Younes Rahmoun: Darra-Zahra-Jabal

Younes Rahmoun, a major figure in the Moroccan contemporary art scene, will be presenting a selection of works centering around the concept of migration at La Kunsthalle Mulhouse.

Experiencing Younes Rahmoun’s work means accepting to look within ourselves and think about what we are. His commitment lies in thought, his work is part of a quest for humble and transcendent forms. His concepts will inhabit the contemporary art center’s exhibition space to question us about the idea of migration and challenge our capacity for adaptation. Throughout the exhibition, the artist’s metaphorical language asks us how a seed can take root in soil far from its native land.

Rahmoun’s pieces are built out of figures, metaphors, and signs. He creates from gestures, with a preference for modest objects that he finds close by in his living space and within his culture, gestures that he has always observed or employed, objects found near his home in the Medina of Tetouan or the Rif Mountains. Sampled and collected from daily life, they become his alphabet from the moment he isolates them, transcends them, and invests them with his conception of the world.

Darra—Atom 
Invisible to the naked eye, the atom is the smallest part of a body considered in the organization of matter. Represented by a circle, it embodies an absolute and perfect form. It exists on the lowest end of the spectrum of values and represents a limit beyond which we sense an unattainable infinity.

Zahra—Flower 
In the flowering stage, the seed breaks through the earth, leaving darkness and isolation behind to enter the realm of the visible. Faced with the world, it seeks out its place among the others and learns to compose in a game with many rules. It receives, gives, shares, and composes with diversity and multiplicity. The flower is seductive and unique but also fragile since it lives only a short while before giving way to the fruit it precedes.

Jabal—Mountain
The mountain represents strength and immutability. It is both the breeding ground and the epicenter of life. As a visual and symbolic landmark, it provides stability and refers back to the origins of a people or an individual. It hosts both human and plant life, sheltering and nourishing them.

About the artist
Younes Rahmoun is a Moroccan artist born in Tetouan in 1975, where he still lives today. He is one of the most prominent North African artists of his generation. Educated by Faouzi Laatiris at the Tetouan fine arts school, Rahmoun is among the first artists to receive education in contemporary art in Morocco. Younes Rahmoun expresses himself through various media: installations, sculpture, drawing, video, and photography. His streamlined pieces are laden with spirituality and invite contemplation. He uses contemporary technology to create dialogues between universally symbolic serial shapes, which can also be found in Islamic artforms, among others. The root of the artist’s blossoming production grows out of himself, his culture, and daily life to raise questions about what is universal in the creation of a constantly evolving dialogue. His most recent exhibitions include ‘Little Worlds, Complex Structures’, VCUarts—Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (2018), and ‘De la mer à l’océan (From Sea to Ocean)’, L’appartement 22, Rabat (2016). His work has also recently been shown at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Tripostal (Lille), the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), ‘L’heure Rouge’, Biennale de Dakar (2018), and Viva Arte Viva, the 57th Venice Biennale. He is represented by the Galerie Iman Farès in Paris.

The partners
Alongside La Kunsthalle exhibition, an exhibition will take place at the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton (USA), as well as an exhibition at the Kulte Center for Contemporary Art & Editions in Rabat, Morocco. This cross-continental collaboration has resulted in the publication of ‘Younes Rahmoun : Here, Now’ by Editions Zamân Books.