MARRAKECH.- The city of Marrakech will be hosting the first edition of the Marrakech Art Fair from 9 to 11 October 2010. A platform for exchanges between gallery owners, artists, and collectors, this unprecedented artistic meeting ground is being organized by Hicham and Zineb Daoudi, and Brahim Alaoui.

For three days, some fifty galleries from Europe, Morocco , and the Arab world, seduced by this new international encounter, will meet at the Es Saadi Palace to present their discoveries.

On the agenda: modern art, contemporary art, and emerging scenes, during an ephemeral leisure staged amidst the patio and garden through works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries. Within special spaces called "Collectors' Villa", the Marrakech Art Fair is also offering a new exhibition concept with a dialogue between contemporary design, decorative arts, and modern art.

The Marrakech Art Fair will establish cultural and artistic synergy throughout the entire city with a programme of exhibitions and meetings offered by Brahim Alaoui.

The programme will emphasize the sharing of art with a diversified audience. The fair will make it possible to discover places having ties to the history of Marrakech and open up foundations and artists' studios to a broad audience, thereby offering them an international forum.

"Resonance: contemporary Moroccan artists across the world"
The Marrakech Museum, founded by art patron Omar Benjelloun and presided over by his spouse Mrs. Naima Benjelloun, is a 19th century riad located in the heart of the Marrakech medina. It will be part of the programme and will host the exhibition entitled "Resonance: contemporary Moroccan artists across the world", which will consist of contemporary Moroccan artists from the diaspora.

This exhibition will offer 15 artists of Moroccan origin living in Europe and the American continent, who use various types of media: painting, drawing, installation, video, and photography, and who are creating new images connecting the two cultures.

These are primarily artists who, through their individual backgrounds and talents, think of identity and otherness—the here and there—as driving forces for inventiveness and cultural diversity.

They include, for instance, Chourouk Hriech, Mohamed El Baz, Mounir Fatmi, Bouchra Khalili, and Malik Najmi.

"Images of oneself", photography and video by contemporary Arab artists
Other locations are being associated with this event, such as the Dar Bellarj Foundation which will host the exhibition "Images of oneself". The idea is, for once, to leave behind the unilateral perspective of images conveyed by the media in favour of a more intimate view of the Arab world, and to adopt the point of view of those who inhabit it, who live everyday, and sometimes through their memory.

"Images of oneself" is a photography and video exhibition from a selection of contemporary Arab artists who bring a unique look at the reality and imagination of the world surrounding them. An unveiling of the intimate, documentary distance, political questioning, or plastic experimentation, the proposed exhibition bears witness to the diverse approaches of a new generation of creators enamored with a new image culture. Here we will find works by Meriem Bouderbala, Faisal Samra, and Youssef Nabil.

"In the shade of the Palaver Tree"
Dar Cherifa, one of the oldest riads in the medina dating back to the end of the 15th century and now restored and converted into a literary café, has become a meeting place in the heart of the Red City . It is offering for this occasion a thematic exhibition on the dialogue between artist Farid Belkahia and poet Adonis.

Here and there, the cultural effervescence around the Marrakech Art Fair…

• The Al Maqam artist residence, located in Tahannaout in the Marrakech surroundings, will open its doors to the fair's audience.

• The Fourtou Foundation will also be welcoming the Marrakech Art Fair visitors.

• Also worth discovering: private collections in unique residences to share the passion that their owners feel for contemporary art.

• Round tables will be organized in the lounges of the Es Saadi Palace with reflection themes focusing on the contemporary art market and emerging Arab scene, and on globalization issues, including professionals and people involved with the international art market and the Arab world.

• Lastly, a symposium on art education will be organized in partnership with the Marrakech Graduate School of Visual Arts.