Mounir FATMI

Alexandra Marini I was surprised to read how you discovered art as a child, at the flea-market in Casabarata near where you lived. Can you tell us about this? Looking back, do you think it influenced your work?

Mounir Fatmi Yes, it was a powerful influence. The flea-market is a culture in its own right. There are aspects you find in other artistic trends or movements, like Arte Povera or ready-mades… the idea of re-using what has already had a life, and giving it a new status. Casabarata flea-market was very Dada! Tangiers is the closest place in Africa to Europe, and Moroccans living abroad used to bring back loads of things which ended up at the flea-market. You could find mountains of TVs, radios, etc… that was my first education. It’s something which has remain-ed with me ever since – this idea of choosing an object or viewing it differently, seeing how it had already had one life and could now have a second one, and become something else. That’s also where I discovered decorative art, as we didn’t have any works of art at home. To be blunt, we just had a piece of calligraphy and a nice black-and-white photograph of the King of Morocco. I told Jérôme Sans one day that, when I was a boy, I thought the King was part of the family but we weren’t clean enough to touch him, as you needed to be really pure and all that! So these were the elements of culture I had to create something with; and nearby was the flea-market, with all these great items – a real museum!