Hassan Hajjaj

Born in Larache, Morocco, in 1961, Hassan Hajjaj moves to London in the 1970’s. The artist became fascinated by the club, hip-hop, and reggae scenes of London as well as by his North African heritage; his artistic practice reveals his capacity to bridge British and Moroccan cultures.

Hajjaj is a self-taught and thoroughly versatile artist whose work includes portraiture, installation, performance, fashion, and video. Turning to photography in the late 1980s, Hajjaj is a master portraitist, often styling his models who are friends, musicians, and artists, or strangers. These colorful and engaging portraits combine the visual vocabulary of contemporary fashion photography and pop art, as well as the studio photography of African artists. Front Back at La Mamounia is a unique diptych from La Mamounia series, a project Hassan conducted in 2016 as part of a commission for La Mamounia. Hassan worked in a suite of the famous venue and used it as a backdrop showcasing the outfit he made for this group of Moroccan creative.