Eternal Light

Art D’Égypte

is a company founded by Nadine Abdel Ghaffar to support the Egyptian art and culture scene.

The team aims to initiate strong local, regional and international collaborations to enhance and promote the rich Egyptian art scene.

The company’s goal is to organize a yearly pop up show in a historic place in Egypt to shed the light on the rich cultural heritage and to connect Egypt’s ancient and new creations and present them to the world. By raising awareness, the team’s target is to present a different view of Egypt today and give it the attention it deserves.

This publication coincides with the exhibition ‘Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New’, on view from 28 to 31 October 2017, held at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Cairo.

Curator

Nadine A. Ghaffar

Authors

Dr. Gemma Tully

Valérie Didier-Hess

Mehri Khalil

Noura Abla

Catalog Design

Jorell Legaspi

Copyeditor

Mehri Khalil

Project Manager

Nadine A. Ghaffar

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

MUSEUM EXHIBITION

ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

MODERN EGYPTIAN ART

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ART D’ÉGYPTE CONTRIBUTORS

© 2017 Art D’Égypte, Cairo, Egypt. Polygon Building 6, 2nd floor, Unit D 2 Km 38 Cairo / Alexandria Desert Road +20237900115 / +201224706339 www.artdegypte.com

Cover image: Hypostyle Hall, Temple of the god Khnum in Esna, Ptolemaic Period, photo by Kenneth Garrett.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission. All images are © the artists, reproduced with the kind permission of the artists and/or their representatives.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders and to ensure that all the information presented is correct. Some of the facts in this volume may be subject to debate or dispute. If proper copyright acknowledgment has not been made, or for clarifications and corrections, please contact the publishers and we will correct the information in future reprintings, if any.

Curatorial Statement

Eternal Light

Artists drew from the spirits of ancient Egyptian ancestors and that was a fantastic motive to reach the depths of our heritage, making a firm bond between pharaonic civilizations and the modernist concepts.

Amid a silent dialogue between the artist and his background, on multiple levels artists transcended on many levels to translate that soul into an art piece directly and indirectly.

Egyptians are blessed with a great legacy to carry on. Until this very day archaeologists are discovering the secrets their ancestors left behind through priceless artifacts and monuments. At the same time, modern and contemporary Egyptian artists seek to do justice and pay tribute to their rich and unique cultural heritage, which presents an unprecedented range of topics for inspiration, including deep philosophical ideas of the era, the use of colors, the geometric accuracy, consistency and repetition, the relationship between humans, nature and animals as well as the impressive posture of human beings in mural paintings and sculptures.

There is no doubt that Egyptian artists are meticulous observers of the eclecticism of their cultural heritage. Combining both intricate details and the powerful energy rising from ancient paintings, sculptures and architecture, the journey of coming closer to history is nevertheless very long and requires a lot of effort to understand the mysteriousness of Ancient Egypt.

However, the artists’ aim is to find a suitable vernacular to translate the many layers of ancient Egyptian art into a modern and contemporary language, and to ensure that the eternal flow of energy and light continues.

The purpose of the ground-breaking exhibition ‘Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New’ is precisely to highlight those extraordinary attempts of interpreting ancient cultural heritage into modern and contemporary artworks. It features a selection of artists who bring to life the flow of light and energy of Egypt’s history, connecting its past to its present. The main focus of the exhibition is also to shed light on the influences and inspiration for these artists’ works, juxtaposing artworks and artifacts in a way to confront the past with the present.

‘Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New’ offers the unique opportunity to the visitor to travel back in time and to participate in taking responsibility of carrying the eternal light from past to present. The juxtaposition of contemporary artworks with ancient artifacts will further underline the importance of preserving ancient cultural heritage and its seminal role in shaping present and future societies.

Nadine A. Ghaffar

MUSEUM EXHiBiTiON

iNTRODUCTiON

Ancient Egyptian art and culture has captivated audiences across the globe for centuries. For many, museums are at the heart of the discovery process; inspiring us to delve deeper and learn more about religious and secular practices that seem so different to our own. Mysterious mummies, towering pyramids, anthropomorphic gods, hieroglyphs and monumental statues swim before our eyes and make us lose sight of the connectivity that exists between Ancient Egypt and other eras of Egyptian history. And yet, for many Egyptians, this layering of history and identity is a vital part of contemporary life and the essence of what makes Egypt unique.

