In the sensuous, colour-soaked imagination of Mous Lamrabat, 90s pop culture, Moroccan iconography and mass consumerism collide. Cultural Union meets the Moroccan-Belgian photographic artist and author of Mousganistan, his riveting visual manifesto.
For anyone with even a passing interest in art, fashion or pop culture, the singular works of Mous Lamrabat will be immediately recognisable. As an exhibiting artist and author of the fiercely original art book and manifesto Mousganistan, Lamrabat has created not just his own aesthetic but an entire visual universe.
The world of Mousganistan is one of abstract figures, Moroccan iconography, incongruous consumer culture and 1990s references. Born in 1983, Lamrabat was the perfect age to soak up the vivid aesthetics of the 90s, and he notes that the era’s clothes, toys, music videos and television commercials are mesmerising to those too young to have lived through it themselves. “Vanilla Ice described it as the last decade of pop culture,” says Lamrabat. “Maybe I’m just nostalgic, but I’m trying to keep it alive.”
Growing up in Belgium, in a large family of Moroccan heritage, Lamrabat spent his formative years hoovering up influences from both cultures. “We weren’t poor but we weren’t living in luxury either. We were into fashion and what would now be called swag, and we played basketball and listened to music genres where everybody dressed cool. We wanted to be part of that, even though we had no way to afford it.”
“Vanilla Ice described the 90s as the last decade of pop culture. Maybe I’m just nostalgic, but I’m trying to keep it alive.”
Mous Lamrabat
Instead, Lamrabat and his friends would make things for themselves – cutting out logos and sticking them onto trainers or clothes. “I think those were the first steps in the direction of what I do now – being 12 years old and putting things together,” he says.
It would be a while before Lamrabat channelled this DIY branding as art. First came a successful career as a fashion photographer – the perfect grounding, in many respects, for a photographic artist: one not only needs to learn the craft rigorously, but then to discard the rules and work quickly and intuitively.
“A fashion photographer is someone who makes photos of people wearing clothes. I don’t think there are rules anymore of how things are supposed to be or how things have to look – and that’s what I really like. This is the decade where creatives can tap into that: how can I break these rules and come up with something new?”
The move from fashion photography to fine art was as personal as it was artistic, born out of a recognition that much of work and life involves moulding ourselves into particular shapes to fit a situation. The subsequent body of work – and the book Mousganistan that embodies it – came from a need to create a space where no imposed conformity was required. “It was not a physical place. It was a place where I could just be myself, and people could respect me for it.”
The catalyst was a trip Lamrabat took to Morocco with his girlfriend, during which he cast aside the usual exigencies of working on a fashion assignment, instead opening himself up to whatever caught his eye.
Driving south into the desert, he found no shortage of compelling backdrops: burnt-out cars, stunning vistas – yet something was missing. “They were photogenic, but it just kind of felt empty.”
The pair drove into the nearest town and stopped at a fabric shop, struck by the intense colours against the intense desert light. “I wanted to have something that shone in the weather we were in,” he says. “I experimented with draping the fabrics over my girlfriend. And that was the start of everything.” In an instant, a world of potential had opened up. “When I saw that image, I felt like this was my abstract painting.”
“Mousganistan was not a physical place. It was a place where I could just be myself, and people could respect me for it.”
Mous Lamrabat
Seeing those early images in Mousganistan of faceless, abstract figures in vibrant silk shrouds, incongruous against sand dunes, building blocks, on a burnt tree, in a derelict house, one can see why. They are unforgettable images that laid the foundation for all that followed.
As Lamrabat began to explore the edges of this new oeuvre, he allowed more of his cultural-magpie personality to feed into it. Thus we see figures in traditional dress with McDonald’s logos hennaed onto hands, or a man in a djellaba with Louis Vuitton boxing gloves. We see 90s cars, acid-house smiley faces, basketball logos and Darth Vader masks. Even a Covid test makes an appearance – possibly an in-joke, but it’s also a clever addition as a totemic object from our era that in the future will be so freighted with the associations of a specific moment in time that it lends perspective to the objects from the more distant 1990s and 2000s.
Another recurrent motif is his use of deep cobalt-blue skin. It’s so visually arresting, particularly when combined with the yellows and reds of the headdresses and the inky skies the figures are framed against. Lamrabat first spotted the blue effect moonlight has on black skin in a film. “I loved that effect so much that I wanted to try it. I also love the ‘blue hour’ – 15 minutes after sunset – when the background is intense.”
The artist bought a blue lamp to augment the effect and tried it out on a shoot. “The first time I saw it, in the car driving back, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. And when I put them on the computer back home I was like, oh my God, have I unlocked something new?” It would seem he had: the blue series – striking, evocative and statuesque – are instant icons, among the most in-demand artworks from his galleries.
Looking to the future, one could imagine Lamrabat feeling the weight of expectation. Thankfully though, this is not at all the case. “We care so much about what people think, and in the beginning, maybe it’s important to ensure that your work is seen,” he says.
“But I feel like my period of wanting people to like me is over. If I just want to take a pure, beautiful portrait, I will do it, and I won’t worry that it doesn’t 100 per cent fit my work.”He adds: “I like to put a lot of accent on freedom. That’s a big one for me.”