Mohssin Harraki

Description de l’Afrique (Rhizome), 2020
Installation comprises ten framed drawings, black cables, three reproductions of the book Description de l’Afrique
Variable dimensions
Unique
Exhibition view: Illusions, la présence de l’image participe à sa disparition, Galerie Imane Farès, Photo © Tadzio

Pli (1), Pli (2), Pli (3), Pli (4), 2019
Photographic prints on canvas, handwritten text, ink on school notebook sheets
Variable dimensions
Unique
Exhibition view: Illusions, la présence de l’image participe à sa disparition, Galerie Imane Farès, Photo © Tadzio

Illusion (6), Goats disembark in Normandy (2). Press picture, 1918. Drawing: Titchener’s illusion, 2019
Illusion (5), Goats disembark in Normandy (1). Press picture, 1918. Drawing: Sander’s illusion, 2019
Illusion (4), A village on the move: [Two old women moving their belongings], Press Picture, 1932. Drawing: Müller-Lyer’s illusion, 2019
Illusion (3), Moroccan War: [Shell supply by mule]. Press picture, 1925. Drawing: Ponzo’s illusion, 2019
Illusion (1), A village on the move: [In Morocco, a truck moving an entire barrack]. Press picture, 1932. Drawing: camera obscura, 2019
Illusion (2), A village on the move: [A truck transporting a plank house and its inhabitants take an active part in the transfer of the house to the new Douar]. Press image, 1932. Drawing: Hering’s illusion, 2019
Red and black ink drawings on photographic reproductions
53 x 70 cm (3 to 5) & 74 x 110 cm (1 & 2)
Unique
Photo © Tadzio

Cadrage (3), Aircraft versus submarine [Navire aérien contre navire sous-marin]. Press image, 1918, 2019
Cadrage (2), The heroic little merchants of the front [Les héroïques petits marchands du front]. Press image, 1918, 2019
Cadrage (1), Feminism is making progress every day [Le féminisme fait chaque jour des progrès]. Press image, 1918, 2019
Ink drawing on photographic reproduction
53 x 70 cm each
Unique
Photo © Tadzio

Description de l’Afrique, 2019

Description de l’Afrique (Nilus), 2019
Description de l’Afrique (Arabia), 2019
Description de l’Afrique (Africa), 2019
Description de l’Afrique (Alexandria), 2019
Description de l’Afrique (Aegyptus), 2019

Vinyl prints on concrete blocks and drawings on paper, framed
50 x 20 x 10 cm (prints on concrete block), 24 x 39 cm (drawings on paper, framed)
Unique
*each work comprises a concrete block and a framed drawing

Le Chant de l’Ombre (1) – (7), 2018
Series of diptych: ink jet prints on photo paper
*for each diptych, its right part is the same print which features a poem in arabic
37 x 52 x 3 cm (each)
Edition of 2 + 1 AP

“J’étais mon propre invité,
Et j’ai vu l’herbe pousser sur les pierres,
J’ai fait du ciel mon idée et de la terre mon exil préféré,
Les oiseaux ont-ils le sentiment d’appartenir à une nation ?
Et les papillons ont-ils le sentiment d’avoir un corps ?
L’ombre se détache et je suis devenu l’image de la chose sur d’autres choses.”

For this series, Mohssin Harraki was inspired by a character whose musical practice is also part of the activist field: Hadda Al Ghaîtia, a Moroccan poetess and singer active at the end of the 19th century, born in the valley of Oulad Zayd – which she also evokes in some of her music.
Nicknamed Kharboucha or Krida because of her frizzy hair, she was among the first to practice the aïta (meaning cry or lament in Arabic), which is a rural song in dialectic Arabic. She then associated to this typically Moroccan musical genre, lyrics that signaled a strong criticism of the Moroccan royal regime of the time…
Harraki borrowed the protestant register of Kharboucha’s texts to compose a poem, in Arabic, which he entitled Le Chant de l’Ombre (The Song of the Shadow). These verses are articulated around key themes of Harraki’s plastic practice, such as exile, hospitality and national and cultural belonging.
Also inspired by the geomorphology of the Lot valley, Mohssin Harraki uses a recurrent plastic strategy in his work which consists in using stone as a support for writing. First, he writes the verses of this poem on stones collected in the region, before deploying images of these stones in various villages along the valley. The artist thus proceeds to de-construct the text: the stones – and thus the verses engraved on them – are scattered in such a way as to invade the landscape of the valley.
These same photographs were removed to compose a series of eight photographs, the last print showing a retranscription of the poem in Arabic.

