Composition

Mohammed Chebaa was hard at work putting his new vision for architecture into practice in 1966 while he was a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca. In his work, he would skillfully combine art, craft customs, and architecture to produce a unique body that reflected Morocco's changing cultural landscape after independence. Painters in the newly independent nation worked to create a national art in the 1960s that would highlight the rich diversity of indigenous knowledge. Chebaa's interest in Moroccan architecture is evident in the painting Untitled, which he created two years before the Casablanca Art Group exhibition in Jamaa el-Fnaa Square in Marrakesh—the first post-colonial art movement in Morocco, whose main initiative was to bring art to public spaces. In Untitled, the artist uses straight, curved lines to form abstract shapes. They become ornamental, like latticed apertures (Mashrabiya) on buildings. The color-plane assemblage and overall geometric design are reminiscent of Arab-Islamic aesthetics found in ceramics and rugs. Reconnecting the local public to traditional practices, Untitled is a seminal example of how modern Moroccan artists like Mohamed Chebaa view the function of art and culture in a post-colonial setting.