Orange Moon, replica after the 1984 original, 1984
Mohamed Melehi
Loft Art Gallery
Yasmine Berrada never set out to run a gallery. Born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco, she studied at Université Paris Dauphine and built a career in asset management before stepping away when her first daughter was born. “I was unwell at the time, and I wanted to explore something new,” she recalled to Artsy. “When I look back now, I think the art found me, more than the other way around.”
Art has always been part of her life. Her father was an avid collector of Moroccan painting, and Berrada spent her first paycheck on an artwork. In 2009, she opened Loft Art Gallery with her sister Myriem in Casablanca’s Triangle d’Or district. Neither had formal art training, but both had inherited their father’s passion.
“We were driven above all by passion, and by the desire to create a space that reflected who we were,” she said. “Somewhere lively and accessible, where people could discover artists but also meet them, exchange with them and better understand their work.”
Some 17 years later, Loft has become a prominent champion of Moroccan modernism, helping bring the country’s artists to international audiences. In 2024, it became the first Moroccan gallery to exhibit at Art Basel.
This October in London, it will make its Frieze Masters debut with a solo presentation of works by Mohamed Melehi, a defining figure of the Casablanca Art School. The milestone comes just weeks after Loft opened a new space in its hometown.
Building a gallery—and an audience
When the sisters founded the gallery, Casablanca’s art scene was “much more intimate than it is today,” Berrada recalled. There were few institutions or galleries where audiences could encounter contemporary art, despite the city’s rich artistic history.
In the 1960s, artists Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Chabâa, and Melehi had transformed the local École des Beaux-Arts into a center for a radical new Moroccan modernism. Following independence from France in 1956, they rejected European academic conventions and colonial-era Orientalist imagery, instead drawing on local visual traditions, including Amazigh carpets, jewelry, and architecture. Their work helped forge a new artistic identity for Morocco.
Untitled, 2002
Farid Belkahia
Loft Art Gallery
Sans titre, 2003
Farid Belkahia
Loft Art Gallery
For Berrada, championing this history became central to Loft’s mission. The sisters built close relationships with the Casablanca Art School’s pioneers, organizing exhibitions and publishing research on their work. But establishing a gallery also meant cultivating an audience from scratch.
“We couldn’t simply exhibit work and wait for people to walk through the door,” she said. “We had to create curiosity.”
Many buyers were accustomed to purchasing directly from artists, often without considering how individual works might form a collection. The sisters sought to build “a real culture of collecting,” while fostering long-term relationships with artists. “It required a lot of energy,” Berrada said, “but it also gave us tremendous freedom.”
Bringing Moroccan modernism to the world
That commitment extended beyond Morocco. As Loft’s roster grew to include artists from across Africa and Europe, Berrada began introducing their work to international audiences. Over the years, the gallery has participated in fairs including Art Basel Qatar, Art Basel Paris, Paris Photo, The Armory Show, and Art Dubai, while maintaining a decade-long presence at 1-54 London. In 2024, its international endeavors made it one of Artsy’s breakout galleries of the year.
The Moroccan market has matured considerably, Berrada said; “10 or 15 years ago, we had to explain everything.” Yet she believes there is still work to do, particularly in securing international recognition for Moroccan artists and establishing the gallery’s role in sustaining their careers.
Untitled, 1967
Mohamed Melehi
Loft Art Gallery
That mission takes center stage at Frieze Masters, where Loft will present “Wave Forms,” a solo exhibition tracing Melehi’s signature wave motif from 1960 to 1980. Known for his vibrant, undulating abstractions, often painted in industrial cellulose paint on wood panels, Melehi developed a visual language that connected Moroccan traditions with international modernist movements.
The presentation begins with Untitled (1960), made during his years in Rome, when the wave was still emerging within his abstract compositions. Minneapolis (1962), created shortly after his move to the United States, marks another stage in his development. In 1963, Melehi exhibited alongside hard-edge painters at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Untitled, 1960
Mohamed Melehi
Loft Art Gallery
Loft has championed Melehi since its earliest days, when, Berrada recalled, “it wasn’t easy to sell his work or to position it in context, even in Morocco.” Today, his work belongs to collections including Tate, the Centre Pompidou, Mathaf, and the Institut du Monde Arabe. Yet Berrada believes his wider contribution remains underappreciated.
“There has been a huge evolution between how Melehi was seen when we started the gallery and how he’s seen now,” she said. “But internationally, and within art history, his work still needs to be fully established.”
For her, Frieze Masters offers an opportunity to place Melehi within a more expansive narrative. “His work goes far beyond the history of Moroccan art,” she said. “It belongs to a much broader history of modernism, and we want to show that.”
Untitled, 2021
Saâd Hassani
Loft Art Gallery
Untitled, 2026, 2026
Abdelkrim Ghattas
Loft Art Gallery
The fair debut follows the opening of Loft’s new Casablanca space with “Hamasāt al-Fajr,” a cross-generational exhibition bringing Moroccan modernists into dialogue with younger artists. The same week as Frieze Masters, Loft will also return to 1-54 London with works by Moroccan painter Amina Rezki and Ghanaian painter James Mishio.
“Exhibiting at Frieze and 1-54 at the same time is a challenge for a small team,” Berrada admitted, “but it was very important for us to keep presenting our artists at 1-54.”
Staying rooted in Morocco
Despite Loft’s growing international profile, Berrada remains deeply committed to Casablanca and Marrakech. Asked whether she would consider opening another gallery abroad, she was resolute. “First we need to be truly well rooted in Morocco,” she said. “I’m not going to open in a city because I have to, because it’s a trend, or because I hear it’s the place to be.”
Perhaps it is that rootedness that makes the international encounters so meaningful. Berrada describes the emotion of watching collectors in New York, Abu Dhabi, or London connect with a Moroccan artist’s work without knowing the artist or their country.
“A work can come from a very personal or local story and still speak to someone on the other side of the world,” she said. “At that moment, borders somehow disappear.”
Her ambition is for Loft to become “more and more of an essential international gallery while remaining true to who we are.” Yet her measure of success remains personal.
“I always say the greatest compliment someone in the art world can give me is to say they trust my eye.”
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/mok0AnK
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