The space in-between – The Photography of Majida Khattari

Abstract

The Moroccan artist Majida Khattari uses photography, installations and fashion shows as a means of establishing a provocation/reflection on the role of the veil in the Muslim world and in the Western imagination. In the series of photographs called Orientalismes, the artist recreates the paintings of Delacroix in a subversive way. The relationship with Delacroix’s work goes beyond the mere thematic issue and can be further developed. Paul Jamot, in speaking about the work of Delacroix in Documents No. 5, 1930, says that any theme in the artist’s hands becomes a form of revelation and a tragic vision, both in the desperate gestures of fighting men, as in the apparent looseness of the young captive. The use of Orientalist images in Delacroix, by Majida Khattari, absorbs both the tragic sense and the idea of the image as a means of perpetuating and universalizing everyday gestures. The veils, which in her works hide and reveal, function as mechanisms which make visible what is supposed to be hidden. This is the procedure used in her showsinstallations that create the boundaries of an ambiguous space between the Self and the Other. Between what is seen and what is shown.