193 Gallery bridges cultures

PARIS - On the lookout for a new approach to artistic practices, the 193 Gallery deploys a new space placed under the sign of experimentation. It positions itself in the light of contemporary creation in real time with new curation projects and an open door to large-scale installation projects.

Shaking up the classic gallery experience, this second space opens its doors on January 7, 2023. Bold and transgenerational, its programming is in line with the artistic line that has been traveling since 2018 to the diversity of contemporary scenes around the world.

Already in 2021, the group exhibition "Colours of Africa", curated by Fouzia Marouf, was dedicated to the Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj. And, in 2020, the 193 gallery exhibited the works of Hassan Hajjaj at Art Paris In addition, the colorful, singular universe of the British-Moroccan artist had been exhibited for two months at the “Maison Européenne de la Photographie” in 2019.

A first retrospective with resounding success in France for this self-taught artist who does not forbid himself any genre or medium. Born in 1961 in Larache, in northern Morocco, and a Londoner since 1973, he has made his dual culture the driving force behind his work.

Growing up in London, he became close to the British art scene, assisting his designer friends by filming their fashion shows, learning photography and furniture design.

"We wanted to create spaces that reflected who my friends and I were. When you create, you become a new person," he says.

His kitschy sense of humor gives strength to his often-committed statements: his creations, including photographs, in colour or black and white, are easily declined into furniture, rugs and clothing. His works are outstanding, mixing and diverting ethnic influences, logos and everyday objects such as the traditional caftan, the unconditional babouches or the eternal teapot.

Hajjaj’s favourite work? The "Kesh Angels"; women dressed in djellabas and slippers in Jemaa el-Fna square, surrounded by consumer products.

The 193 gallery opens this second space that will offer every two months workshops-residencies exclusively intended to update in situ the artistic vitality by drawing from the crossroads of Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, the Caribbean, Oceania and multiple latitudes.

The first artist invited to create in this workshop-residence, pure laboratory of ideas and reflection, is visual artist Hyacinthe Ouattara, who highly represents the colours of Burkina Faso.

Ouattara embodies through his art an in-between at the confluence of old and new worlds. These body-sculptures woven of textile express the intangible, while his paintings are crossed by a vibrating harmony.

This visual artist created an emblematic work during an artistic residency at the Anciens Abattoirs in Casablanca, which he considers "an open-air museum."

The Inaugural exhibition “Slumberland” of the visual artist Jade Fenu will flourish the second space of the 193 Gallery. A painting-poem, her dreamlike works approach the material in a constant search for balance, oscillating between strength and fragility. A universal narrative combining the abstract and the figurative: this series shows the abundance of reality and imagination.

Jade Fenu questions current issues. Through the evolution of the cycle, Slumberland revives the contradiction and the escape.

Finally, next February, 193 Gallery will head to Morocco where it will present its program at 1-54 Marrakech for a new tour dedicated to the vitality of African art.

"The 193 Gallery has always had the ambition to show more diversity, to bridge cultures, with a program that makes a tour of the world of contemporary art by showing in priority the non-western scenes. And, we will present at 154 Marrakech in February these two artists: Hyacinthe Ouattara, an artist from Burkina Faso, who will produce his works (textile sculptures and paintings) in January during his residency at 193 Gallery, and Thandiwe Muriu, a Kenyan photographer, who will present her new creations, which highlight the "self-love" of African women," says César Lévy, the director.

Note that Hyacinthe Ouattara, who was in residence at the Fabrique Culturelle des Abattoirs in Casablanca in 2016, confides: "It was an enriching experience! The place was very inhabited, as it was an old slaughterhouse particularly charged with a strong trace of the past, and immediately, these factors spoke to me."

(Press release)