So, how can we communicate the palimpsest that is Egypt?

This was the question that I explored over the course of my Ph.D. research. Travelling the length and breadth of the country, visiting museums and interviewing people from all walks of life, it quickly became clear to me that many Egyptians feel a strong affinity with Ancient Egypt. This connection, however, is interlaced with influences from throughout the whole of Egypt’s history, and is part of a dense cultural fabric that interweaves the past while continuing to evolve. The challenge was to find a means to communicate this message to the wider world. The solution presented itself in the form of contemporary Egyptian art.

As the works in this exhibition reveal, Ancient Egypt continues to shape and inspire many of today’s most successful Egyptian artists. Their artwork draws upon various elements of the styles, movement, color and

themes of Ancient Egypt art, and transforms them into something of relevance to a 21st century global audience.

Placing contemporary Egyptian art in a dialogue with artifacts from Ancient Egypt is an extremely powerful curatorial pairing. The presence of contemporary Egyptian artwork in the traditional Egyptological setting of the museum liberates audiences to question long-held interpretations of ancient Egyptian culture. Simultaneously, the presence of the ancient Egyptian artifacts imbues the contemporary works with deeper resonance, and enhances their ability to build the next layer of the Egyptian story.

For the first time on Egyptian soil, Art D’Égypte has brought these ancient artifacts and contemporary artworks together. This exhibition, housed within the walls of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, seeks to communicate new insights into Egyptian culture and heritage, ancient and modern. ‘Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New’ shows the world that Ancient Egypt continues to play a crucial role in contemporary artistic and cultural life while celebrating development and difference.

Dr. Gemma Tully Research Associate in Archaeology and Egyptology Cambridge University and Durham University

ADAM HENEiN

Adam Henein has long been recognized for creating sculptural works which seamlessly combine modernist forms with the essence of Egypt’s ancient past. This piece captures in bronze the ‘heaviness and grace’ that Henein has admired in ancient Egyptian art since boyhood. Moving beyond simple parody, Henein imbues the work with additional elegance though his own observations from nature. Henein allows us to lose track of time, giving the bird a unique spirit, transforming it from the limitations of an era or nation and allowing it to speak to global audiences across the generations.

Adam Henein Dynastic Bird , 1965 Bronze, ed. 8 185 x 35 x 30 cm

Image courtesy of of the artist and Karim Francis Gallery

ADEL EL SiWi

Images courtesy of the artist and Mashrabia Gallery

The embodiment of the god Thoth, the ibis is one of the most recognizable sacred creatures from ancient Egypt. The ibis was often mummified and depicted on tomb and temple walls. Adel El Siwi’s piece draws on both traditional painting techniques and his fascination with the cyclical nature of existence to breathe life and dynamism into every angle of the ibis. As with ancient Egyptian art, the work reflects the same love of nature and the ability to paint forms which appear ready to take flight at any moment.

Adel El Siwi Ibis Assemblage , 2014 Mixed media on paper 210 x 150 cm

Ahmed Abdel Wahab

Since his scholarship at the Atelier in Luxor, Ahmed Abdel Wahab has been inspired by the power of his country’s ancient art forms and has drawn on their spirituality in his work. As one of Egypt’s most distinctive sculptors, his semidivine figures have an ‘other worldly’ metaphysical quality. In this piece, the pyramid-like adornment appears at one with the human figure. The skill of the artist gives the metal a sense of weightlessness as the wind blows through the figure’s robes. Seeming to walk forward, the sculpture combines pride in Egypt’s ancestry and wisdom with the continuation of the country’s journey, uniting the past with whatever may come next.

