Mehdi Qotbi, he folds the cards – Libération

The Franco-Moroccan artist, exhibited at the Arab World Institute, strives to reconcile Morocco and France, with smiling interpersonal skills and an impressive network.

Gazelle horns, delivered fresh to the Elysée, generally announce his arrival. This man has an eye for detail. In his paintings decorated with arabesques, as in his life, everything is generous, colorful, enigmatic, calibrated. And when he enters the “Madame wing”, his arms loaded with attention, scarf or boots hemmed by him, open wide: “Dear Brigitte, what a joy to see you again!” She smiles. We cannot resist Mehdi Qotbi. “This boy, you throw him out, he comes back through the window,” joked Jacques Chirac. All the presidents got to know him, all decorated him. Emmanuel Macron even elevated Mehdi Qotbi to the rank of grand officer of the national order of merit, saluting in April a “exceptional artist, builder of bridges between countries and people”. Suggestion was also made to celebrate it at the Institute of the Arab World, with a retrospective which opens on October 15. “His works approach the North and the South, the East and the West, the Koranic tradition and that of Byzantine mosaic, that of stained glass and abstraction, that of impressionism, illumination…” exclaims the Head of State, in the preface to the exhibition catalogue. All of Paris is invited to the opening, from figures from the old world – François Hollande, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Brice Hortefeux – to the new – Gabriel Attal, Stéphane Séjourné, Gerald Darmanin… –, not to mention the Moroccan establishment. What an artist, this Mehdi Qotbi