Meriem Bennani

Meriem Bennani (b. 1988, Rabat, Morocco) makes groundbreaking video installations and sculptures informed by the circulation of global cultures online. Frequently rooted in the specifics of Moroccan life and postcolonial history, her work speaks to the hybrid nature of contemporary cultural flows. Bennani combines elements of reality television, documentary film, telenovela, music videos, science fiction, and animated cartoons in her videos. Exaggerating media tropes in what Bennani describes as a “hyperactivity of genre,” her works reflect the disjointed state of contemporary mediation, an effect she amplifies in installation settings where her moving images are mapped to sculptural projection structures or viewing stations. Using strategies of immersion, duplication, multiplicity, and remix, Bennani blends a powerful mix of humor and critique, reaffirming the power of family and home while analyzing larger systems of power across a networked world.

Meriem Bennani earned her BFA from Cooper Union in New York, and her MFA at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Her video series 2 Lizards, produced in collaboration with Orian Barki, has been hailed by writers and curators as a preeminent document of life under quarantine. Recent solo presentations include Fondation Kamel Lazaar, Tunis, Tunisia; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; The High Line, New York, USA; CLEARING, Brussels, Belgium; The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Chicago, USA; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK; Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany; François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, USA; Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin, Germany; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France; and MoMA PS1, Queens, USA. Bennani’s work was featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the 2018 Biennale of Moving Images, and the 2016 Shanghai Biennale. She will present a major solo exhibition at Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy, in the fall of 2024.

Bennani’s work is held in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, New York USA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; Kadist Foundation, Paris, France; and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France.