Horizon(s) en mouvement: A Century of Artistic Quests in Morocco, 1920 to 2020

Horizon(s) en mouvement (Shifting Horizon(s)), the permanent exhibition of the Musée Mohammed VI d'Art Moderne et Contemporain in Rabat, traces a century of Moroccan art from 1920 to 2020. Inaugurated on 26 June 2025 during the fourth Night of Museums and Cultural Spaces, it remains on view as the museum prepares its autumn programme.

Marking the museum's tenth anniversary, the display returns to the subject of MMVI's inaugural exhibition of October 2014, but this time draws mainly on the museum's own collection, which has grown to more than 500 works. Nearly 200 of them are on show, curated by Hind El Ayoubi, deputy curator of MMVI, with Salima El Aissaoui curating the final section.

The route is chrono-thematic for its first two sections, 1920 to 1950 and 1950 to 1960, then turns transversal from the 1960s onward. The museum describes a Moroccan modernity shaped by its own internal dynamics, "phenomena of resistance, hybridization, and critical reinterpretations of tradition", rather than by European models. Around ninety artists feature, from the pioneer Mohammed Ben Ali R'bati and Jacques Majorelle to Jilali Gharbaoui, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Chaïbia Talal, Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Chabâa, Mohamed Melehi and Malika Agueznay.

The closing section, Universal Horizons: Incorporations, covers the 1980s to 2000s and spills into the museum's open spaces, paying tribute to pioneers of installation, contemporary sculpture, performance and conceptual photography in Morocco, with artists such as Hassan Hajjaj, Lalla Essaydi, Hassan Darsi, Mohamed El Baz and Mahi Binebine.

The scenography follows a chromatic palette that moves symbolically from dawn to the present, and includes a video-mapping installation on the history of Moroccan painting and a 3D colouring workshop for young visitors. The title's bracketed "s", the museum explains, holds together a shared quest for an autonomous modernity and the diversity of individual paths.