It was by returning to the beginning that Mohamed Melehi positioned himself to speak to the future. Which beginning? The one where the first human understood how the eye and hand could work together. Where what the eye perceives and keenly scrutinizes, transmits an impulse to the hand foreign to its usual functions. Is it the capacity to dream that takes hold of the eye? Is it the magnetic whirlwind of the imagination that runs through it? Is it the mystery of beauty that moves it?
As I ask these questions, I am surprised to discover that they continue to resonate so strongly even now. The arts of indigenous peoples, and of their ancestors who lived in caves and covered the walls with signs and paintings, have never ceased to speak to us and inspire us, from the birth of modernity to the present day.
It is in this context that we find the eye and hand of Mohamed Melehi. Morocco, mid- to late 1960s: Barely ten years into its emergence from colonial darkness, the country begins to question its identity, the needs of its society, and how to build its future.
Read more...
Produced for Art Basel by Abdellatif Laâbi