“Screens Series: Randa Maroufi” continues the New Museum’s Screens Series, a platform for the presentation of new video works by emerging contemporary artists. Working across video, photography, and installation, Randa Maroufi (b. 1987, Casablanca, Morocco) hones in on the banality and absurdity of daily life.
Randa Maroufi, Bab Sebta, 2019 (still). Single-channel video, sound, color; 19 min. Production by Barney Production & Montfleuri Production. Courtesy the artist
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Maroufi deploys a variety of filmic techniques—slow motion and frontal shots, a zenith camera, and post-production stitching—with polylingual voiceovers in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish, to produce her elaborate short videos. Her works capture easily overlooked moments and highlight the existence of her protagonists: displaced people, laborers, and citizens. Her camera meanders through specific locales, like a Spanish border enclave in northern Morocco, an office space in Amsterdam, and an abandoned amusement park in Casablanca, slowing down footage of the scenes to draw attention to their details. Through highly choreographed camera movements, the artist suspends her central figures in time, and allows for the minutia of seemingly inconspicuous everyday moments to unfurl.
This exhibition is curated by Francesca Altamura, former Curatorial Assistant.
Randa Maroufi (b. 1987, Casablanca, Morocco) lives and works in Paris, France. Her upcoming solo exhibitions include Paris Beijing Gallery, France; Le Pavillon Blanc, Colomiers, France; Les Rencontres d’Arles France; Muzee, Ostende, Belgium; and Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau, Belgrade, Serbia. In 2019, she had solo exhibitions including “Les Intruses” at l’Écart Lieu d’Art Actuel, Quebec, Canada, and “État des lieux” at Galerie Paradise, Nantes, France. She has participated in recent group exhibitions at Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (2019); The Boston University Art Galleries, Boston University (2019); Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei City, Taiwan (2018); Biennale de Dakar, Senegal (2018); Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2018); Sharjah Biennial, Lebanon (2017); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2017); KAI 10 | Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany (2017); Videonale 16, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2017); New Directors / New Films at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016); African Biennale of Photography, Bamako, Mali (2015); and the Marrakech Biennale, Morocco (2014). Her films have screened at the Tampere Film Festival, Finland; Glasgow Short Film Festival, United Kingdom; International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, France; among many others. This presentation marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States.
