Collective Mirror

«The eye accomplishes the prodigy of opening to the soul that which is not soul, the blessed domain of things, and their god, the sun.» M. Merleau-Ponty

The Eye and the Sovereign, In his drawing entitled «Collective 

Mirror» Abdelaziz Zerrou offers both an aesthetic and political reflection on the history of modern Morocco. In 1953, when Sultan Mohamed Ben Youssef was sent into exile in Madagascar by the authorities of the French protectorate, many Moroccan citizens claimed to have seen his face on the moon. 

The artist makes this legendary anecdote the starting point of his plastic work: to draw the image of the sovereign on sandblasted mirror to duplicate the questioning and to question a collective mystico-political vision that the nationalists transformed into an instrument of resistance for the liberation of the country. 

Optical illusion or means of trompe-l’oeil, the artist alludes to the forces of perception and representation. Mind and eye, crossing and intertwining, give birth to a historical narrative that shapes and shares the collective memory of Moroccans.

It is thus a dialogue between political sovereignty and popular imagination that the artist places at the heart of the contemporary visual debate.