Fragmented Memory

By Mounir Fatmi

" A copy of the Koran. A photograph of a Moroccan King. A calligraphic painting.
These are the only three cultural objects remembered by mounir fatmi from his childhood home in 1970s Tangier – all of which vividly captured his imagination, but he was forbidden to touch. Fragmented Memory marks a rare autobiographical approach for the Paris-based multimedia artist, in which Fatmi takes these coveted objects as a starting point ‘to show how the few elements of culture I had in my childhood home has shaped my artistic research, my aesthetic choices and my entire career’, he says.
Fatmi adds that ‘in this show, I draw a direct relationship to language, to memory, and to history, because, for me, these three elements depend on one another: without language there is no memory and with no memory there is no history.’ "

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mounir Fatmi
• Release date: Nov 4, 2021

Mounir Fatmi

mounir fatmi is a visual artist born in Tangier, Morocco in 1970. He constructs visual spaces and linguistic games. His work deals with the desecration of religious objects, deconstruction, and the end of dogmas and ideologies. He questions the world and plays with its codes and precepts under the prism of architecture, language and the machine. He is particularly interested in the idea of the role of the artist in a society in crisis. mounir fatmi's work offers a look at the world from a different glance, refusing to be blinded by convention. He brings to light our doubts, fears and desires.He has published several books and art catalogs including: The Kissing Precise, with Régis Durand, La Muette edition, Brussels, 2013, Suspect Language, with Lillian Davies, Skira edition, Italy, 2012, This is not blasphemy, in collaboration with Ariel Kyrou, Inculte-Dernier Marge & Actes Sud edition, 2015, History is not Mine, SF Publishing, Paris, 2015, and Survival Signs, SF Publishing, Paris, 2017. He has also participated in the collective book, Letter to a young Moroccan, edition Seuil, Paris, 2009.He has participated in several solo and collective exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world including: Mamco, Geneva, The Picasso Museum, Vallauris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, N.B.K., Berlin, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, MAXXI, Rome, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, the Hayward Gallery, London, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.His installations have been selected in biennials such as the 52nd and the 57th Venice Biennial, the 8th biennial of Sharjah, the 5th Dakar Biennial, the 2nd Seville Biennial, the 5th Gwangju Biennial and the 10th Lyon Biennial, the 5th Auckland Triennial, Fotofest 2014, Houston, the 10th and 11th Bamako Encounters, as well as the 7th Biennale of Architecture in Shenzhen.mounir fatmi was awarded several prizes such as the Cairo Biennial Prize in 2010, the Uriöt prize, Amsterdam, the Grand Prize Leopold Sedar Senghor of the 7th Dakar Biennial in 2006 as well and he was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London in 2013.

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A copy of the Koran. A photograph of a Moroccan King. A calligraphic painting.

These are the only three cultural objects remembered by mounir fatmi from his childhood home in 1970s Tangier – all of which vividly captured his imagination, but he was forbidden to touch.

Fragmented Memory marks a rare autobiographical approach for the Paris-based multimedia artist, in which fatmi takes these coveted objects as a starting point ‘to show how the few elements of culture I had in my childhood home has shaped my artistic research, my aesthetic choices and my entire career’, he says. fatmi adds that ‘in this show, I draw a direct relationship to language, to memory, and to history, because, for me, these three elements depend on one another: without language there is no memory and with no memory there is no history.’

In Suspect Language (Goodman Gallery, 2012), fatmi’s first solo show in South Africa, the artist sort to construct visual and linguistic games aimed at freeing the viewer from their preconceptions of politics and religion to prompt new ways of seeing these structures.

Fragmented Memory expands on this objective, presenting thought-provoking recent work in a variety of mediums (sculpture, installation, photography), some of which use poetic text, to create what he calls ‘aesthetic traps’.

Almost 20 years ago, when fatmi was still in Morocco but about to move to France, the artist wrote a personal manifesto, titled the Coma Manifesto. It is made up of ‘very concentrated sentences that function like medicine’, fatmi says, ‘and started with the poetic and provocative statement: ‘My father has lost all his teeth, I can bite him now’.’ The document has since grown into a series of one-line warnings, remarks, instructions and advice that continue to inform and guide his practice.

In putting this show together, fatmi deviated from previous methods of referencing his manifesto, such as writing lines on gallery walls with black paint, and turns to sculpture to cut out three statements from metal plates for the first time. In this tri-part sculpture, letters have fallen out and