I am very honored to present an art collection that is categorically different from all the previous ones exhibited in the Dar d’Art gallery.
This exhibition traces the story of a lifetime, that of Hassan Ouakrim, a traveler eager for adventure, a great artist and a knowledgeable collector with an extraordinary career.
A young illiterate Berber from his native Tafraout, he would become a great figure of the theater and a leader of a troupe of traditional Moroccan dances and songs, adored throughout New York.
In the mid-50s, which is rare for the time; he began his art collection with the acquisition of works by artists of the Beat Generation where, in Tangier, Jean Genet, Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Mohamed Hamri, Ahmed El Yacoubi, and so many others rubbed shoulders!
The works presented, imbued by this generation of artists, transport us out of time, into the atmosphere of a crazy Tangier of the 50s, a free and avant-garde world which would inspire future generations to come.