A Journey into Imagination at L’Atelier 21 with Abdelkrim Ouazzani

From December 9, 2025, to January 10, 2026, L’Atelier 21 Gallery in Casablanca presents a new exhibition by the celebrated Moroccan visual artist Abdelkrim Ouazzani. Titled L’enfance de l’art, the exhibition marks the artist’s first solo presentation at the gallery and places his work within a broader reflection on spontaneity, creative innocence and the imaginative power that has long shaped his artistic journey.

The opening night on December 9 also included the launch of a new monograph dedicated to his work, Une poétique de la matière, authored by art historian Mohamed Métalsi. Both the artist and the writer attended a signing session during the vernissage.

At the heart of L’enfance de l’art lies a return to the instinctive joy and creative freedom that defined the work of twentieth century masters such as Picasso, Matisse, Klee and Miró. For Ouazzani, this spirit is not a reference but a lived memory. His childhood in Tétouan, where he crafted his own toys, shaped an imagination that later matured into one of the most distinctive artistic languages in contemporary Moroccan art.

In his monograph, Mohamed Métalsi offers a vivid reading of Ouazzani’s creative universe, describing it as a space where iron, rust and pigments continuously interact to form an ever shifting landscape. Creatures seem to dance, colors resonate like melodies and logic gives way to the liberating terrain of imagination. Métalsi draws a parallel with Nietzsche’s concept of the eternal child, highlighting how Ouazzani transcends conventional boundaries through a form of creation rooted in both instinct and controlled craft.

This balance between spontaneity and mastery is central to Ouazzani’s practice. While playful and imaginative on the surface, his works reveal the depth and reflection of a mature artist who carefully orchestrates material, form and volume to produce new visual expressions.

Born in 1954 in Tétouan, Abdelkrim Ouazzani studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tétouan and Paris before becoming director of the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tétouan. Through this dual role as educator and creator, he has influenced multiple generations of Moroccan artists. His work, which he describes as “three dimensional painting”, blends painting and sculpture into a vibrant world where matter becomes both structure and metaphor.

Today, his pieces are part of major institutional collections, including the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Fondation Alliances, the Ministry of Culture, Fondation Al Mada, Saham Bank and Bank Al-Maghrib. He continues to live and work in Tétouan, expanding a body of work that remains committed to reinventing form, color and the expressive capacities of material.

L’enfance de l’art invites visitors to rediscover the creative impulse that shaped Ouazzani’s artistic path and continues to animate his practice. Through a world where play becomes poetry, the exhibition offers a rare perspective on one of Morocco’s most influential contemporary artists.