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LARBI CHERKAOUI (1972)
Optimal resolution graphics
Here is one of the few young Moroccan artists – he was born in 1972 – for whom the creation of visual art is a showdown, a confrontation and a bet to win.
As a very inventive calligrapher, Larbi Cherkaoui has long since cleared the Arabic letter of its orthodoxy to become a universal sign placing it as an abstract type in an optical space in the cosmogony.
Lyrical, suggestive, the movement eventually subvert the normality of literal shapes that will impact differently on the skin in optimum shock waves, in spontaneous spots and coiling in both a eurythmic and emblematic grid. It is a secret composition/puzzle which requires prior initiation.
The contrast element, notorious for the artist, brings back a calibrated result with cryptogrammatique traces. The lighting effects enhance the warm colors and quality of the pigments.
It sometimes feels like assisting in graphic resolutions of a new genre with a tendency to verticality /: symbolic allusions to severely truncated lettering, which probably is intended exclusively for the eye, except for the sound. The emotional writing is void of any aestheticism, translated energetically in pure abstract forms.
With the arrival of the work of Larbi Cherkaoui – a polychromatism which is not necessarily a style: colored shades, a game of indepth focus and light showers spilling over the sides – it is certainly a step forward in the research, extending it to other colors and other values in order to appropriate the spirit and substance, but constantly refering to the socially defined linguistic legacy, provided that heritage, or the retention of the identity claim can be located culturally.
Expositions Individuelles
2009 Decoriente Art & Design, Marrakech
2009 Œuvre récentes, Galerie Noir sur Blanc, Marrakech.
2008 Travaux récents, Galerie Shart, Casablanca
2007 Œuvre récentes, Galerie Noir sur Blanc, Marrakech
2006 Qoubba galerie d’art, Marrakech
2005 Un art enchanteur, institut français de Marrakech.
2003 Institut français de rabat
2003 Institut français de kénitra.
2002 Ikbal art gallery, Marrakech.
Expositions Collectives
2009 Dar Cherifa espace d’art, Marrakech
2007 Autour du livre-Michel Butor,D. A.R.C. Amiens, France
2007 Espace Albert Camus, Cugnaux, France
2006 Visage du Maroc, Musée Henri Martin, Cahors, France
2005 Dar Cherifa espace d’art, Marrakech
2004 De la lettre au geste, exposition itinérante : Portugal.
2004 Gallerie Atlasside, Marrakecch
2003 Petit Format atelier Marrakech
2002 Marrakesh Art Gallery
1999 Arabesque bab doukala Marrakech
1990 Signes et Ecriture; Institut Français de Marrakech