2011

Al Maaden - Marrakesh

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Hassan Darsi prolongs with the "Golden Jetty" his "Applications gilding", a series of works and interventions initiated in 1999.

The installation imagined for the Al Maaden site in Marrakech, made up of around fifty golden cubes, is the transposition of a maritime jetty that enhances the ocean of greenery that constitutes the very fabric of the site. A jetty, like a golden necklace, placed at the edge of the grassy expanse, which underlines the fragile junction with the islets of land, sometimes bare, sometimes planted. A jetty that preserves both of them, by following their peaceful curves. A jetty as an evocation of an absent marine element, as an invitation to dream and travel...

A luminous device extends this golden jetty at nightfall while underlining its trajectory by signaling it, like a terrestrial lighthouse that follows the natural rhythm of day and night on the site. During the day, the golden cubes offer a stroll punctuated by a play of shadows and sunlight. In the evening, a luminous path given by the lighthouse signals the edge and gives the gilding a new robe of light.

By superimposing these two worlds, Hassan Darsi adds a poetic dimension to the reading and perception of the site, at the same time as he underlines its lines and breaks.

 

(Florence Renault)