El jueves fui a la inaguración de la nueva exposición de la galería Berenberg, donde estuve practicando el año pasado. La muestra está compuesta por una serie de dibujos de Abdellah Ram Ram, uno de los artistas más interesantes y genuinos que conozco. Abajo incluyo un pequeño resúmen de la vida y trabajo de Ram Ram que adapté de uno de mis ensayos de la uni para Wikipedia. Me van a borrar el artículo de Wikipedia pronto (no se pueden colgar artículos que se basen solamente en investigaciones personales) así que sólo me queda el blog para promover la obra de este talentosísimo artista. Ojalá les guste tanto como a mí. Si quieren ver más de sus trabajos les recomiendo que visiten www.berenberggallery.com.
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Ram Ram was born to a humble family in Casablanca, Morocco in 1966. After completing a bachelor in Arabic and French literature, he immigrated to England in 1988, where he worked in the catering business. In the year 2000, Ram Ram moved to the United States. Again, he became involved in the catering business. The situation proved to be harder than what he expected and he ended up in a Salvation Army Shelter. Nonetheless, nurtured by Salvation Army programs and the Webster House in Brookline, he participated in various group exhibitions. Through Webster House he met Lorri Berenberg, the director of Back Bay’s Berenberg gallery, who started representing him and exhibiting his work regularly in her establishment. He had a solo exhibition there on 2006 entitled “Abdallah Ram Ram: A Dance in Time.”
Ram Ram’s work is reminiscent of textile work and the Islamic horror vacui. He uses geometric forms as organizing elements and Arab calligraphy as a decorative element, celebrating the beauty of the shapes and the style itself, not the meaning of words. His work relates to Moroccan tribe’s belief in animism and their emphasis in protection. Nonetheless, Ram Ram also introduces Judeo-Christian symbols, his respect for women, and expresses contemporary themes like urban alienation. His most famous series showcase trees, Adam and Eve, the hand of Fatimah, and several female portraits.
The artist makes minute circular patterns with ball point pen on paper or sometimes wood. Even though he uses other marks (like for example stylized Arab calligraphy), these interconnected circles constitute the basic structure of his work. Ram Ram describes them as cells—the basic unit of the human body, the most universal of things, something that unites us all. This obsessive mark-making also reflects a very intimate, personal process. Like a Muslim praying to the Mecca or a Catholic saying the rosary in church, Ram Ram approaches art in a very repetitive, almost ritualized manner.
Moroccan artists see the act of decoration as more than just a creative process; they consider it a meditative practice. They emphasize the “blac Coeur”—the amount of love and labor that they put into their work—and believe that their work is infused with “baraka”—“the positive influence of the saints and the Sufi brotherhood.” Nonetheless, Ram Ram also sees art as a means by which to express his individuality and communicate his very personal ideology with others. This concept is related to baraka, but is more akin to the Western perception of aesthetic ideas as a means to reach a higher self through artistic expression.
Like other contemporary folk artists, Ram Ram bases his work on transmitted community values and art traditions, but infuses them with a very personal thematic and technique. This allows him to work both and within and outside of Moroccan tradition, and enables him to incorporate a myriad of cultural, religious, and artistic experiences in order to create a unique, cohesive syncretism of all.
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