MOROCCO MAGIC - Modern Ceramics

Green Room, Weltkulturen Labor, Schaumainkai 37

In March 2012, artist and curator Shane Munro travelled to Morocco on behalf of the Weltkulturen Museum. There he commissioned the workshop 'Morocco Magic' in Salé to produce a series of ceramics based on inventory cards from the archives of the Museum. These cards, which date back to the turn of the last century, feature watercolours of Moroccan objects that were subsequently destroyed in World War II. These new artworks are ‘ethnographic restorations’. The potters from ‘Morocco Magic’ have translated the original 2D drawings into 3D objects, resembling a children’s pop-up version of the archival cards. 

In the Green Room, these ceramics are exhibited alongside a new set of museum inventory cards painted by Shane Munro. Here Munro represents the plates currently on sale at Morocco Magic’s shop in Salé. His ‘inventory cards’ feature the object with its price tag. No further information is provided. The watercolours are framed and mounted onto 'green screen' hand-woven cactus silk, purchased in Rabat, Morocco.

The installation in the Green Room includes furniture kindly provided by Frank Landau. The ceramics are presented in a ‘Süschala Vitrine’ from Zuffenhausen, Stuttgart, and on glass and brass side-tables from the 1960s.

Works by Simon Popper, based on other museum inventory cards of objects destroyed in World War II, are currently on display in the Weltkulturen Museum’s main exhibition ‘Object Atlas – Fieldwork in the Museum’.

The ceramics in the exhibition were crafted by Abdelkabir Bariss (potter)and Abdenabi Bellaj (decorator). The production was supervised by Ahmed Benmostapha (workshop owner) at Morocco Magic, Salé, Morocco.

Special thanks go to Dr. Muneera Salem-Murdock (Country Director, MCC, Morocco), for facilitating Shane Munro’s research in Morocco. We would like to thank Frank Landau, Frankfurt (franklandau.com), for lending the Museum designer furniture for the exhibition.