Amina Agueznay

Last updated
Amina Agueznay
Born1963
Casablanca, Morocco
NationalityMoroccan
Alma mater Catholic University of America, Washington, DC
Known forsite-specific installations, jewellery design
Style21st-century visual artist
AwardsOpen My Med Prize 2010, Maison Mode Mediterrannée

Amina Agueznay (born 1963 in Casablanca, Morocco) is a Moroccan visual artist and trained architect, known for her contemporary artworks. Her work has included jewellery designs and art installations, incorporating elements of Moroccan cultural heritage as well as materials such as textile buttons, paper, rose petals or burned plastic bags. In several exhibitions, she has created site-specific artistic installations.

Contents

Apart from her participation in art and fashion shows in Morocco and Europe, her work has been featured in art catalogues, magazines and in the British newspaper Financial Times . [1] Among others, her creations have been documented by Moroccan photographer Leila Alaoui. [2]

Biography

Agueznay is the daughter of Moroccan painter and engraver Malika Agueznay, an alumna of the School of Fine Arts of Casablanca. [3] Mother and daughter have created some artworks together, for example the site-specific exhibition Metamorphosis at the Attijariwafa Bank Foundation in Rabat 2018. [4] Having graduated from secondary school in Casablanca, Agueznay studied in the US and obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Architecture from the Catholic University of America, Washington DC, in 1989. After fifteen years in the US and having worked there as an architect, she returned to Morocco in 1997 and has since been living and working in Marrakesh. [5]

Artistic career

Silver pendant with spiral pattern of traditional Moroccan Berber jewellery, traditional side of a double-use piece Berber pendant with spiral pattern.jpg
Silver pendant with spiral pattern of traditional Moroccan Berber jewellery, traditional side of a double-use piece
Silver pendant with traditional engraved ornaments in niello technique and contemporary application, modern side of a double-use piece Modern silver pendant by Moroccan designer Amina Agueznay.jpg
Silver pendant with traditional engraved ornaments in niello technique and contemporary application, modern side of a double-use piece

Following a first training in jewellery design in the US, she developed this type of artistic creation in contemporary style after her return to Casablanca, using traditional Moroccan jewellery and locally-sourced materials. In workshops for handicrafts that she taught for government agencies, she also worked with craftspeople active as weavers, woodworkers, leatherworkers, basketry weavers and other crafts. This experience became another part of her artistic influences. [4]

During the "Year of Morocco" cultural events in France in 1999, she presented her first collection of personal jewellery, made of historical silver pieces of the Berber tradition with her own additions. [6] One example is a silver disk with a traditional spiral pattern on one side and Agueznay's contemporary addition on the other side. The next year, she created another collection, with variations of hand-made textile buttons (aqad), commonly used for traditional caftans. [6]

In her first collection for the annual Kaftan fashion show in Morocco in 2003, she turned to materials such as rose petals, pieces of wood and cinnamon sticks and presented her jewellery together with fashion designer Noureddine Amir. [7] For the 10th edition of the Kaftan event in 2006, she made another collection entirely out of paper, inspired by her earlier work as an architect. [6] In 2010, she was one of the laureates of the Maison méditerranéenne des métiers de la mode (MMMM) (Mediterranean Institute for Fashion) in Marseille, and was awarded the Open My Med Prize. [8] The same year, she created an hommage to the French-Tunisian fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa in the shape of a large collier necklace of red and black strings and metallic elements. [2] [9]

As an artistic statement on environmental pollution, her 2012 collection was made out of burned plastic bags. According to M. Angela Jansen, she has often been misunderstood in Moroccan society for her unconventional ideas, and even accused of not being Moroccan. To such criticism, she has replied: "I could say for example that the red stones remind me of Marrakesh and the white ones of Casablanca. But even if so, it is an unconscious process and should not be used to justify the Moroccanness on my work." [6]

Her participation at the 2019 Biennale of Contemporary Art at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat was called Embody the Visible: Act the Invisible, in two acts. Tale of the unseen, of wool and silence and consisted of abstract structures of wool with embedded jewellery. [10] [2]

Based on her creations of weavings based on workshops using palm husks with Berber women from southern Morocco, Agueznay was awarded the 2024 Norval Sovereign African Art Prize. [11] [12]

Selected exhibitions

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transport in Morocco</span>

There are around 56,986 km (35,409 mi) of roads in Morocco. In addition to 1,808 km (1,123 mi) of highways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of Morocco</span>

The culture of Morocco is a blend of Arab, Berber, Andalusi cultures, with Mediterranean, Hebraic and African influences. It represents and is shaped by a convergence of influences throughout history. This sphere may include, among others, the fields of personal or collective behaviors, language, customs, knowledge, beliefs, arts, legislation, gastronomy, music, poetry, architecture, etc. While Morocco started to be stably predominantly Sunni Muslim starting from 9th–10th century AD, during the Almoravid period, a very significant Andalusi culture was imported, contributing to the shaping of Moroccan culture. Another major influx of Andalusi culture was brought by Andalusis with them following their expulsion from Al-Andalus to North Africa after the Reconquista. In antiquity, starting from the second century A.D and up to the seventh, a rural Donatist Christianity was present, along an urban still-in-the-making Roman Catholicism. All of the cultural super strata tend to rely on a multi-millennial aboriginal Berber substratum still present and dating back to prehistoric times.

