Philosophy:Jilali Gharbaoui
Jilali Gharbaoui (Arabic: الجيلالي الغرباوي; 1930–1971) was a Moroccan painter and sculptor from Jorf El Melha.[1] He is considered, along with Ahmed Cherkaoui, a pioneer of modernist art in Morocco.[1] Unlike other Moroccan modernist artists, his abstraction was based in brushstrokes and the "materiality of the paint" as opposed to Moroccan culture.[2] Gharbaoui suffered from severe mental illness and died of suicide in Paris in 1971.[1]
Life
He started studying art at the Academie des Arts in Fes.[2] He traveled to France in 1952.[3] With the assistance of the novelist Ahmed Sefrioui, then director of fine arts in Rabat, Gharbaoui was able to attend the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.[2] He studied for four years then worked at the Académie Julian for a year.[3]
He befriended the poet and painter Henri Michaux, the painters Hans Hartung and Jean Dubuffet, and the art critic Pierre Restany.[4]
With a grant from the Italian government, he lived in Rome from 1958 to 1960, when he returned to Morocco.[3] In this period he frequently went to Paris for work, and in 1959, Pierre Restany introduced Gharbaoui at the Salon Comparaisons.[1][3]
He was hosted often at a monastery in Toumliline, where he created wall decorations.[1][3]
During his life, he exhibited around Morocco and in Egypt, France, the Netherlands, the United States, and Brazil.[5] His art appeared in the magazine Souffles-Anfas.[6]
He was found dead by suicide on a public bench in the Champ de Mars in Paris in 1971.[1][2] His body was repatriated and buried in Fes.[2]
In 1993, the Arab World Institute in Paris hosted a retrospective exhibition dedicated to him.[2]
Art
Before he embraced abstraction in the early 1950s, Gharbaoui experimented with French Impressionism and German Expressionism.[6]
According to Toni Maraini, "Gharbaoui’s work largely focuses on movement and nervous brush-strokes. With chromatic disorder and an automated vitality, he creates a neutral space and an active, expressive material."[6]
In Art in the Service of Colonialism, Hamid Irbouh describes Gharbaoui and Ahmed Cherkaoui as "bipictorialists" in contrast with the nativists of the Casablanca School.[7] Whereas the nativists, led by Farid Belkahia, sought to break entirely from French and Western art, the bipictorialists included Moroccan and Western influences, working toward a reconciliation of the various dimensions of postcolonial Moroccan identity.[7]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Powers, Jean Holiday (2016), "Gharbaoui, Jilali (1930–1971)", Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism (London: Routledge), doi:10.4324/9781135000356-rem434-1, ISBN 978-1-135-00035-6, https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/gharbaoui-jilali-1930-1971, retrieved 2021-07-22
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "Composition" (in en-US). 2017-08-24. https://www.barjeelartfoundation.org/collection/composition-jilali-gharbaoui/.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "Gharbaoui, Jilali" (in en). doi:10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.b00073106. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-00073106.
- ↑ العرب, Al Arab (سبتمبر 13, 2015 01:00). "الجيلالي الغرباوي الفنان الذي اخترع الحداثة الفنية في المغرب | فاروق يوسف" (in ar). https://alarab.co.uk/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AB%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8.
- ↑ "Jilali Gharbaoui". http://www.encyclopedia.mathaf.org.qa/en/bios/Pages/Jilali-Gharbaoui.aspx.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Souffles-Anfas Contributors, 1966–1971", Souffles-Anfas (Stanford University Press): pp. 267–274, 2020-12-31, ISBN 978-0-8047-9623-1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9780804796231-022, retrieved 2021-07-27
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Irbouh, Hamid (2005). Art in the Service of Colonialism. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-85043-851-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780755607495.
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