“Usually when something interests me, I’m not able to clarify at first why I’m interested in it. And so that effort to articulate that interest – that’s the work. I haven’t been able to express myself or articulate myself with words as well as I would like to, and I think that has to do with being here for ten years, and being English as a second language, and feeling a little bit like I’m losing a little bit of my first language, which is a very strange feeling. I’ve always been in between languages, and I found that developing this practice that pulls from so many different languages… mixing it all together has allowed me to hit the right note, in my own way.” — Meriem Bennani
One of the most delightful discoveries of the 2019 Whitney Biennial was the sculptural videos of the young Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani (b. 1988, Rabat Morocco). For Bennani, the way she moves between and combines the languages of sculpture and video reflects her upbringing and education, while using humor to disarm serious conversations about postcolonialism and international diasporas. In this video from Art21, Bennani discusses her Biennial participation as she prepares for a solo gallery exhibition at Clearing in Brooklyn.
From Art21:
At work installing her solo exhibition at CLEARING gallery in Brooklyn, artist Meriem Bennani chronicles a recent set of ambitious video installation works, unpacking her uniquely humorous and political mix of digital animation, documentary footage, and interactive sculpture.