El Fenn’s Curated Art Weekend
Aspiring art collector? Or a passionate enthusiast who wants to immerse in a new exciting scene? Our new Curated Art Weekend is the perfect place to start.
Africa’s art scene is bubbling up. And up. And our first ever Curated Art Weekend will help you discover it.
The three-day trip coincides with the prestigious 1-54 African Contemporary Art Fair in early 2025. As well as visiting the exhibition, you’ll also see our pick of Marrakech’s most exciting galleries. And explore El Fenn’s art with our co-owner Vanessa Branson, who’s worked as a collector and gallerist for almost 40 years.
‘The African art market is only at the start of being established and that’s what makes it really exciting,’ she says. ’ Africa is a huge and diverse continent and so is the work coming out of it. But it’s united by energy and experimentation.’
Art has always been at the heart of El Fenn. Our name ‘fenn’ means art and our collection of contemporary work has hung in the hotel since we opened 20 years ago. There’s art, photography and sculpture in public spaces and bedrooms too. Works include pieces by Europeans including Sir Terry Frost and David Shrigley, as well as some of Morocco’s most famous contemporary artists such as Hassan Hajjaj, Yto Barrada, Ali Maimoun and Abelmalik Berhiss.
Young Moroccan talents like Laila Alaoui, who believed photography could be used for social activism, are also showcased. Other African artists include Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu and Joana Choumali, from the Ivory Coast.
‘African artists fuse traditional techniques like painting, sculpture and photography with a very culturally specific lens of place and people.’ says Vanessa. ‘And many use local materials to create work. One of my favourite pieces at El Fenn for instance is World Under Pressure by Batoul S’Himi. She took the most everyday object – a pressure cooker – and created art with it.’
Other established names who tap into the world around them include El Anatsui, the Ghanian sculptor known for his huge installations created using aluminium bottle tops sourced from recycling centres, and Amina Agueznay, a multimedia artist who often uses traditional Moroccan weaving techniques. For fans of photography, many young African artists are also pushing the boundaries of portraiture in their work.
‘Africa is made up of 52 countries so the art from Morocco is very different to work coming out of Senegal or Zimbabwe for instance,’ says Vanessa. ‘But what’s exciting is to see the versatility of the work coming from these countries combined with a really refreshing energy of experimentation.’
The Marrakech Biennale, co-founded by Vanessa, was the first event to start putting contemporary art in Morocco on the art map. But it was the third edition that marked a step change in how Moroccan artists in particular were presented to the world.
Curator Abedellah Karroum, now director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar, wanted to see the best of contemporary Moroccan artists shown alongside the international greats rather than focused on independently.
By the sixth and final edition of the biennale in 2016, the majority of work shown across ten sites was made by artists from the Arab world, Africa and their disaporas. 1-54 has gone on to build and expand this work and now hosts editions in London and New York, as well as Marrakech.
Today the city is a creative hub, filled with artist ateliers and galleries showing everything from work by very established names to up-and-coming artists. As part of the Curated Art Weekend, we’ll share our favourite addresses with you and you’ll also be invited to the launch of the exhibition we’re putting on to coincide with 1-54. Just 20 places are available on the weekend that runs January 30th to February 2nd.
You can get all the details here.
