Painter
Malika Agueznay
Seaweed that curls into arabesques, letters that can be read in every direction: Malika Agueznay invented, from the late 1960s, one of the first abstractions by a woman in Morocco.
The artist
Career
Born in 1938 in Tameslouht, near Marrakech, Malika Agueznay grew up close to nature, between olive trees, animals and the snows of the Atlas, an experience she credits to her mother. After studying psychology in France, she entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca in 1966, where she was taught by Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Melehi and Mohamed Chabâa, and became the only woman in the core circle of the Casablanca School. In 1978 she joined the first printmaking workshop of the Asilah Moussem and became Morocco’s first woman printmaker, before perfecting her craft in New York with Mohammad Omar Khalil and Robert Blackburn. She lives and works in Casablanca, where she installed her own press in her studio.
The soul of seaweed
The seaweed motif appeared in 1968, while she was still a student, in a navy-blue relief, and never left her work: for her it carries femininity, the curve and the arabesque. She later wove it into Arabic calligraphy, bringing her close to the Hurufiyya movement; spread across the surface like the pattern of a Moroccan rug, the letter becomes hard to decipher, legible in every direction. She also took painting into public space, with a ten-metre mural painted with the patients of the Berrechid psychiatric hospital in 1981.
Landmarks
- 1966-1970 — École des Beaux-Arts, Casablanca
- 1969 — “Présence plastique”, Jemaa el-Fna square, Marrakech
- 1978 — First printmaking workshop of the Asilah Moussem, of which she is a founding member
- 1981 — Mural at the Berrechid psychiatric hospital; 1985, mural in Asilah
- 2015 — “Hommage à Malika Agueznay”, retrospective, Villa des Arts, Rabat
- 2018 — “Métamorphose”, with her daughter Amina Agueznay, Attijariwafa bank Foundation, Rabat
- 2020 — “Malika Agueznay comme en 68”, Loft Art Gallery, Casablanca
- 2021 — “Moroccan Trilogy 1950-2020”, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid
- 2023-2024 — “The Casablanca Art School”, Tate St Ives, Sharjah Art Foundation and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Collections
- Les Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse
- World Bank Art Collection, Washington
- Attijariwafa bank Foundation
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In the same spirit
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Frequently asked questions
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