Débat imaginaire, 2017
Wallprint and white neons
285 x 495 cm
Unique
Exhibition view: Matière grise, Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, 2017; Metaphorai, 24^th Week of Contemporain Art, Plovdiv, 2018.

Débat imaginaire borrows its imagery from a fourteenth-century manuscript presenting an imaginary conversation between the Islamic and Greek philosophers Averroes and Porphyry. In this work, Mohssin Harraki reflects on the transmission of knowledge and on the role that language has played in the different sequences of our history, as well as on its narrative and plastic potential.
With this image covering the wall, Harraki plays with the language of two historical figures. He sets in motion and juxtaposes with neon letters a dual textual framework that brings forward several linguistic referents. In a broader sense, Harraki refers to the transmission of knowledge through a trans-historical dialogue between two figures of Islamic thought who echo its discovery in the Western history. The work of Averroes was at the core of the medieval philosophical debate, at a time when translators and interpreters largely introduced different pathways for culture, science, and philosophy.

Neon text’ transcription (from Arabic to English)
“There are two forms of abstinence, one general and one partial.
Those who practice general abstinence, eat only if they have a strong appetite for something.”

Rahatu’L-Aql / Peace of Mind (2), 2018
Installation comprises two sculptures made of electric cables, ink on stones and light bulbs and a framed drawing
Variable dimensions
Unique
Exhibition view: A New Humanity, International exhibition of the 13th edition of the Contemporary African Art Biennial of Dakar

Anwar Al-Nujum ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ ‘D’, 2015
Installation composed of 4 vertical format video screens, 2 min 46 sec (each) arranged horizontally (in loop).
Edition of 2 + 1 AP
Installation views: Global(e) Résistance, Centre Pompidou, Galerie d’art graphique, Galerie du musée, Galerie 0 – Musée, niveau 4, Paris, 29 juillet 2020 – 4 janvier 2021. Crédit photo : Centre Pompidou/Audrey Laurans

In Anwar Al-Nujùm Mohssin Harraki explores the writings of Ibn al-Shatir, one of the most eminent Muslim astronomers of the fourteenth century. His research led to the development of revolutionary ideas about planetary astronomy.
His main text, occupying nearly three hundred pages, is surrounded by annotations that include detailed comments and calculations.
Harraki diverts the traditional context of the book and analyzes the teachings of the Golden Age of Islam to question humanity’s place in the universe. Our actions reflect the constellations in the sky, just as it is on earth that the lights of the stars are reflected.

Anwar Al-Nujūm, 2015
Installation comprises a silkscreen printing on 3 glass plates, 150 x 100 cm (each), writing on stones, iron rods, variable dimensions
Unique
Exhibition views: Volumes Fugitifs, Faouzi Laatiris et l’Institut National des Beaux-Arts de Tétouan, Fondation nationale des Musées, Morocco

Inscribed on stones the subjects treated with Ibn Shatir on the findings and movements of stars in the 12th century.

1- Ibn Shatir
2- Table of the northern lands
3- Extraction of the history
4- The lights of the stars
5- The rays of light
6- Revealing the unknown
7- The bright stars
8- The visible and the invisible
9- The visible horizon
10- The end of the question
11- Correction of origins

Tagant (Forest), 2016
Installation of 87 lightbulbs, electric cables, variator
Variable dimensions
Unique artwork
Exhibition view: Jeux de mémoires: Ahmed Bouanani aujourd’hui, Marrakech Biennale 2016

Artist statement,

Tagant does not only mean forest, but also an isolated place. There is an empty place, it transforms into a forest that absorbes the word’s meaning as time goes by. It is a forest even when it only holds one tree. We call it Tagant.
Cinema, litterature, history… many topics entangle, creating a cartography of the thought. Branches diverge, converge, move away at times, making way for the pos- sibility of redrawing the links. This divergence exempli es the difference between the event and the document, the distance between the rumor and the fact, the of cial historiography and history’s fate.
A forest of 87 lanterns : each lightbulb holds a theme or a title. The bulbs are controlled by a dimmer switch, which embodies the breathing process.
This light breathes in me, a questioning of history by history itself.

