Born in 1986 in Casablanca. Lives and works in Marrakech and Taroudant. Self-taught multimedia artist, Mo Baala spent his childhood and his youth in the heart of the souks and bazaars of his heart town, Taroudant in southern Morocco. His passion for reading, cinema, music and philosophy, as well as his particular interest in traditional arts and crafts Moroccan, African and elsewhere constitute the bulk of its intensive artistic and creative education. Mohammed uses drawing, painting, graffiti as well as collage and sculpture. He creates installations in which he performs poetic and musical performances, he practices land art and explores photography and digital drawing. He is also a fan of action painting, street art and frescoes. Recycling, music and poetry play a key role in his artistic practice. Since 2016 and its emergence on the international art scene on the occasion of the Biennial. Marrakech 6, he participated in a series of collective exhibitions (Morocco, France, Italy, Germany ..) and was represented at several international art fairs and exhibitions. (YIA / AKKA / The Others Art
Fair…) Recipient of the Prix de la Nuit of the Instant 2017, Marseille, FR (ex-aequo) June 2017
MO BAALA: LIVING THE DANGER OF HIS LIFE
Is Mo Baala the new Basquiat? The dazzling emergence of this autodidact on the contemporary scene makes the comparison tempting. Portrait of a young artist who defines himself as “a poet in the middle of the war”.
Art becomes the surest way of organizing one’s thoughts, easing one’s tensions, not being mad as one’s entourage suspected it.
Faced with the work of Mo Baala, some question: is it art? That’s right, he did not go through schools. Anyway, since at 10 years old he is on the street selling single cigarettes. But that does not mean he has not received training. Born in Casablanca in 1986, Mo Baala learned very early on the life and artistic means that will enable him, at each new impasse in fate, to find a way out of knowledge and emotional reparation. Everything begins, as far as he can remember, in Taroudant where he grew up. When, locked up by his grandmother to avoid him dragging on the street, he begins to decipher the traces of time on the walls. Or when finally escaped into the countryside with kids of his age, he amuses himself by spotting a donkey sleeping in the shape of a rock, a mother and her son in that of entwined trees – hallucinosis quite common, moreover, in this archaic Anti-Atlas where one willingly lends itself to the sacralisation of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic stones. From this soil, his works keep the phantasmagorical power. In the presence of his characters, half-men and half-monsters, one believes to read the story of some mythology, partially indecipherable if it was not the insertion of intelligible words – “They are trying to stop life from going on” – even poems never tired of narrate the abandonment of the father and the mother, the deprivation, the lack, the fear, the hesitation, whosetriomphelapratiqueartistic- “Ihavelife, yes I have”. in this archaic Anti-Atlas where one willingly lends itself to the sacralisation of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic stones. From this soil, his works keep the phantasmagorical power. In the presence of his characters, half-men and half-monsters, one believes to read the story of some mythology, partially indecipherable if it was not the insertion of intelligible words – “They are trying to stop life from going on” – even poems never tired of narrate the abandonment of the father and the mother, the deprivation, the lack, the fear, the hesitation, whosetriomphelapratiqueartistic- “Ihavelife, yes I have”. in this archaic Anti-Atlas where one willingly lends itself to the sacralisation of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic stones. From this soil, his works keep the phantasmagorical power. In the presence of his characters, half-men and half-monsters, one believes to read the story of some mythology, partially indecipherable if it was not the insertion of intelligible words – “They are trying to stop life from going on” – even poems never tired of narrate the abandonment of the father and the mother, the deprivation, the lack, the fear, the hesitation, whosetriomphelapratiqueartistic- “Ihavelife, yes I have”.
In the school of life and small trades, encounters are of course decisive: with the craftsmen and the traders of the médinadeTaroudant; with tourists who know English; with the broken dolls and the books that he picks up at the disposal of garbage collection; then with music, philosophy, science, and history, which he feeds with youthful friends; with the booksellers from whom he can gradually obtain supplies; finally, with the artists (Marc Belli), the curators (Aniko Boehler, Younis Baba-Ali, Mia Odermatt of the Ke’ch Collective, Angelo Bellobono of the AtlaSnow project, Jean Feline, Florence Devereux and Taïs Bean of Mint Works), the gallery owners ( Nathalie Locatelli and more recently Hicham Daoudi), who offer in addition to their support the opportunity of artistic collaborations. Art becomes the surest way of organizing one’s thoughts, easing one’s tensions, not being mad as one’s entourage suspected it, so much does he feel like “a poet in the middle of the war, surrounded by danger. of his own life “. His world is structured not so many stories only conversations: those with the dump dolls, the animals and the imaginary faces spotted in the clouds, the humans too, whom he observes for hours from the top of a rampart in Taroudant where, for years, he finds refuge to look, to draw. And finally, it structures by blackening felt texts and images, transformed by the addition of collages and graffiti, into conversations heard in the city, at the bicycle repairer or the bessara dealer. In this ritual effort of restitution of voices, behaviors, charisms, he feels the pleasure of “getting out of the fatigue of his situation”. Also a music composer and singer, he now knows that “his work chose him”. Everywhere he draws for, he says, “clarifying life, behaviors, interactions, emotions. My pen is my camera. I see so many characters, that move all the time, while I draw to keep the traces “. He starts to travel a lot, on foot. Casablanca-Safi, Essaouira-Taroudant, Marrakech-Taroudant, five times, “going and going, thinking”, looking for connections with nature, meetings … “I did not get tired, I was alone but differently, creating conversation with myself, singing loudly, dancing like a child while feeling mature. Although his erudition is tenfold, he does not boast of any answer. “I only understand myself, not society. And reciprocally. I’m drawing up confusion, and for more fear. “
Mo Baala (b. 1986) is an artist from Taroudant (South Morocco) working with painting, collages, installation, performance, land art, sculpture, photography, wall painting, music & poetry …. His work for ‘Dreaming The Land, Dreaming Us’ is inspired by his intimate relationship to the landscape of his home. Through his new series‘Save Me – Save Your Tomorrow’ and two mask making workshops with school children, he wishes to re-iterate the vital necessity of love and respect towards our natural environment.