Mous Lamrabat

Fashion and contemporary art have long maintained a form of exchange and dialogue, Just like photography and fashion. However, the relationship evolved in the early 1980s, when fashion designers and photographers were officially recognised as artists. It was profoundly transformed when the major luxury houses called on these fashionable designers. It must be said that this corresponded to the globalised evolution of the relationship with clothing and, beyond, with consumption. Everything becomes a brand, or it will no longer exist.
Mous Lamrabat is aware of all this . He observes it in his own way, but does not judge anything. He stages, with a scathing sense of humour, a world that is becoming absurd by dint of repeating codes and acronyms. He does this with a rare talent as a colourist, and knows how to create paintings that conjure surrealist echoes

It is not clear whether these are fashion photos, parodies of fashion photos, critical images of the world of fashion and consumption, creative stagings, or perhaps a little of all of these at once.
This Moroccan native who grew up and studied in Belgium also knows how to assert his culture of origin, by exacerbating its features, and its women, who have disappeared under shimmering veils, can go to McDonald’s, converse with young people in immaculate djellabas bearing a huge Nike “Swoosh”, walk in the desert or lean against the ochre of a cob wall. « I like to connect different parts of the world, namely ‘the West’ and ‘the East’ because I am both..»
Welcome to Mousganistan.

Christian Caujolle, Curator

It was during a trip to Morocco that he had a revelation, like a flash of light :
“Everything was there, right in front of me.”

He started to build a crowded universe, where nothing is forbidden and everyone starts to mix. The characters that emanate from his works go where they want, and become whoever they wish to embody. Ethno hangings with lunar landscapes, logos, balloons, hearts and flowers take us on an exotic journey; he shares his world, where imagination runs wild. With a transcultural mindset and his non-binary view of this world and how to navigate it, Mous Lamrabat breaks down barriers and spreads his doctrine of inclusion and diversity: “I am a citizen of the world.”