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Renowned French Artist Exhibits at Marrakesh’s Biennale

March 18, 2016 By Mary Stucky

By DANIELLE DOUGLAS, KELSEY HANSON, and OLY ZAYAC

Photos by WESLEY LICKUS

Since facing eviction from his Paris home in October, Alain Le Yaouanc has embarked on a great journey. As an event he wishes to look past, his eviction has provoked his artistic expression.
Since facing eviction from his Paris home in October, Alain Le Yaouanc has embarked on a great journey. As an event he wishes to look past, his eviction has provoked his artistic expression.

MARRAKESH, Morocco—Even before introducing himself, Alain le Yaouanc, 76, sets off on a whirlwind monologue about the

human life and what has shaped his own. The disheveled but dignified Parisian artist, standing at the Marrakesh Biennale Art Festival between walls adorned with his large, graphic works, has been on the international art platform since the age of 17.

“I’ve been becoming better than I was,” he says, “I’ve been becoming impatient to be ten years older.” He has produced over 460 drawings in Paris since 2014 alone, and says he doesn’t create art based on any given theme, but, instead, focuses on the way he feels in the present.

In his most recent months, Le Yaouanc has created over 460 new drawings. He draws inspiration from whatever motive touches his spirit.
In his most recent months, Le Yaouanc has created over 460 new drawings. He draws inspiration from whatever motive touches his spirit.

Le Yaouanc, whose artistic genius has been recognized by renowned French poet Alain Bousquet, is currently showing at Matisse Art Gallery in Marrakesh as a part of the Biennale Art Festival. Throughout his career, his work has been shown alongside some of the greatest and most influential artists in the world, including Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. A sampling of his 1960’s collection is now on exhibit at the Biennale alongside the works of artists like French-Moroccan photographer Leila Alaoui, Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Abdelkarim and Omani contemporary artist Radhika Khimji.

The festival, founded in 2004, is an annual government-funded event lasting from February to May. It brings together international artists to, according to the Festival website, “build bridges between the cultures through the arts.”

Le Yaouanc’s art has crossed borders and been shown in locations around the globe—from Strasbourg to Warsaw to New York. Today, he lives and works out of his home studio in Paris.

He places his worn hands over freshly printed exhibit information posters. He quickly reads them out loud, scouring the words for errors, with none found he plasters them to the wall of the Matisse Art Gallery where he is currently displaying his work.
He places his worn hands over freshly printed exhibit information posters. He quickly reads them out loud, scouring the words for errors, with none found he plasters them to the wall of the Matisse Art Gallery where he is currently displaying his work.

“What I’m drawing?” he questions aloud when asked about his current projects. From behind his whispy gray beard, le Yaouanc replies to his own question: “What comes to my spirit. Qui vient a mon esprit.” This spirit, says le Yaouanc, has no outside inspiration nor direct path.

“Inspiration—I don’t care for this word,” he mumbles in a low, soft voice.

As for what the future will hold, Le Yaouanc is unsure. He has no intention of slowing down however, and, with a stern yet determined stare, exclaims he will be back.
As for what the future will hold, Le Yaouanc is unsure. He has no intention of slowing down however, and, with a stern yet determined stare, exclaims he will be back.

“What inspires me is who I am and what I feel,” le Yaouanc says. “All of that comes from within and not outside.” In this regard, the artist appears self-sustained by the art he creates—which he is producing in stride.

Le Yaouanc glances at a portrait of himself hung on the white walls of the gallery.

“It’s a very beautiful photograph,” he says pridefully, motioning towards the portrait. “You see me between watercolors and photographs.”

In the image, he is hidden among hordes of finished and unfinished pieces, barely visible in his old apartment in central Paris, from which he was evicted in 2014. “I think that it’s very good for the author to be with his work. I am able to live with all the stuff I have so I may be able to see what I did 30 and 40 years ago—it makes me think about what I’m going to do in the future.”

As for what is to come, le Yaouanc has a great deal left to create. He plans to continue to exhibit his work in the coming years, and will be not be retiring any time soon.

“So I never finish, I never begin,” he says. “C’est curieux, I’m always doing.”

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Reporting Morocco is produced by U.S. university students on an SIT Study Abroad program called Morocco: Field Studies in Journalism and New Media. They are mentored by veteran journalists from The New York Times, The Associated Press, and Round Earth Media in a program applying technology and global consciousness to produce high-impact journalism on vital social issues.

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