Oct. 7-19 in Mayfair, by appointment. Contact clara@artists-support.com to visit.

On the occasion of Artists Support: Morocco, we are showing a selection of work from Hicham Gardaf's 2014-16 series, The Red Square, in London.

It is hard, at first, to understand what you are looking at in Hicham Gardaf’s series of photographs, The Red Square, 2014-16. One has the bright white light you would only find on a movie set, while another has a section of earthy land that could stretch miles but may just be the length of a footstep.

The subjects of these abstract, painterly photographs are of newly built residences on the outskirts of Tangier, where the artist was born in 1989. Gardaf is cataloguing formerly barren terrain, an area you would want to call no-man’s land, when in fact, it is the land that delimits and encapsulates the city.

For nearly a decade, Gardaf’s practice has centered on recording Morocco’s changing urban landscape, with a focus on the impact that modernization has on local communities. He draws attention to how the scattering of new structures built along the city’s fringes shift the politics of that space.

References to painters and paintings guide some of Gardaf’s photographs. This early series of work, shot on a Mamiya C330 film camera, has this distinctly painterly quality. A Barnett Newman sliver of light in one, a blocky Nicolas de Staël composition in another, and in others just the way a shadow is cast is enough to evoke painting.

Gardaf, like Josef Albers, blurs the barrier between photography and painting. Whereas Albers’ most celebrated group of paintings, Homage to the Square, was inspired by photographs he took of architecture in Mexico, Gardaf, instead flips this process.

This presentation marks the launch of Artists Support: Morocco, an online sale that benefits charities selected by participating artists.

With thanks to PATERSON ZEVI for sharing their space with us and to Galerie 127 for their collaboration.