Currator statement,

Ahmad Bouanani, an unknown gem of literary and artistic Moroccan modernity, passed away in 2011, leaving behind boxes of manuscripts, drawings and unreleased scenarios. These documents form a true artwork, that adds to the existing four books and few films that were renowned while he was still alive.
The exhibition Memory Games originates from Ahmed Bouanani’s interest in Moroccan history and folk arts – folk arts being seen as places of embodiement, preservation and renewal of history and collective memory.
« Moroccan folklore does not belong to the past ; it is a core element of everyday life. It expresses life and goes beyond it. »
The exhibition regards the issues raised by Bouanani as more relevant than ever – notably the links between art and craftsmanship, writing and oral tradition ; the relation between the Moroccan people and its history’s writing, as well as the future of memory.
As part of this exhibition, Mohssin Harraki is presenting a light installation titled Tagant (Forest), which exemplifies the density of Bouanani’s work.

Ahmed Bouanani has published four books in his lifetime. He also directed one long lm and a few short ones. But the biggest par of his work is unreleased. He left behind an impressive number of unachieved projects and finished manuscripts, but he did not try to make them public. These manuscripts are from very diverse genres : novels, short stories, poems, plays, film scripts, essays, translations, historical accounts, comics, etc.
While discovering Bouanani’s life and work, we nd ourselves in a true forest of references, texts, genres and titles. It is a rather delicate forest : it is almost entirely comprised of personal archive, which has never seen daylight and almost perished when Bouanani’s apartment in Rabat burned down in 2006. Moreover, a number of his artworks, notably his films, have been lost.
Mohssin Harraki’s light installation makes the visitor feel as if he were penetrating Bouanani’s forest. It is a forest of lightbulbs, each of which holds the title of an artwork by Bouanani that has been published or will soon be. It is a forest which breathes, lights up and slowly goes off. This luminous breathing draws attention to the fragility of the archive, of our artistic heritage and of our collective memory.

Omar Berrada, 2016

Rubaiyat Omar Khayyam, 2015
Sculpture, screen-printed glass, wooden base
44 x 44 x 35 cm
Edition of 2 + 1 AP

This artwork by Mohssin Harraki is inspired by a poem of Omar Khayyam, written in the 11th century. The poem was turned into a song by Oum Kalthoum in the 1950s. On each page of the book, the artist features a partition of this song, moving upwards like a spiral. The sculpted book lays fully open, symbolizing the never-ending love song, sung until infinity. This work is a tribute to love, but also to all the great Arab artists who have truly embodied it.

The Rubaiyatt, Omar Khayyam

I heard a voice calling at dawn,
Calling from the unseen, for the unmindful of people To get up and fill in the cups of hope before Fate fills their life cups. ( your life ends).
*****
Don’t preoccupy with the past that
had gone nor with the future that is not here yet.
Just take advantage of the pleasures of the present moment, you know, Loyalty is not one of the attributes of the nights.
*****
Tomorrow is unknown and today is mine.
And how much disappointment have I gotten from speculating the future. I am not unmindful, to see
All the beauty of my world and not watch it for long and meditate
*****
My heart is exhausted from the love of beauty
My chest has narrowed from all the unsaid things that is filling it. Oh God, is this thirst satisfying you,
When I have fresh water running before me
*****
This heart should rather be beating, And get burned in the fire of love. The day that I spend Without being in love, is such a waste
*****
Get up, you cheerful one, at dawn today,
Wake up, let the sleep, and talk to the lord , Sleeping hasn’t made anyone live
Longer and staying up all night hasn’t made anyone live less.
*****
How many nights have come after mornings!
How many stars have rotated in this magnificent orbit! Walk softly on land,
As so many beautiful eyes have been buried underneath it.
*****
Don’t fill your heart with the fear of the unknown
Take the chance and get from today the serenity of the believer as after all, We will be equal,
Who passes today will be buried with who died from a thousand years.
*****
Put out the fire of love
Days are like the clouds
And our lives are an faint shadow of illusion So get your fair share before youth is gone.
*****
I was given the life’s dress (brought to life) without being asked And got confused between various thoughts from here and there I will take off the dress one day ( die) without even knowing why I came here in the first place ( my life’s purpose).
*****
Oh, you, the one who is beyond our ability to comprehend The one who our souls obey, in hopes for protection My sins have made me unmindful
I woke up hoping for your forgiveness and mercy
*****
I may have not been that devoted in worshiping you But still, I hope for your mercy
I have lived my life believing in you
And that may intercede for me
*****
You kept yourself unseen
Yet all the universe is your beautiful creation
We are much like drops of water, that may separate from the sea, Yet it will return to it definitely one day
*****
You know what we keep in our hearts
You are the one capable of comforting our pain
You are the one who accepts our excuses
We have come back to you, So please accept our repentance

