Casablanca Street Art

A splash of color in a concrete jungle. A distraction from the boredom of a utilitarian cityscape. Perhaps, that’s what street art would aim for in the largest city of Morocco.

Casablanca Street Art, Unknown Artist
Unknown artist. Location
Check our Street Art Project, a collection of articles about a state of street art in different places around the world. Here are some of my favorites: Elusive Street Art Of Palermo, Beirut Street Art, Cacilhas Street Art

After all, Casablanca is the business and financial hub and the port. It is also the least flamboyant of major cities in the country known for vivid colors and powerful imagery.

Casablanca Street Art
The central location could be a culprit. Parked cars and heavy traffic were obstructing these famous murals. Location

Casablanca Street Art at first glance

I had no idea what to expect from Casablanca. Street art proliferation around the world is happening so rapidly that by now even tiniest or most remote settlements on Earth might display a mural or two.

Artists are quick on their feet and do not hesitate to travel to some exotic or unexpected destinations and leave their distinct imprint there. Interestingly, better known or larger places more likely to have some sort of rules and regulations or be more eager to enforce some restrictions.

Thus, I was genuinely curious about how Casablanca deals with the rapidly growing popularity of street art.

Casablanca Street Art
Artist Seher One. Location

In a way, it didn’t disappoint. I found some powerful pieces throughout the city without even trying.

As usual, my findings were results of completely random walks. I am aware that I missed a lot.

“Sleeping quarters” of the city or industrial zones that tend to have those vast walls begging to be painted mostly were left unexplored. I see it as an excuse and a reason to come over again to do more research walking around.

Casablanca Street Art, Millo
Italian artist Millo painted this striking mural back in 2015. Any connection to the woman in red from Matrix, the iconic 90s movie? Location

Discovering Casablanca Street Art on foot

Meanwhile, what I found was quite impressive.

Regardless of whether you are going to retrace my steps or go on your own hunting expedition, I included locations of all artworks I mentioned here. Check those quickly and expand your search even further.

Casablanca Street Art, Normal
Artist Normal. Location

It is always so exciting to find extraordinary local talent.

Meet Morran Ben Lahcen, a self-taught Moroccan artist born in 1982 and lately best known for his cross-shaped sculptures. He started as a graffiti artist in the 90s.

I stumbled upon a couple of his murals. The second one is truly stunning. Just look how, at first sight, all you see is a myriad of crosses, but upon closer look, they transform into a human face.

Casablanca Street Art, Morran Ben Lahcen
Artist Morran Ben Lahcen. Location
My favorite street art piece in Casablanca. Artist Morran Ben Lahcen. Location

Street Art in the old medina

In the same neighborhood, near the old medina, there are more murals that were painted during 2013 Sbagha Bagha Casablanca Street Art Festival by various artists.

I was happy to see a piece created by Kram, a Spanish artist from Barcelona. Sadly, time took tall, and all these works look like they’d seen better days.

Casablanca Street Art, Kram
Artist Kram. Location
Casablanca Old Medina Street Art
Street art from the old Medina in Casablanca. Location

Thanks to Arat who commented pointing out that the artist behind the old woman in the left bottom corner of the old Medina Street Art collage above is Simo, a Moroccan artist who currently lives in Cologne, Germany. You can check how she looked back in 2013 here.

The wall of art

The narrow stretch of land between the port and the Hassan II Mosque has an unexpected surprise. It was surely worth walking down there and check the newer street art contributions.

Two names, Majic and Roksy, were among prominently displayed there.

The wall follows the terrain, so it is long but not much in height. In turn, murals are extremely elongated and not easy to capture. I did my best and try this and that. Ultimately, I decided to publish carefully selected bits and pieces instead of the whole picture.

Casablanca Street Art
Location

Finally, there are a couple more street art pieces that worth mentioning.

Casablanca Street Art
Unknown artist. Location
Casablanca Street Art
Aren’t we all feel this way even if we don’t want to admit it? Unknown artist. Location
If you recognize a work and know the artist, please. drop me a note – an email or a comment below – it would be great to put a name on every piece of street art. Thank you!

Share and enjoy!

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Published: May 2018. Last update: September 2019.

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Casablanca Street Art
Casablanca Street Art

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6 thoughts on “Casablanca Street Art”

  1. I love street art and I ENJOYED your post and I think most people would want to know the location–which you did include :).. You must have had a great time tracking these down and photographing them. I think street art often a great reflection of what is going on within any given society. My favorite is the one by Millo.

  2. I’d recommend doing further researching before posting on the internet. First, many of these Moroccan artists can be identified rather easily and you’ve not done any amount of due diligence. The tag Majic that you’ve seen is for @majid.elbahar, not the empty account you’ve listed. Second, the rather famous old woman in the Medina is by a gent named Simo, @simomd. Both of these took me no more than ten minutes to search up online. As someone who is a “web influencer” you hold a responsibility to provide correct information, especially since you are profiting from your ad revenue on your website. Instead of orientalising and generating empty content to only promote yourself, invest the effort to give credit where credit is due. Perhaps accuracy isn’t what you aim for, but in this age of misinformation and exploitation, those who chose to have a voice should use it correctly and wisely. An all around disappointing blog post.

  3. The scale of the street art stuns me Elena. I get art on a smaller scale. Like, an easel, or whatever. I appreciate it but when the palette becomes 50 by 80 feet I realize the size of the piece requires tremendous effort, time, patience, and attention to detail. Floors me. Every time.

    Ryan

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