Hamid El Kanbouhi was born in Larache (Morocco) in 1976. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld
Academy, the Sandberg Institute and the Rijksacademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam.
Hamid El Kanbouhi: “I was born in Larache (Morocco). When I was nineteen I moved to The
Netherlands and stayed here to develop myself. I am interested in people, communication and social
interaction. After a one year language course I started studying at the Social Academy, but soon I
decided to apply for art academy. Since then I am an artist.”
I draw and paint people. My work is an open laboratory with many possibilities. Sometimes I make
huge installations that represent ordinary situations.
For one of my last works I reconstructed the
living room of friends of mine in a museum and iinvited them to live in this ‘museum living room’
for a couple of hours per day. For another work I created a Moroccan café in an exhibition space and
asked the customers of the actual café to come over, drink tea and play Ludo.”
His work is exhibited frequently, in The Netherlands and abroad. In the summer of 2013 he
participated in the Biennale of Marrakech in Morocco. In 2015 a painting of Hamid was aquired by
the Saatchi collection and it was included in the exhibiton 'Pangaea II – New Art from Africa and
Latin America' at Saatchi Gallery London. In fall 2015 Hamid El Kanbouhi will present a curated
solo show at SWAB Barcelona (curator : Eva Barois de Caevel), and in 2016 he will have his third
solo show at Galerie Van De Weghe
Hamid El Kanbouhi - Hakkendak - Oil on canvas (2011) - 200x200cm
Eva Barois De Caevel - Hello Hamid, I am very interested in some
features of contemporary painting in which you can find, encapsulated into a
strong aesthetics, images that are — and it is a feeling conveyed by the artworks themselves — political. And even if you have no clue of the
way they are political, or of what specific events or thoughts they may refer
to. That is a feeling I have in front of your work. Can you tell me if I am
right and give me some clues?
Hamid El Kanbouhi - The viewer is always right, as long
as the artwork is a measure for his interpretative ability.
I try to be and stay an independent
spirit who takes every liberty I consider necessary in order to depict what I want.
My curiosity and need for communication are the guiding lights. I refuse to
restrict me to familiar means of expression. I work with every media, including
non-visual tools such as text and sound. I am not there to give the viewer
aesthetic gratification. I consider beauty as a concept that has less to do
with the eye than with the soul. The traditional boundaries between high and
low art, whatever they may be, do not exist in my work. I don’t take notice either of the rules, customs and rituals of the various
cultures. I bend art historical traditions to my own, individual will.
Established facts are there to be tested.
I am fascinated by mathematics,
physics, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, theology, history, and everything
what has to do with 'man' and 'life'. But I choose deliberately to be an
artist, not a politician or scientist or philosopher, I am an observer of the
human condition, I am not a messenger, but I am looking for the dimensions of a
question. I don't want to show you what my work is about, but I try to make you
a part of it.
EBDC- I am particularly interested, for
instance, in the way you represent women from North Africa (and its diaspora I
assume), in your paintings or in your videos (for instance in Mobiel,
2012), which is an obvious issue in the Western world today, and a place of
major conflicts, critics and misunderstandings. Is there something you would
like to say about it?
HEK- The point of departure for the video
installation Mobiel is a story that called up questions in my mind about
the interrelations among culture, tradition, technology and privacy, and
various social-cultural interpretations of these concepts. On the basis of
these questions, I searched YouTube videos of dancing Arab women. I focused on
collecting videos that show women who use YouTube as a mirror and a door to a
new world with different rules about privacy. Viewers are invited to immerse
themselves in these worlds of reflection, and reflect themselves on reflection.
I represent art in an objective,
transparent, conflicting, humoristic and cruel way, simply art without color or
border. Personal interests, framing, folklore, espionage and conservation of
heritage, all those belong to other professions. My profession is art, I make
art, I am an artist.
Hamid El Kanbouhi - Preek - Oil on canvas (2010) – 170x200cm
EBDC- I know that your practice also
includes installation, video, performance, and drawing: what is the relation of
your work of painting with these other mediums? What is the history of your
relation to these different mediums?
HEK- I employ no rules or codes during
the making of an art work, each work creates its own instruction manual, the
factor that holds together all the resources that are used to create a complex
art work (including the viewer) is 'communication'. The viewer is also looked
at, every scratch on my work assesses the spectator. I am not a kind of masseur
who wants to relax your brain.
EBDC- I love very much the dominance of
black and white in your paintings. It is beautiful and powerful: is it
something that is present in you work since its beginnings? Is there a special
signification (conceptual and/or aesthetical) in this way of representing
things?
HEK- I would like to skip this question.
I don't want to disturb your view with my banality...
EBDC- As you may know, when asked by the
fair to create a new program focusing on “African artists” I decided to propose a selection
that would challenge the notion itself of “African artists” (for instance by questioning the
geographical existence of this notion — by including the Caribbean, the diaspora, etc. —, or by questioning the assumed notion of "Black artist" behind this category
of "African artists"). I also decided to impose myself another «category» (to reflect on the first and imposed one) by choosing to focus on
painting. Is it something you wish to comment (of course, you don’t have to and you have the right not to care!)?
HEK- As long as there are no African,
Asiatic or South American academies that completely deliver themselves in
writing their own art history, there is no African, Asiatic or South American
art. Art is a profession, a human profession. There is a huge difference
between art and theater, cinema, folklore. A dentist may not operate your eye!
Today more art professionals than
ever come from Africa and the Caribbean: it is a logical development. I think
that all nations are equally creative.
EBDC- I don’t know precisely what your personal history is, but have you ever been
seen/invited/desired as the “African
artist” and what kind of experience was it?
Do you have the feeling that your painting is “from” somewhere, and how (because of the iconography
within it, because of the places where you studied and what are your
influences, etc.)?
HEK- I make Kanbouhian work. Nothing
else.