Moroccan Art Museums and Memories of Modernity

In speaking of contemporary African art, scholars often focus on the global and the transnational aspects of the works themselves. The main questions that drive this chapter are thus: What spaces exist for modern and contemporary art in Morocco? What spaces exist that remember the local art history that has lead to the present moment? What does it mean to invest in or disinvest in the modern as a category of memory? Moroccan artists and critics agree that a modern art museum must be more than an empty edifice, an artificial import, or a symbolic collection. Local interests were taken into account and invited to set the agenda. And perhaps most importantly for the purpose of the chapter, Ardouin argued that “contemporary African art is a legitimate category of cultural heritage and should be collected by African museums”.