The great scarcity of artists’ works, a tangible reality – Today Morocco

The Moroccan Company of Works and Objects of Art (CMOOA) is organizing its auction scheduled for January 25 in Casablanca. Its director Hicham Daoudi underlined on this occasion the difficulty of having brought together the works of art submitted to this sale because of the very great rarity of works by modern or pioneering artists on the art market.

Works by modern or pioneering artists have become increasingly rare on the Moroccan art market. This was indicated by Hicham Daoudi, founding president of the Moroccan Company of Works and Objects of Art (CMOOA), on the occasion of the announcement of the auction scheduled for January 25 in Casablanca. Mr. Daoudi did not fail to emphasize the difficulty of bringing together the works of art submitted to this auction. “We are pleased to have brought together with great difficulty and self-sacrifice the selection of works of art that will be submitted to this auction.

The very great rarity of works by modern or pioneering artists has become a tangible reality which has today (and will have even more in the future) numerous impacts on the Moroccan art market, the circulation of works and its international distribution,” he says. He explained that “many estates of major artists in the history of Moroccan art find themselves blocked today because of legal proceedings between rights holders who do not get along, or because of disputes with parents qualified as collateral when the deceased artists had no male descendants (even though the deceased did everything to protect their daughters). “For some artists it is quite simply the complete disappearance of their works present in their workshops that we noted on the evening of their deaths,” he says.

The founding president of the Moroccan Company of Works and Objects of Art noted that there is a profound gap in the protection of artists in the twilight of their lives. In this context, it recommends a process of preservation or guardianship of the authorities to support or arbitrate during sharing between rights holders at the time of stormy successions. “When works no longer circulate because they are subject to blockages, the tension on prices becomes greater, and a “mechanical” speculation takes place, playing into the hands of certain parties to the detriment of artists’ families and especially of the artistic work in its entirety.

This also plays into the hands of counterfeiters who know how to exploit the gaps arising from the absence of contacts (and expert committees) to respond to certification requests,” he explains. And added: “With the death of several of our great pioneering artists between 2013 and 2022, these problems, which did not arise while the Moroccan art market was in its infancy, have appeared and risk dealing a fatal blow to its growth”. For him, this situation should serve as an example to artists who must better prepare the transmission of their material and immaterial heritage to their beneficiaries during their lifetime, in dialogue with the supervisory authorities.