Working on the interface of cultures, Mounir Fatmi explores the contemporary world and stages a representation of its tensions and paradoxes. When he goes back over his childhood in Tangier, once home to the Beat Generation, Mounir Fatmi conjures up the curiosity that already drove him then and underpins his current practice. It is by tracing the course of the artist's path, especially his youth in Morocco, artistic studies in Italy and decision to settle in Paris, that Lillian Davies, the author of this monograph, manages to shed light on development of his aesthetic and conceptual interests. She thus reveals the constancy of his concerns as regards vocabulary and architecture as well as the percussive force of his works, which juxtapose the different levels of culture, the secular and the religious, the East and the West.
The study thus offers in-depth examination of Mounir Fatmi's major works as well as analysis of the political and cultural contexts that he has chosen to explore through photography, video, sculpture and installations.