Moroccan Artist Abdelmajid Mehdi Showcases Cosmic Works at Palais de Tokyo Despite Hardship

Born in 1950 in Taza, Morocco, then under protectorate, Abdelamjid was only 6 years old when the kingdom gained independence in 1956. "It was my first year of school," he recounts to Jeune Afrique. After classes, he spent time in the shop run by his parents. It was there that his father, who was not a draftsman, gave him a taste for drawing. He developed this passion over the years, eliciting the admiration of his teachers and classmates in high school. In 1964, at the age of 14, he exhibited his first works "at the second or third fair in Taza".

In the wake of this, his father left to work in France. Then in 1970, a French delegation from the National Immigration Office arrived in Taza to recruit young people wishing to work in France. This is how Abdelmajid joined northern France, near Lille, after successfully passing psychotechnical tests and a medical examination in Casablanca. After working as a factory worker in a rag factory and a PVC factory for ten years, Abdelmajid Mehdi decided in 1980 to undergo training to become a surveyor, draftsman and architect.

The Moroccan’s life has not been the most peaceful. In 1990, while working as a draftsman in a company in Courbevoie, he slept in his car and in his office. One day, in March of that year, in the middle of Ramadan, the police evicted him. They "arrived in four, they dragged me in the cold, the rain, the mud. I screamed so much it was a painful moment for me. They stuck an indecent assault on my back and I was psychiatrized. It was my boss who got me out of there. In the meantime, the city authorities burned my work, my files, my artistic research."

Traumatized by this episode, Abdelmajid returns to Morocco where he spends four years with his family. He will return to France ten days before the expiration of his residence permit. "It was the year the RMI was introduced, I received this allowance and I told myself that I was going to be able to reintegrate." His life will take another turn when he meets Sherazade in a supermarket. "[...] When I saw where he lived, I decided to make a video on social networks to appeal to associations and authorities. It quickly went viral," the young woman summarizes.

Leïla Amrouche, a reporter for Brut, then contacts Abdelmajid. After the broadcast of her video on the artist, she "learned that the Palais de Tokyo and Mohamed Bourouissa had been looking for Mr. Mehdi for ten years!" This is how since last February and until June 30, the septuagenarian is exhibiting about twenty of his works in this art center in Paris, the largest in Europe, as part of the exhibition "Signal" by the visual artist Mohamed Bourouissa. "We must keep hope in life. Even at the bottom of a well, there is always someone who can send you the bucket and the rope," concluded Abdelmajid who in 2022 lived alone, in an unhealthy caravan in Vitry (southern suburb of Paris).