Following in the footsteps of a legend

Morocco's Jaafar Alj Hakim can talk the talk of any veteran ambassador: diplomacy, trade, cultural exchanges. But right now he'd rather talk about the beach.

"People obviously like the Kingdom's 3,500 km of coastline," he says, noting that the sunny sand and blue sea has a special appeal for the some 7,000 Chinese who visit every year.

"The imperial cities of Fez, Meknes, Marrakesh and Rabat show the heritage of the different dynasties that succeeded in Morocco and left a world of grandeur," he says, while coastal Agadir boasts a fine-sand bay, golf resorts, bird-watching and a leisurely escape from the workaday world.

Hakim notes that his thousand-year-old kingdom has a recorded history with China that goes back seven centuries, thanks to the legendary travels of Ibn Battuta. That Moroccan trader explored China during the 28 years he journeyed across the East, taking a scholarly interest in the Middle Kingdom. Ibn Battuta trekked more than 121,000 km, a figure unsurpassed by any individual explorer until the Steam Age made horses unnecessary 450 years later. His book has now been published in Chinese.

Twenty-one Chinese artists were invited to explore Morocco's history and culture in their work. Qiu Jun's paintings reflect the romance both peoples have with the horse. Zhao Biqin's colorful landscapes showcase "Moroccan women's love for their country and their expectations of a beautiful future".

Kong Fantao and Ma Dongqin capture street scenes in cool blues and greens, while Song Lin's oil painting depicts Ibn Battuta en route to China with "a sense of triumphalism".

The legacy of Ibn Battuta lingers today, measurable on the map. Most of the Moroccans in China today are not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. "We are still traders," he says with a smile.

In addition, about 250 Moroccan students study at universities around the country. When they finish their studies, Hakim says, they will enter the world economy with tremendous advantages, especially in China.

"Imagine, they come here already fluent in Arabic, in French and in English," the ambassador says. "Now they have a good education, they are trained in international business - and they speak Chinese. The opportunities are fantastic."

In Morocco, meanwhile, there are now Confucius Institutes teaching Mandarin at universities in both Rabat (since 2009) and Casablanca (2011), with a new one scheduled to open in Fez later this year, he says.

"Economic cooperation between the two countries has been growing,Laser engravers and laser engraving machine systems and supplies to start your own lasering cutting engraving marking etching business. with a trade volume that topped $3 billion in 2011," he says, a figure that makes China the third-largest supplier of Morocco and China's sixth-largest export destination in Africa. Morocco, for example, imports more green tea from China than any other nation. Telecommunications, infrastructure, mining, solar energy and fishing are important trade sectors between the two countries.

As ambassador,How cheaply can I build a solar power systems? he has traveled to "the four corners of China".Whilst the preparation of ceramic and porcelain tiles are similar. A sports and golf enthusiast, he enjoys exploring nature with his family, but he still has much of the continent-sized country to see.

That's helped him see tourism development between the countries as a two-way street. About 11,000 Moroccan tourists visited China in 2012. He's hoping that a direct flight, perhaps between Guangzhou and Morocco, can materialize as early as this year. Right now, getting to Morocco generally requires a stop in Paris first - not necessarily a hardship for a Francophone country.

"In Fez we have the oldest university in the world that is still operating," he says, and famous festivals include one for international religious music in February. "Morocco also has a road rally, something like the famous Dakar Rally, but just for women drivers," he says.

Visitors entering Agial Gallery nowadays may well be disturbed by the works they find on display there, an exhibition of 12 enigmatic oils by Nadia Safieddine, rather allusively entitled “Badroom.”

Safieddine’s is a palette dominated by blacks and dark reds, browns and grays. Even when juxtaposed with dabs of orange or yellow, green or blue, the effect of the artist’s brushwork is to mire these brighter hues within gloom.

One of her more unsettling works is “L’Ecorche III” (‘The Wounded Man III’), a 90x77 cm canvas whose central figure looks less a depiction of mortal injury than a skull whose skin and facial features have been ripped off completely. What remains is swaddled (or helmeted) in muddied cloth. If the term “miasma” could be given a visual representation,We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. this would be it.

Safieddine’s technique in portraying her figures is stunning. Layer upon muddy layer of oil paint is applied less with an eye to direct figuration than to create an organic mass from which figures can emerge. Figures and recognizable shapes seem to burst forth from the brushwork of their own accord.

The Lebanese artist divides her time between Berlin and Beirut, and her style is most evocative of the post-figurative work of expatriate Syrian artist Marwan – who happens to have been a long-term resident of Germany.

Safieddine would not be the first Lebanese artist to be influenced by Marwan’s relentless application of oil to canvas. It may be useful to contrast her work with that of Ayman Baalbaki. While Baalbaki has taken up Marwan’s explorations of post-figuration and adapted it to create works that ironically blend a decorative sensibility with a Civil War iconography, Safieddine’s subjects have no easy referent in the pop culture consciousness.

Her application of this cold, dark cacophony of color may or may not itself be disturbing, but it does leave one to wonder about the goings on in the “badroom” of the artist’s imagination.

Her 150x140 cm work “Aaah!” depicts a horrendous scene. A beefy man gazes straight at the onlooker as he appears to rip an ill-defined creature to pieces. The bottom of the canvas is dominated by shades of red, suggesting a bloody carnage is under way.

Like most of Safieddine’s figures, the face of this one is indistinct, with his wide-opened mouth being most discernable. One wonders whether the title is meant to invoke the sound of the character’s screaming, or that of the viewer while gazing at the painting.

You may also see some similarity between Safieddine’s style in this work and that of Francisco de Goya’s work “Saturn devouring his Children.”

If the title is to be believed, “Angry Me” (190x160 cm) depicts the artist herself. An odd-looking character sits, wearing what seem to be red bunny ears, holding a round item in its hands. Alongside is an unidentified black shape that (one assumes) could represent a headless torso.

Like “Aaah!” the background is rendered in horizontal strokes of color that range from pinks at the top of the canvas to black, red and dark blue at the bottom, as though these shades represent something oozing from the figure itself.

This red blotch can be seen as a leitmotif in Safieddine’s work. In “Dimitri” (160x145 cm), onlookers find a man standing, wearing a suit. The greenish vertical brushstrokes that make up the background wash suggest he’s surrounded by trees. A creature (rendered in the same tones as the background) lying at his feet has the aspect of a bear (perhaps a bearskin rug). The “floor” is, again, of a blood-red hue.

A companion piece to “Dimitri,We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day.” “Naked” (180x150 cm) represents the bestial in slightly different terms. Safieddine depicts the figure’s facial feature in terms not unlike the indistinct skull found in “L’Ecorche III.”

The figure’s features and posture suggest something ape-like or perhaps a cross between animal and human. Though the figure is not clothed in any discernable way, the piece seems uninterested in rendering physical nudity or any of the form’s aesthetic charms. Rather it is preoccupied with expressing a primordial violence, hostility or lust.