Banque Commerciale du Maroc was a bank founded in 1911, shortly ahead of the establishment of the French protectorate in Morocco. The bank was initially controlled by France's Banque Transatlantique, then from 1941 by the Crédit Industriel et Commercial, and from 1988 by Morocco's ONA Group. In 2004, it merged with Wafa bank to form Attijariwafa Bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominic Besner</span> Canadian artist

Dominic Besner or "Besner" is a Canadian artist known for colourful and textured paintings of masked figures. His work was featured at the Canadian pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China, and Besner has exhibited throughout Canada, in United States, Mexico and Morocco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michèle Magema</span> Congolese-French artist

Michèle Magema is a Congolese-French video, performance, and photography artist. She currently resides in Nevers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Najia Mehadji</span> Franco-Moroccan artist

Najia Mehadji is an artist of Franco-Moroccan heritage who lives and works between Paris, France and Essaouira, Morocco.

Amina Id Abdellah is a contemporary Moroccan visual artist. She is known for her photo-realistic paintings and drawings of natural environments and phenomena.

Hassan El Mezouari El Glaoui (1923–2018) was a Moroccan figurative painter best known for his depictions of fantasia horsemen.

Faouzi Laatiris, is an artist who lives and works in Tétouan and Martil, in Morocco.

The Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech is a museum dedicated to the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent located in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Ikram Kabbaj is a Moroccan sculptor. Kabbaj primarily sculpts stone and marble.

Amina Benbouchta, is a Moroccan painter, photographer, and installation artist. She was educated in Canada and Paris, is recognized internationally for her contemporary artworks that concentrate on social issues regarding gender politics. Early in her career she headed the fashion and culture magazine Les Aligés. She was also part of the Collectif 212 group of artists and curators who dedicated themselves to supporting emerging contemporary art in Morocco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amina Zoubir</span> Contemporary artist, director, and video art curator

Amina Zoubir is a contemporary artist, filmmaker and performer from Algiers, Algeria. She is known as a feminist performer through video-actions entitled Take your place, which she directed in 2012 during the 50th anniversary of Algerian independence, aiming to question gender issues and conditions of women in Algerian society. She has worked with different art mediums such as sculpture, drawing, installation art, performance and video art. Her work relates to notions of body language in specific spaces of North Africa territories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Safaa Erruas</span> Moroccan 21st-century visual artist

Safaa Erruas, born in 1976 in Tétouan, is a Moroccan artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewellery of the Berber cultures</span> Traditional jewellery of Berber peoples in North Africa

Jewellery of the Berber cultures is a historical style of traditional jewellery that was worn by women mainly in rural areas of the Maghreb region in North Africa and inhabited by Indigenous Berber people. Following long social and cultural traditions, Berber or other silversmiths in Morocco, Algeria and neighbouring countries created intricate jewellery with distinct regional variations. In many towns and cities, there were Jewish silversmiths, who produced both jewellery in specific Berber styles as well as in other styles, adapting to changing techniques and artistic innovations.

Jean Besancenot,, born as Jean Girard, was a French painter, documentary photographer, and self-trained ethnographer, active mainly during the 1930s and 1940s in the French protectorate in Morocco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Jewellery Museum (Morocco)</span> Public museum in Rabat, Morocco

The National Jewellery Museum, in French Musée national de la Parure, of Morocco is an ethnographic museum, located in the former Musée des Oudayas in the country's capital Rabat. Along with the Kasbah of the Udayas, the museum's buildings and Andalusian-inspired gardens are part of UNESCO's World Heritage sites in Rabat. Opened to the public in January 2023, the museum attracted 40,000 visitors during the first week.

Chama Mechtaly is a Moroccan artist and activist based in Dubai.

References

  1. ↑ Alami, Aida (2015-03-27). "Amina Agueznay: a keen advocate of ancestral traditions". Financial Times. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  2. 1 2 3 "Interview : Amina Agueznay by Saveria Mendella and Khémaïs Ben Lakhdar". Fonds de Dotation. 2021-07-29. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  3. ↑ "Malika Agueznay - Biography". Loft Art Gallery - Casablanca. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  4. 1 2 "Amina Agueznay - artisan-creator". The Fabric Thread. 2020-06-10. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  5. ↑ "Amina Agueznay - Overview". Kristin Hjellegjerde. Retrieved 2022-02-10.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Jansen, M. Angela (2014-11-20). Moroccan Fashion: Design, Culture and Tradition. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 48–49. ISBN   978-1-4725-8919-4.
  7. ↑ Jansen, M. Angela (2015). "Une « modernité marocaine » à travers la mode". Le Maroc au présent: D'une époque à l'autre, une société en mutation (in French). Rabat: Centre Jacques-Berque. p. 354. ISBN   979-10-92046-30-4.
  8. ↑ "La Maison de la Création à Marseille, bientôt la 2ème session". FashionNetwork.com (in French). 2010. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  9. ↑ "Amina Agueznay – Maroc – MFP 2010". Fonds de Dotation (in French). 2021-03-27. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  10. ↑ Damani, Abdelkader ed. (2019). Un instant avant le monde Biennale d'art contemporain de Rabat, 24 septembre-18 décembre 2019. Rabat: Kulte Editions. pp. 48-49. ISBN 978-9954-9605-7-8
  11. ↑ Dehghan, Saeed Kamali (2024-02-28). "'It has the smell of the oasis': how palm husks became prize-winning Moroccan art". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-10-02.
  12. ↑ Sutherland, Callum (2024-02-19). "The Moroccan artist 'empowering' rural communities through her award-winning artwork". CNN. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.