The visual artist and art critic Brahim El Haiss exhibits a series of paintings he made between 2017 and 2025 on the theme “The desert has a trace …”, at the art gallery of the Iklyle Cultural Center in Tangier, organized by the Mohammed VI Foundation of promotion of social works of education-training, from May 16 to June 5, 2025.
On the occasion of this exhibition, a catalog will be published, including an artistic biography, representations of works of art, as well as a diversified collective interview on the thematic context and the technical and stylistic characteristics that mark this creative experience. This interview with El Haissan was carried out by a distinguished host of esthetes and art critics of Morocco and elsewhere. These are Tallal Moualla (Syria), Mohammed Benhammouda, Fetah Benameur, Sami Ben Ameur and Khalil Gouia (Tunisia), Mohammad al Ameri (Jordan), Mostapha Issa, Amal Nasr, Mohamed Mahdi Hemida (Egypt), Ali Najjar (Irak), Fakhriya al-Yyayai (Sultanat Oman), Abdulrahman Alsoliman (Saudite Arabic), and Morocco: Abdellah Cheikh, Chafik Zougari, Noureddine Fathy, Benyounes Amirouche, Aziz Azrhai, Driss Kattir, Hassan Laghdache and Said Kermas, as well as two French criticisms Daniel Couturier and writer Hassan Moukdad.
According to Brahim El Haissan: “The title of this exhibition aims to be an extension of the titles of the previous personal exhibitions in which I worked on the concept of the trace in its cultural and aesthetic visual sense, in particular” the reflection of the trace “(Laayoune, Boujdour and Tarfaya, 1999),” Plastic envelopes “(Casablanca, 2003),” Nomads “and” Rabat, 2019), “The cartography of erasure” (Rabat, 2018) and “Praise of the trace” (Essaouira, 2020) “.
This pictorial experience is therefore no exception to this tradition, since it also puts on the trace in pigment paintings and art objects synchronized with the expanses of the desert … This trace appears and disappears, it is present and absent as much as it disappears and dies, imbued with colors and embroidery deposits which give painting a metamorphosed visual dimension. As a result, the trace becomes a renewed memory which reflects the desire to break the permanence and a visual form which is oriented towards the ephemeral as an aesthetic characteristic. And this, in accordance with a concept that emerged with the French poet Charles Baudelaire, who testified to the trend of beauty towards the temporary, the fleeting and the ephemeral, as well as the Dadaist artists who have brandished the slogan to break the moments of the time of the past and the future and to preserve the fleeting present.
This is how the trace in the desert flees and escapes to the rhythm of the duality of nomadism and stability.
In addition, on this occasion, on Saturday May 17, a round table will be organized on the theme “The experience of the trace in plastic art”, led by the poet and journalist Said Koubrit, with the participation of art critics, researchers and artists Chafik Zougari, Noureddine Fatihi, Benyounes Amirouche, Driss Kattir, Abdelkarim El Azhar, Said Kermas Lotfeallah, Youssef Saadoune, and Hassan Laghdache, as well as the presentation of the book project “Watchers of the trace – Arab pictorial experiences” by Brahim El Haissan, presented by the art critic Abdellah Cheikh.
