Morocco hosts one of Africa’s first exhibitions of Cuban art, a milestone for Afro-Cuban painters

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — When Morocco 's King Mohamed VI visited Havana in 2017, Cuban-American gallery owner Alberto Magnan impressed him with a “full immersion” in the Caribbean island's art and culture, drawing a line between the cultural and historical themes tackled by Cuban artists and those from across Africa.

Seven years after that encounter, one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum is showing at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

It's part of an effort to give visitors a view beyond the European artists who often remain part of the school curriculum in the North African nation and other former French colonies, museum director Abdelaziz El Idrissi said.

“The Moroccan public might know Giacometti, Picasso or impressionists,” El Idrissi said. The museum has shown them all. “We’ve seen them and are looking for other things, too.”

The Cuba show contains 44 pieces by Wifredo Lam — a major showing of the Afro-Cuban painter's work more than a year before New York City’s Museum of Modern Art will honor him with a career retrospective show in 2025.

“We're kind of beating MoMA to the punch,” Magnan said.

The Morocco show also marks the first time that the work of another luminary, Jose Angel Toirac, is being displayed outside Cuba. Previously, his paintings depicting the country's late anti-capitalist president Fidel Castro in the iconography of American advertisements and consumer culture were not allowed off the island.

Other works in “Cuban Art: On the other side of the Atlantic” — open until June 16 — show prevalent themes in Cuban art ranging from isolation and economic embargo to heritage and identity.

In Cuba, almost half of the population identifies as mixed race and more than 1 million people are Afro-Cuban. The island's diversity is a recurring subject for its painters and artists, including Lam. That's why it was important to show his work — including paintings of African-inspired masks and use of vibrant color — in Africa, Magnan said.

Morocco is among countries that have shown new interest in Cuban art since the United States restored diplomatic ties with Cuba in 2014 and Castro died in 2016. American art dealers and major museums flocked to the previously difficult-to-visit island.

But the intrigue was curbed by the COVID-19 pandemic and former U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to redesignate the country as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” Magnan said.

Meanwhile, Morocco has increased funding for arts and culture in an effort to boost its “geopolitical soft power" in North Africa and beyond.

In both Morocco and Cuba, 20th century artists responded to political transition — decolonization in Morocco, revolution in Cuba — by drawing from history and engaging in trends shaping contemporary art worldwide.

But the current show does not touch on Moroccan-Cuban diplomatic relations, which were restored following King Mohamed VI’s 2017 visit to Cuba.

The countries had cut ties decades ago over Cuba’s position on the disputed Western Sahara, which Morocco claims. Cuba has historically trained Sahrawi soldiers and doctors and backed the Polisario Front’s agenda at the United Nations.

Tourists walk outside Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, where a Cuban art exhibition is being held, in Rabat, Monday, April 1, 2024. A show at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A display of artwork at a Cuban art exhibition in Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, Monday, April 1, 2024. A show at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A display of artwork at a Cuban art exhibition in Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, Monday, April 1, 2024. A show at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Abdelaziz El Idrissi, director of Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, interacts with an installation at a Cuban art exhibition, in Rabat, Monday, April 1, 2024. A show at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A display of artwork by Afro-Cuban painter Wifredo Lam at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, Monday, April 1, 2024. A show at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A visitor observes artwork by Afro-Cuban painter Wifredo Lam at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat, Monday, April 1, 2024. A show at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A view of the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, where a Cuban art exhibition is being held, in Rabat, Monday, April 1, 2024. A show at Morocco's Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — In the courtyard of a psychiatric ward in Mali’s capital, a small group of patients acts out scenes of a village dispute to the beat of a djembe, a traditional West African drum.

One patient, Mamadou Diarra, cries out to another in the Bambara language, mocking: “You don’t know anything! Just nonsense!”

But both break into smiles, and Diarra dances as he continues launching insults at his fellow performer.

The group is taking part in koteba, a traditional form of theater practiced by Mali's largest ethnic group, the Bambara. It mixes acting, singing and dancing and is usually performed in villages as an outlet to work through problems and an open space for satire.

But here at Point G, one of the largest hospitals in Bamako, koteba is also a way of offering support and a sense of community to people receiving psychiatric care.

Mali has fewer than 50 mental health professionals for a population of more than 20 million, according to a 2022 report by the World Health Organization. People with mental illnesses are often left without treatment and excluded from society.

Though the use of koteba as therapy hasn't been formally studied, Souleymane Coulibaly, a clinical psychologist at the Point G hospital, said the traditional form of theater is uniquely positioned to help people in the psychiatric ward work through their problems.

“Patients who attend koteba leave the hospital more quickly than those who refuse to attend the theater session,” he said.

In the courtyard, Diarra was the star, and other patients gathered as he spoke.

“I’ve never done any kind of theater before. I’ve never danced. But once I started, God gave me the knowledge of these things,” he said.

Adama Bagayoko, 67, the director of the visiting theater troupe, said the weekly performances at Point G are a rare space where patients feel heard and respected.

“We talk to each other, we dance together, we laugh together,” Bagayoko said. “To touch someone shows that we are equal, to listen to them shows that they are important, and what they say is important."

Bagayoko was part of a troupe that brought koteba to the Point G psychiatric ward in 1983, as mental health workers looked for a way to use Mali’s cultural practices to help people receiving psychiatric care.

The first performance was so effective that patients asked the doctors if the actors could return the next day, he said.

Patients and actors have been meeting for koteba performances every Friday since then.

The koteba performances at Point G unfold in three phases, Bagayoko said. First, the troupe plays music to invite patients into the courtyard. Then the troupe asks what the topic or theme of that day's performance should be. After the performance, they sit in a circle and give the floor to any patients who wish to speak.

Because the patients feel at ease, they often tell the actors details about their lives they are not comfortable sharing with their family or doctors, which can help doctors get to the core of any issue they might be dealing with, Bagayoko said.

On a recent Friday, the patients acted out a familiar scene in Mali: A man in a village is accused of stealing. The thief screams and claims he hasn’t stolen anything, while the villagers ask Diarra, playing the village chief, what punishment he deserves.

“Kill him!” Diarra yells amid the screams. But as the angry mob gathers around the man, he escapes and flees.

Bagayoko said the troupe performs other themes proposed by patients including those about women beaten by their husbands, drug problems and alcoholism.

The hospital at Point G is only a short walk from Mali’s political stage — the presidential palace and main military base — where a 2020 military coup has left the country struggling with increased extremist violence and economic hardship. Last month, Islamic militants attacked Bamako for the first time in almost a decade.

But those problems are far away during the koteba performances at the hospital, as Diarra and his fellow patients are immersed in the world they create.

“You know what my problem is? That I see things for what they are,” Diarra said, laughing, during a break.

Bagayoko chimed in: “Okay, we’ll lighten that load for you.”

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Adama Bagayoko, director of the theater troupe that has been performing with patients at the psychiatric ward of the Point G hospital, stands in the hospital's courtyard in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Mamadou Diarra, right, dances with other patients at Bamako's Point G hospital psychiatric ward in the hospital's courtyard in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Patients at Bamako's Point G psychiatric ward act out scenes at the psychiatric ward of the Point G hospital in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Patients at Bamako's Point G psychiatric ward play instruments in the hospital's courtyard in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Patients at Bamako's Point G psychiatric ward act out scenes at the psychiatric ward of the Point G hospital in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)