Comment l'art contemporain du sud de la Méditerranée est-il perçu et reconnu par les experts du monde de l'art occidental ? Telle la question à laquelle nous nous sommes intéressée. Pour y répondre, il nous a fallu comprendre les liens qu'entretiennent l'art et la mondialisation et discuter les apports des études culturelles et postcoloniales à ce sujet. A partir de ce questionnement initial nous avons rassemblé et étudié les discours hégémoniques intervenant dans le champ de la culture, des processus de négociations, des politiques de différences et des modes d'identification des artistes du Sud selon une vision ethnocentriste et identitaire. Pour mener à bien notre recherche, nous avons conduit deux études. La première porte sur une étude thématique des intitulés d'expositions internationales concernant l'art contemporain du sud de la Méditerranée (Europe et États-Unis de 1999 à 2014). Nous soutenons l'idée que les sujets d'expositions véhiculent un discours qui traduit des idées culturelles d'hégémonie occidentale et des orientations concernant le genre, l' ethnicité, la classe, confinant le statut de l'artiste sud-méditerranéen à un rôle «périphérique ». La seconde enquête qui est de nature compréhensive, traite des croyances des artistes du sud de la Méditerranée et de leurs positionnements par rapport aux marqueurs identitaires dans la construction de catégories ethniques. Quel regard portent-ils sur ces marqueurs, leur accordent-ils une certaine reconnaissance ? Cette étude a été conduite avant et après les mouvements révolutionnaires du printemps arabe. / How is contemporary art of the southern Mediterranean perceived and cognized by experts in the world of Western art ? It is this very question which actually interested us. To answer this, we had to understand the links between art and globalization and discuss the contributions of cultural and postcolonial studies related to this subject. From that initial question, we have gathered and studied hegemonic discourses involved in the field of culture, negotiation processes, differences policies and modes of identification of the artists from the South in an ethnocentric vision. To carry out our research, we conducted two studies. The first concerns a thematic study of the headings of international exhibitions on contemporary art from the south of the Mediterranean (Europe and the United States from 1999 to 2014). We support the idea that the subjects of exhibitions convey a discourse that reflects the cultural ideas of Western hegemony and trends concerning genre, ethnicity, class, confining the status of the southern Mediterranean artist to a "peripheral" role. The second survey which is comprehensive in nature, deals with the beliefs of the southern Mediterranean artists and their positioning in comparison with identity markers in the construction of ethnic categories. How do they perceive these markers, do they give them some recognition ? This study was conducted before and after the revolutionary movements of the Arab Spring.

This dissertation offers the first in-depth, socio-political history of the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tetouan. Organized into four chronological chapters, this study illustrates how generations of artists laid the groundwork for the development of modern and contemporary art in Morocco. My first chapter examines how the pedagogy of the Preparatory School of Fine Arts, founded in 1946 by Spanish painter Mariano Bertuchi Nieto, informed the Pictorial School of Tetouan, articulating myths of Andalusian nationalism, Hispano-Arab culture, and Hispano-Moroccan brotherhood. The role of arts and culture in Spain’s imperialist project is a lens for understanding how the colonial encounter and its afterlife affected Moroccan artists of the mid-twentieth century. My second chapter examines the post-independence period, between 1957, when the Preparatory School was re-inaugurated as the National School of Fine Arts by King Mohammed V, and the 1970s. Decades of Spanish colonialism resulted in the region’s socio-political, cultural, and economic marginalization and a disregard by scholars for seminal figures such as Ahmed Amrani, Saâd Ben Cheffaj, Meriam Maziane, Mekki Megara, and Mohamed Sarghini. I assert that rather than replicate colonial artistic styles, they were engaged in identity exploration and formal experimentations. The 1970s and 1980s in Morocco were recognized as the Years of Lead, a period of state-sponsored violence and oppression under King Hassan II, thus, in my third chapter, I delve into the work of artists responding to these tumultuous decades, such as Aziz Abou Ali, Mohamed Drissi, and Ahmed Amrani. Other artists openly reacted against the school’s marginalization and conservative pedagogy via the Spring Exhibitions, a series of five ephemeral outdoor exhibitions in al-Faddān square. Rebranded once more in 1994 as the National Institute of Fine Arts, the school has produced a generation of contemporary artists such as Mohamed Larbi Rahhali, Younès Rahmoun, and Safaa Erruas, who work primarily with Installation art and are socially and politically engaged. To that end, my fourth chapter highlights the decolonial artistic practices and pedagogical shifts introduced by innovators such as Abdelkrim Ouazzani, Mohammed Chabâa, and Faouzi Laatiris, who cultivated a more liberal artistic environment at the school. / 2029-03-31T00:00:00Z