Le Ciel dessine la Terre, 2015
Installation of 30 drawings, ink, pencil and paint on paper
40 x 30 cm (each)
Unique

Le Ciel dessine la Terre, 2015
Installation comprises thirty iron plates engraved by hand and painted and a HD video, colour
30 x 40 cm (each), 2 min 46 sec
Unique
Exhibition views: Volumes Fugitifs, Faouzi Laatiris et l’Institut National des Beaux-Arts de Tétouan, Fondation nationale des Musées, Morocco

Aquarium, 2014
3 history books in Arabic, Amazigh and French; 3 aquariums, 30 x 45 x 32 cm (each); 3 white bases 30 x 45 x 100 cm (each)
Unique

Thrones, 2013
Ink drawings and writings on coton cloths
Variable dimensions
Unique

Seven sayings from seven countries of the world

Bahrain
To receive an income without determination will provoke indecency

Morroco
There is no use crying over the Dead

Spain
With Money you will forget yourself, and without money they will ignore you

Saudi Arabia
It’s better to go to sleep at the end of the day and to be aware that the other person judged you badly instead of going to sleep and thinking it was you who acted wrongly

Jordan
Being arrogant to those who are arrogant is modesty

United Kingdom
Love and hunger will rule the world

Belgium
Those who are not satisfied with eating will not be satisfied licking

Thrones – 0 –, 2013
Drawings and writings on cotton clothes
Variable dimensions
Unique

Mohssin Harraki tracks linear accessions to power and illustrates, through the form of the family tree, chronological political narratives. His analysis of the family tree challenges the way in which power is inherited in society by looking at the dynamics of hereditary thought within a given family. Since the position of a name in a family tree is directly related to the power of this person, the names of all the persons unable to have access to power and those of women are systematically dropped. Drawn on white pieces of cloth, Thrones – 0 – (2013) represent the family trees of four different Arab countries: Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan and Saudi-Arabia. These real family trees highlight the non-representation of women within ruling families. In the series Inconnus, Harraki therefore creates fictional family trees where he gives a place to women and offers a family to those who do not have one.
Regardless of the nature of these families, real or fictional, the artist delivers us an analytical diagram of society.

Inconnus, 2013
Drawings on black paper
60 x 60 cm (series of 4 drawings) or 20 x 20 (series of 10 drawings)
Unique
Installation views: Songs of Loss and Songs of Love, Gwangju Museum of Art, 2014

For Harraki, the botanical metaphor of grafting, trellising, and erecting corresponds to his way of considering patrilineal history and its transmission, subjects that have been at the core of his practice since 2010 and constitute another important link between Harraki and his generation of artists. History has long been grafted onto the genealogies of major religious or political figures, so the family tree offers the artist a way to explore the processes of abnormal selection – that is, manipulation or exclusion – that underlie this History. Yet, in Harraki’s hands, this archetype proves to be much broader than its standardized concept found in textbooks, genealogies, or biographies.
Although many drawings retain the shape of the trees already mentioned, in other cases any organic reference point is lost in the sharp lines that cut deeply into the surface of the iron. In these drawings, the family tree becomes a bureaucratic organization chart or a well-drawn graph, a nod, perhaps, to the administration of history and its institutions, especially those of education. Like the organization chart and the graph, the family tree is useful precisely for its ability to transform complex human relationships into a linear form. It is also a form of dressage, which is used to explain social, historical and political contingencies using double entry tables, dependent variables, and generalizable theories. But the graphic simplicity of Harraki’s trees is deceptive, and it is the uncertainty and hybridity that characterizes his drawings. No surnames appear here. Only first names are engraved, like a caption, on the edge of the panels or, so to speak, in the margin of a page.

