Fatma SLIMANI-JELLAL

Fatma SLIMANI-JELLAL

Art gallery owner

Fatma Slimani, mother of two children, is currently working on a publication that retraces the history of the FJ Gallery. She offers today her expertise to museums and contemporary art centers around the world. She lived in Tours, France, where she met her husband, a native from the city of Meknes, then moved to Paris, before the couple settled in Morocco: "I found a true balance, I feel good in the country. There is a happy marriage between East and West”. Today, Fatma Slimani, positions many Moroccan artists on the international scene by producing their first exhibition. These include, among others, Faouzi Laatiris, Younès Rahmoun, Fatima Mazmouz, Mustapha Akrim, and Touda Bouanani. Fatma Slimani listens only to her love for art and artists: "The choice of works exhibited is the result of a meeting with an artist engaged in an artistic approach. What is important to me is to create things that have a meaning, to welcome projects that open the way and provoke reflection”. The workshops or residences that precede each event, and sometimes last several months, are an opportunity for artists to think about a specific job. Risk taking is considerable, often paying off. Younes Baba-Ali, whom Fatma Slimani presented for the first time as part of the Marrakech Art Fair, won the Léopold Sedar Senghor Prize at the tenth Dakar Biennal Festival with "Call for Prayer Morse". Fatma Slimani also organized the "Zajal" event dedicated to playwright Ahmed Taïeb El Alj during the exhibition of his daughter, Meryem El Alj, a visual artist regularly exhibited in his gallery. She also paid tribute to Ahmed Bouanani by digitizing a large part of his work, and collaborated with Mounir Fatmi, famous Moroccan artist, by producing "The Straight Line" exhibition with the support of the French Institute of Morocco. This gallery owner, for whom art is a tool of emancipation, is present on all fronts. Guy Limone and Philippe Cazal, world leaders of contemporary art, trusted her by exhibiting their creations in her space in Casablanca, under events respectively entitled "Loune dial hna" and "Les Compacités". This woman, always ahead of her time, has strongly contributed to sharpen the public's gaze by imposing new forms with local and international artists .

Yasmine BELMAHI

100 Femmes

Sponsors and Partners

BMCE
OCP