MOROCCO: Rabat art galleries open their doors late into the night to attract more visitors

Art galleries in Rabat open their doors until midnight for one day in a bid to attract more visitors and raise their profiles. A number of art galleries in Rabat kept their doors open to visitors until midnight for one day during the weekend in a bid to raise their profiles and encourage interest in visual arts in the Moroccan capital. The Moroccan Ministry of Culture has organised the initiative, dubbed "Galleries Night," now in its second year. "The aim behind organising this event is to create a cultural event and to draw attention to the visual arts in Rabat," said Mohammed Benyakoub, head of the visual arts department at the ministry, during the event on Friday (October 19). During "Galleries Night," art lovers are invited to spend the evening moving from one participating visual arts gallery to another, taking in works by local and international artists. "We are also hoping to encourage the visitors of one gallery to go to all the exhibition halls involved in the event, so that one gallery that usually would attract about one hundred visitors would tonight attract one thousand or one thousand five hundred visitors," Benyakoub added at Rabat's Bab Rouah Gallery, one of the dozen galleries participating in the event. Some of the Moroccan artists who created the works on display at the participating galleries were there on the night to talk to visitors and answer any questions they had about the works. "For me, this event is a good initiative that will lend more importance to galleries in general," said Moroccan artist Sahab Abdelaziz at the Bab Rouah Gallery. But one visitor who travelled more than 400 kilometres to attend the event had some reservations. "It would be nice if we could have many gallery nights like this instead of just the one night event, and I wish a whole night had been devoted to each individual gallery. This would allow more people to concentrate on one exhibition only and move to another exhibition the following day. I also hope that this kind of event will be held not only in Rabat but also in other cities such as Marrakech and Casablanca," said Seddik Rabbaj who travelled from Marrakech. But at the La Villa des Arts, one of the most famous art galleries in Rabat and one of the galleries participating in the event, curator Meryem Mouline Djerrari said galleries were open to the public for long hours and all that art lovers needed to do was visit them more often. "The galleries are always open. Villa des Arts, for example, is open six days a week and people can view the exhibited works," Djerrari said. "The originality of the Galleries Night is that it's a yearly convergence between the participating galleries that serve the city of Rabat," she added. Djerrari said she was delighted with the response from Rabat residents who came in droves to the modern exhibition hall, where no less than three artists were displaying their works. Art enthusiast and university student Sophia was impressed by the work of artist Narjisse El Joubari, displayed at the Caisse de Depot et de Gestion Gallery and Exhibition Hall, another of the galleries participating in the event. "I noticed that all the paintings remind us of our childhood and of our past. The artist meant to convey a message," Sophia said. Organisers said they were satisfied with the number of those who visited the participating galleries on Galleries Night, but added they hope the event will encompass a larger number of Rabat galleries and attract a bigger audience in future years.

ITN Source | October 22, 2007

Tags:. .reservations. .halls. .modern. .paintings. .often