— Emma Chubb in Greffer, Espalier, Dresser, Éditions Hors’Champs, l’Appartement 22, 2020, p. 10-11 [our translation]

Arbres généalogiques, 2012
Ink on paper
Variable dimensions
Unique

Mohssin Harraki creates drawings of family trees, tracing the genealogy of Arab ruling families. By viewing the family tree as a mathematical equation, he explores the mechanisms of cultural construction and the ways in which collective memory and imagination take shape and mutually reinforce each other.
Harraki displays the process of constructing these family trees, as if trying to solve a mathematical problem. The mathematical equation becomes a family tree in which one must find a solution and the value of X (X being the person who will gain power in a family or a given society).
The project, considered by the artist a work in progress, resulted from a research into the dynamics of succession, governance, and inheritance of power. The amount of legitimacy conferred to a certain name within a family tree often depended on the amount of authority the name holder had during his life. It is very common for families to drop the names of some of their sons (and most of their daughters) when they fail to serve the family’s history.
Mohssin Harraki tracks linear accessions to power and illustrates, through the form of the family tree, chronological political narratives. His analysis of the family tree challenges the way in which power is inherited in society by looking at the dynamics of hereditary thought within a given family. Since the position of a name in a family tree is directly related to the power of this person, the names of all the persons unable to have access to power and those of women are systematically dropped. Drawn on white pieces of cloth, « Thrones 0 (2013 » represent the family trees of four different Arab countries: Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan and Saudi-Arabia. These real family trees highlight the non-representation of women within ruling families. In the series « Inconnus » Harraki therefore creates fictional family trees where he gives a place to women and offers a family to those who do not have one.
Regardless of the nature of these families, real or fictional, the artist delivers us an analytical diagram of society.

The world under the table, 2011
Video, colour and sound
7 min 54 sec.
Edition of 2 + 1 AP

The production and consumption of the image, between proposing and living together, adding and preserving, listening and telling, history of facts and apparent history.
This work raises the question of the fabrication of images and the choices imposed by political decision-makers on the system of nature, on a worldwide scale. The work represents the drawing of the World Map drawn with the help of a magnetic field. The card is placed under the table, I follow the outline of the card with a magnet, which moves another one attached to a pen on the other side of the table. The magnet on the table follows the same path as the one below and gives a new drawing of the world map on the table.

Problème n°5, 2011
Video, color and sound
2 min 55 sec
Edition of 2 + 1 AP

Arbres généalogiques is a series of drawings inspired by dynasties that once ruled different parts of the Arab world. The various family trees make up flexible sequences whose geometrical shapes vary according to the family or country in question. Drawn on white pages, complex landscapes extend outwards like a human mapping system; at the same time they offer a representation of time via the many generations of rulers they include.

In a vidéo also titled Problème n°5, Mohssin Harraki displays the process of constructing these family trees, as if trying to solve a mathematical problem. Through this notation procedure he challenges the logic and legitimacy of accession to power via a mere family line.

Pierre dans la mare, 2010
Installation comprises forty books in concrete, engraved and painted, on a table
Variable dimensions
Edition of 2 + 1 AP
Exhibition view: how to reappear · through the quivering leaves of independent publishin, Beirut Art Center, 2019. Photo by barış doğrusöz

“La pierre dans la mare” is an expression which means, something disturbs a quiet situation, which causes scandal, which disturbs a situation or very quiet habits. By using cultural and educational publications that would have made the collective memory of Morocco, this project questions both cultural construction, post-colonial consequences and collective imaginaries.

Lanceur de dés, 2010
Video, color and sound
2 min 03
Edition of 2 + 1 AP

From Mahmoud Darwiche’s poem Lanceur de dés [dice thrower] that I built the video. Chance, a gesture of repetition, toss, retoss and retoss again, although I am sure of the outcome (the dice have six “one” sides).

Two sides of one piece, 2010
Video, color and sound
1 min 52
Edition of 2 + 1 AP

Examines the handling of money in society and the influence that money has on religion and politics. The video focuses on a spinning coin – its rapid movement transforms the coin into a foreign, aesthetically pleasing object. The sound of the coin’s movement across the surface allows the viewer to enter a “dry and fragile space.” It demonstrates how an object of opulent nature can become something appreciated simply for its aesthetic value.