approaches, artistic ideas, and pedagogical methods. Partly drawing inspiration from Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus manifesto (1919), it grew into a groundbreaking forum.
School of Casablanca revisits and reinterprets the ideas, traditions, and interrogations of the Casablanca Art School in light of contemporary thought. In the twenty-first century, we are again grappling with questions about how to re-envision the role and significance of art and design in society. What institutions, schools of art and design, practices, and forms of learning do we need today? How do we produce knowledge and how do we share it? What does "collective learning process" mean?
The project began in 2020 with a residency program. Over the past years, the invited participants to School of Casablanca, ranging from artists, designers, and curators to independent researchers, conducted research and fieldwork within the city of Casablanca. In the process, they have reconsidered the social function and visibility of art in the public sphere and have disseminated their cultural practices in the cityscape through workshops, public discussions, urban walks, and interventions.
The project revisits and reinterprets the radical ideas and actions of the group of individuals Farid Belkahia (1934–2014), Mohammed Chabâa (1935–2013), Bert Flint (1931–2022), Toni Maraini, and Mohamed Melehi (1936–2020), who shaped the original school at its peak (1964–69). In doing so, it draws from the spirit of experimentation, discourse, self-organization, and community building embodied by Souffles, a now-iconic Moroccan cultural magazine of the time.
Bik Van der Pol (Rotterdam), Céline Condorelli (London), Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa (Rabat), Manuel Raeder (Berlin), the late Marion von Osten (Berlin), and Abdeslam Ziou Ziou (Casablanca)—conducted research and fieldwork within the city of Casablanca. They formed an interdisciplinary group working in the fields of art, architecture, design, and education seeking to reconsider their social function and visibility in the public sphere. Peter Spillmann (Berlin) continues the legacy of Marion von Osten’s groundbreaking research-based exhibition practice dealing with the connection between architecture, urban planning, and colonialism in Casablanca.
This culminated in November 2023 with an exhibition at five locations in Casablanca. With the eponymous exhibition School of Casablanca at ifa Gallery Berlin, the concept and project have been mirrored back to Berlin. The exhibition creates a dialogue between the artworks commissioned by the collaborative partners and the extensively researched archival materials, taking action in the present moment while reflecting on the past.
Curators: Salma Lahlou, independent curator and founder of ThinkArt, Casablanca; Krist Gruijthuijsen, director of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; and Inka Gressel, co-director of ifa Galerie Berlin
www.untietotie.org (ifa Gallery Berlin´s project website)
You can find press images on the press area of the ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen website.
About ifa
The ifa – Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations actively collaborates with partners worldwide to promote freedom in artistic expression, research, and civil society. It amplifies the voices of activists, artists, and scholars, fosters collaborations, and is increasingly working alongside European partners. Grounded in its core expertise in art, academia, and civil society, ifa cultivates networks to achieve lasting, meaningful change. Ifa is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, the state of Baden-Württemberg and ist capital Stuttgart.
About the ifa Galleries
The Galleries of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in Stuttgart and Berlin present contemporary art from a global perspective, addressing post-colonial movements as well as artistic reflections on the themes of migration, the environment, and cultural exchange. Through an approach that observes and re-narrates the world from multiplicitous and plural perspectives, the ifa Galleries shape empowering processes, interactions, and artistic spaces. Central to their mission is cultivating enduring bonds with artists, collaborators, and visitors. Their exhibitions and programming are born out of a collaborative way of working that traces global entanglements and reassembles them into new narratives.
Contact and Opening Hours
ifa-Gallery Berlin
Alya Sebti and Inka Gressel
Co-directors of the gallery
Linienstraße 139/140
10115 Berlin, Germany
ifa-Galerie-Berlin(at)ifa.de
www.untietotie.org
@ifagalleryberlin
Tuesday to Sunday, 2 pm to 6 pm
Thursday 2 pm to 8 pm
Free admission
Press Contact
Corinna Wolfien
Books Communication Art
+49(0)175 5676046
mail(at)corinnawolfien.com
ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen
Miriam Kahrmann
Head of Communications
+49(0)7112225 105
presse(at)ifa.de