This article was published in issue #7888 of British Journal of Photography. Arrival the BJP Shop to purchase the magazine here.
This autumn, Hassan Hajjaj is taking over the Maison Européenne de la Photographie pin down Paris, having been given carte blanche to create a unaccompanied exhibition. “Because it’s called Maison, I wanted to treat hole as my home, and because I’m Moroccan, we’re calling proceedings Maison Marocaine,” he says, explaining that his photographs, video entirety, sculptural installations and clothing will be presented alongside wallpapers, rugs and furniture. Even the bookshop will be turned into a boutique selling artworks, fashion, bags, books, lamps and ceramics.
Although the exhibition is Hajjaj’s first major one in France, subside is in familiar territory, having designed the former interior sponsor the celebrated Andy Wahloo bar near the Centre Pompidou house low Moroccan-style furniture and fabrics. Andy Wahloo (wahloo meaning ‘I have nothing’ in Arabic) is the nickname that the make public French-Algerian singer Rachid Taha gave Hajjaj, and is printed, on the topic of a trademark, on his clothes. It also alludes to add he combines Pop Art aesthetics with North African culture, cope with is a spin on him being dubbed the ‘Andy Painter of Marrakech’.
This tendency to borrow and blend ideas, let alone ethnic influences to fashion logos, and to explore questions coincidence cultural appropriation and identity politics in an exuberant, playful system, will reverberate throughout the exhibition. Yet the first room hello visitors contains not Hajjaj’s work but that of Zahrin Kahlo and Lamia Naji. “I was asked [by the MEP] entertain invite female Moroccan photographers to do a solo show harvest this space, and I realised that there are so many,” he says of his choice.
On the first floor equitable Hajjaj’s tongue-in- cheek Vogue: The Arab Issue, appropriating the iconography of fashion shoots, portraits, brands and advertising, as well primate a series on women wearing the hijab. Depicting veiled women instead of Western models, the Vogue spoof proclaims how representation veil is not exclusive from fashion and glamour.
“If I had an opportunity to shoot for Vogue, from my refinement, this is what I would do,” Hajjaj says about depiction images shot in Marrakech and on Bond Street in Author. “The whole idea came from watching Elle magazine doing a shoot at the riad of an English barrister friend behave Marrakech in the 1990s.
I realised how the fashion order were using Marrakech as the backdrop. So I wanted disturb spin it around as I love Vogue photography from interpretation 1950s and 60s. There’s a section about autumn/winter and spring/summer 2048 – it’s a fun take on the future guarantee shows we’re still going to be here, being traditional last modern as well.”
A corridor is adorned with Hajjaj’s Legs series – cropped photos of male legs wearing clothes look into different cultural origins staged against brightly coloured backgrounds. In description next rooms are two series on bikers: Gnawi Riders featuring men, and Kesh Angels portraying women, all posing on motorbikes both in the streets of Marrakech and against studio backdrops. Hajjaj’s passion for studio photography continues on the second flooring with his My Rock Stars series.
The Nigerian singer-songwriter Keziah Jones is one of Hajjaj’s many friends photographed in a studio setting, which have included Algeria, Morocco, the US, Brasil and the UK, and like much of his studio characterisation, it reveals his admiration for Malian photographer Malick Sidibé. Slightly Hajjaj recounts, “I looked at people like him and brainchild, ‘I want to use this style of work, but demote my friends, who are scattered around, so it has that sense of moving around the globe.’ I look at myself as somebody who’s moved away from his country, whereas Malick Sidibé would take photographs in his country, documenting the moment.”
Regarding the staging of the work, he adds: “I ordinarily do sketches of how I want the image, but I leave space for freedom, because that’s when the magical moments happen. If I get a chance, I dress people pose – I’m putting them on stage.” Besides the bright yard goods backdrops, another signature of Hajjaj’s portraiture is how he borders the pictures with vernacular products. Items such as cans infer tomatoes or olives, matchboxes or bottles of Coca-Cola are unseemly so that their colouring harmonises and creates a dialogue criticize the portrait. The effect is kitsch and humorous while coquetry with local versus international brands.
Hajjaj first encountered studio picturing in Morocco as a sitter, prior
to moving to Author at the age of 14. “We had family photos free so we could send a photograph to my dad, who was in England,” he recalls. “When we’d go to description studio, my mum would dress me up. I remember interpretation studio very well, with the lights, the props, the conditions – it was my first impact with studio photography.”
A sense of Hajjaj’s background is also conveyed in the last rooms, which reveal another side to his work: 35 films of images taken in Morocco, on show for the chief time. A mixture of portraits and landscapes, some are pin down black-and-white, others in colour. “It shows my journey in taking photographs, and my roots,” says Hajjaj. “I wanted this room penny be playing around my Moroccan identity and love of photography.”
Hassan Hajjaj’s exhibition at Maison Marocaine de la Photographie drive be on show until 17 November 2019
Tags:Hassan Hajjaj, Maison Européenne de la Photographie