The sculptural ensemble of two lions facing eachother recently produced by Amine El Gotaibi isa crystallization that one could qualify as perfectof his practice, an effective allegory of afundamental tension that can be traced back toother figures developed previously. Two lions,which we can imagine as lions of the Atlas, disappearedtoday but still present in the nationalimagination, are confronted as in a heraldiccoat of arms, and nothing distinguishes themat first glance except the different material andcolor used for each of the two: concrete for one,which we will now call lion A, and earth for theother, lion B. Reminding ourselves that this oppositionbetween concrete and earth is one ofthe classic dichotomies in the work of AmineEl Gotaibi, concrete identifying itself with theproud sterility of technical progress, the arroganceof cities, and the headlong rush into ananonymous and robotic construction wherecultural identity fades away. profitability in apostcolonial African context where the breakwith the past is still exalted in the name of modernity.Opposite, the earth carries the fertilepromise of a renewal of man reconciled withnature, with the landscape, with the tradition ofindigenous construction, both more ecologicaland more creative, and above all, with a warmermaterial. and permeable to its environment.