Every death comes too soon, but the news of Mohamed Melehi's passing away feels especially painful. The 84-year-old Moroccan artist was in the midst of enjoying a spate of opportunities and attention that had resulted in new paintings. A solo exhibition of his bright, graphic paintings opened last year at the Mosaic Rooms in London then travelled to the Museum of Contemporary African Art Al Maaden in Marrakech and is currently on show at Concrete in Alserkal Avenue. He was taken on by the Dubai gallery Lawrie Shabibi, who brought his work to their presentation at Cromwell Place in London earlier this month. A show about the Casablanca Group, which he was part of, was co-organised by the Sharjah Art Foundation and the kW Institute for Contemporary Art earlier this year.
His bright, signature waves were back across the canvasses, in overlapping, undulating stripes of colour that spoke of the joy of sun and sea and a thrilling to colour and design. Like so many in 2020, Melehi fell ill with coronavirus. He was admitted to a hospital in Paris and did not recover.
Melehi was born in Asilah, a small coastal town near Tangier in Morocco. He studied via scholarships at a number of institutions: first at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tétouan, in northern Morocco, and then at fine arts academies in Seville, Madrid, Rome, and Paris. In 1962, he was invited to teach at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The cold Midwestern city must not have been for him; he transplanted quickly to New York after scooping a scholarship to Columbia University, where he stayed for two years. The city was immensely influential on his work. Paintings from that time memorialise New York’s music and artistic scene, but at the same time accounts state that Melehi also remained convinced of the exceptionality of Morocco. The country was on the verge of remaking itself and, Melehi felt, had an opportunity to follow a non-European model.
A Casablanca full of energy
When he returned from his studies, according to the Cold War terms of the Rockefeller Foundation scholarship, he found a Casablanca full of energy. Politically, the city oscillated between a feeling of the freedom of a newly independent country – having left the French in 1956 – and the unpopularity of King Hassan II. A spirit of political engagement, cultural nationalism, and excitement prevailed.
In his own work, Melehi married the hard-edged geometric painting of New York with traditional Amazigh motifs. His signature waves, in a variety of colours, were also deeply spiritual in nature.
A school of fashion designers emerged, updating tribal designs in new fabrics, tweaking traditionally male designs to allow women to wear them, and helping to establish the kaftan as an international trend in the decades to come. Fareed Belkahia, at the head of the Casablanca School of Fine Arts, moved the French-established institution away from easel painting and towards techniques and styles drawn from vernacular visual culture. Melehi joined the faculty as professor from 1964 to 1969, and he, Belkahia and Mohamed Chabaa became known as the Casablanca Group. Inspired by the Bauhaus in Germany, the three pushed forward interdisciplinary ideas of pedagogy and creation, integrating painting, craft, architecture and design.
In his own work, Melehi married the hard-edged geometric painting of New York with traditional Amazigh motifs. His signature waves, in a variety of colours, were also deeply spiritual in nature. They reflected his interest in the four elements of earth, water, air and fire, as well as the movement of the beaches in Morocco, the undulation of Arabic calligraphy, and offered in their repetition, as Holiday Powers writes in the Mathaf Encyclopedia entry on his work, a route towards transcendental meditation and prayer.
Famously, the Casablanca Group brought art out of the studio and gallery and on to the street. In 1969, snubbing an art salon elsewhere in the city, the group assembled an exhibition in Marrakech's Jemaa el-Fna Square, hanging their paintings outside for a week so they could be seen directly and easily by the public. Melehi's democratic beliefs extended even to his choice of materials: in the 1960s he swapped the painterly acrylic for cellulose car paint. And he pursued graphic design and publishing as means to reach new and wider audiences. He created the first, iconic cover of a sun for Souffles, the radical journal that ran from 1966–72, amid the heights of radical solidarity movements, and in the mid-70s he directed the journal Intégral. His publishing imprint, Shoof, created commercial graphic design work and art books throughout the 1970s.
He also contributed to the art infrastructure in Morocco. In the late 1970s he and the politician Mohamed Benaissa, who was also born in Asilah, established the Al Mouhit Cultural Association and the Asilah Moussem Festival of the Arts, in the pair’s home town, known for its murals and youth engagement. (The festival is still running.) In the 1980s and 90s, he was the director of arts for the Ministry of Culture and later a cultural consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
His recent success returned international focus to his artwork. The paintings he newly created retain the verve and energy of his early work, reflect the joy that the addition of colour to the world can produce: a message of optimism that is the legacy of the extraordinary artist’s career.
Expo details
Expo 2020 Dubai will be the first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia
The world fair will run for six months from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021.
It is expected to attract 25 million visits
Some 70 per cent visitors are projected to come from outside the UAE, the largest proportion of international visitors in the 167-year history of World Expos.
More than 30,000 volunteers are required for Expo 2020
The site covers a total of 4.38 sqkm, including a 2 sqkm gated area
It is located adjacent to Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai South
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
Key changes
Commission caps
For life insurance products with a savings component, Peter Hodgins of Clyde & Co said different caps apply to the saving and protection elements:
• For the saving component, a cap of 4.5 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 90 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• On the protection component, there is a cap of 10 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 160 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• Indemnity commission, the amount of commission that can be advanced to a product salesperson, can be 50 per cent of the annualised premium for the first year or 50 per cent of the total commissions on the policy calculated.
• The remaining commission after deduction of the indemnity commission is paid equally over the premium payment term.
• For pure protection products, which only offer a life insurance component, the maximum commission will be 10 per cent of the annualised premium multiplied by the length of the policy in years.
Disclosure
Customers must now be provided with a full illustration of the product they are buying to ensure they understand the potential returns on savings products as well as the effects of any charges. There is also a “free-look” period of 30 days, where insurers must provide a full refund if the buyer wishes to cancel the policy.
“The illustration should provide for at least two scenarios to illustrate the performance of the product,” said Mr Hodgins. “All illustrations are required to be signed by the customer.”
Another illustration must outline surrender charges to ensure they understand the costs of exiting a fixed-term product early.
Illustrations must also be kept updatedand insurers must provide information on the top five investment funds available annually, including at least five years' performance data.
“This may be segregated based on the risk appetite of the customer (in which case, the top five funds for each segment must be provided),” said Mr Hodgins.
Product providers must also disclose the ratio of protection benefit to savings benefits. If a protection benefit ratio is less than 10 per cent "the product must carry a warning stating that it has limited or no protection benefit" Mr Hodgins added.
FIGHT%20CARD
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UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
BRIEF SCORES
England 228-7, 50 overs
N Sciver 51; J Goswami 3-23
India 219, 48.4 overs
P Raut 86, H Kaur 51; A Shrubsole 6-46
England won by nine runs
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Name: Colm McLoughlin
Country: Galway, Ireland
Job: Executive vice chairman and chief executive of Dubai Duty Free
Favourite golf course: Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club
Favourite part of Dubai: Palm Jumeirah
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
THE%20HOLDOVERS
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Analysis
Maros Sefcovic is juggling multiple international trade agreement files, but his message was clear when he spoke to The National on Wednesday.
The EU-UAE bilateral trade deal will be finalised soon, he said. It is in everyone’s interests to do so. Both sides want to move quickly and are in alignment. He said the UAE is a very important partner for the EU. It’s full speed ahead - and with some lofty ambitions - on the road to a free trade agreement.
We also talked about US-EU tariffs. He answered that both sides need to talk more and more often, but he is prepared to defend Europe's position and said diplomacy should be a guiding principle through the current moment.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950