2018

Ilyes Griyeb’s photographs are the product of a double consciousness, in the manner of W.E.B. Du Bois or Frantz Fanon, thinkers of the African diaspora, who evoke the internal conflict and the dual-identity specific to minorities: this impression of always looking at oneself through the eyes of the other (the white man, the colonizer), often tinged with contempt or pity. This internalized fracture provides the photographer with a certain distance, and allows him to give meaning to the reality of individuals who  cannot alone find the means to formulate or represent themselves, either for lack of tools, or because their primary purpose is a desire to impress rather than be real, out of sheer pride. When asked why he chooses to create images in a world of visual over-stimulation, Griyeb replies: “Because I had never seen Morocco photographed as I had seen it. Images created of Morocco often come from seemingly outside viewers, even when they are Moroccan. There is a class distance that willingly creates an aestheticization or victimization of the subjects.” Contempt and pity, again. Yto Barrada, an established Morrocan multimedia artist, and a reference for Griyeb, offers a response to the question regarding her rapport with the city of Tangier, and perhaps it applies here: “I’m not exotic, I’m exhausted”. The question of identity is inevitably present in Griyeb’s practice; he is part of the first generation of Moroccan immigrant children able to access the artistic world. But his approach is not based on demand, it seeks to fill an iconographic void, creating a portrait of the Moroccan working classes without misery, without class differentiation, without exoticism, and without orientalism 2.0.