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(Re)Envisioning Orientalist North
Africa
Exploring
Representations of Maghrebian Identities in Oriental and Occidental
Art, Museums, and Markets
By Isabella
Archer
University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
This article explores
the
politics and aesthetics of “authenticity” in artistic representations
of Morocco from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Through
an analysis of the evolution of European and North African artistic
depictions of the Maghreb, I examine how the desire for cultural
authenticity in representation has influenced the production and
consumption of artistic depictions of this region. Three thematic
questions emerge: Who are the objects and what are the objectives of
traditional and potentially Orientalist paintings? How do identity
politics affect the work of post-modern artists from North Africa who
reject the Orientalist stereotypes and traditions of European painters?
And what do purchases of art, commercial and avant-garde, say about
what is popular or accurate? I begin by discussing nineteenth-century
French painter Eugène Delacroix’s paintings of Morocco and Algeria, and
the real and perceived authenticity of these works. Next, I study the
effects of Delacroix’s “authentic” paintings on artists of European and
North African origin, including Matisse, Picasso, Mahieddine, Niati,
and others. Finally, by means of interviews conducted during a recent
trip to Fes and Tangier, I explore the marketing of traditional
cultural experiences to visitors as authentic and the ways in which
both Moroccans and tourists literally buy into these ideas. By putting
artists and consumers from different time periods and regions into
virtual dialogue with each other, this project illustrates the complex
ways in which we construct and continually revise notions of
authenticity. [Article]
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