Ahmed Abdel Wahab Son of the Nile , 1987

Polyester 142 x 60 x 42 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

Ahmed Morsi

Ahmed Morsi’s work captures the timeless essence of Ancient Egypt. Rather than drawing directly on the ancient culture’s iconography, viewers are drawn in by his sense of poetry which intermingles elements of Egyptian identity with his experiences of many cultures. The work is highly symbolic. In this piece, the isolated human figure, holding a single flower, addresses the viewer across the generations, representing memory and the passage of time. Capturing the ‘unique Egyptian spirit’, looking back in order to forge a new path, his work animates the ancient past with elements of modern life and provokes metaphysical contemplation.

Ahmed Morsi Untitled , 1948 Oil on wood 55 x 64 cm

Image courtesy of the artist and Gypsum Gallery

Esmat Dawestashy

Esmat Dawestashy

Half Circle of Death , 1981

Mixed media on wood

125 x 125 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

The mummy within its sarcophagus is perhaps the most iconic of ancient Egyptian symbols. This highly textured piece also combines shapes and symbols from other eras of Egyptian culture, such as Islamic arches and crescents. In this way, Esmat Dawestashy places ancient Egypt at the heart of his nation’s history but makes connections across the centuries which reflect his ability to capture Egypt’s more complex and layered character. Egyptian heritage has always been Dawestashy’s muse. This more inclusive manifestation of ancient Egyptian preparations for the afterlife therefore enables his Half Circle of Death to build on Egypt’s ongoing creative legacy.

FAROUK HOSNY

Farouk Hosny’s uniquely compelling abstractions clearly resonate with the light and color of ancient Egyptian art. The bold profile of this ‘man-mountain’ evokes traditional ancient Egyptian depictions as seen on tomb and temple walls while simultaneously reflecting international and modernist trends. This piece is a powerful statement uniting Hosny’s cultural values as an Alexandrian, Egyptian and global citizen who believes in the democratization of culture and artistic openness in order to share Egyptian culture with the world.

Farouk Hosny Untitled , 2015 Acrylic on canvas 130 x 100 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

FAROUK WAHBA

The organic colors, clay figure and use of hieroglyphs, which dominate Farouk Wahba’s painting, make direct links with ancient Egyptian art and culture. The ram itself is reminiscent of Khnum , the god who created humans out of clay and was the guardian of the river Nile, and yet the three brightly colored rays of light which appear to be travelling to and from the central figure provoke greater reflection. Taking the place of candles, do they symbolize the continuation of light and creative inspiration Ancient Egypt has offered the world, or are they part of Wahba’s personal narrative on what it means to be Egyptian in the modern world?

Farouk Wahba Candlestick , 2004

Oil on canvas 100 x 80 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

GHADA AMER

Ghada Amer

Thought #6 with a blue base and clown, 2017

Glazed ceramic

26.7 x 6.7 x 6.7 cm

Ghada Amer

Thought #13 writing in white and pink, 2017 Glazed ceramic

19.1 x 10.2 x 6.4 cm

Ghada Amer

Thought #9 a hand with the turquoise, 2017 Glazed ceramic

19.7 x 7 x 6.7 cm

Images courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York

Figurative art, made in clay, is an enduring cultural tool that has been used by countless peoples over the millennia to express complex ideologies and identities. Ghada Amer’s three ceramic works from her Thought series are a significant contribution to this ongoing process. The curvilinear forms and frequent use of color evoke a feminized form of an ancient Egyptian Shabti figure (small mummiform figurines placed in ancient Egyptian tombs to do the work of the dead in the afterlife). While created to embody an authentic female voice, rather than to accompany the dead, both Amer’s work and Shabtis are designed to be viewed in the round and represent an individual’s voice in the struggle for empowerment, whether over masculine hierarchy or over death.

Hany Rashed

Hany Rashed Western Journey (28 pieces), 2017 Collage 30 x 30 cm each

Having grown up in the shadow of the pyramids, there is little doubt that the ‘weight’ of ancient Egyptian culture has had a formative influence on Hany Rashed. While his work tends to offer political commentary on Egypt and the relationships between East and West, the dancing ‘vignettes’ in Western Journey are reminiscent of ancient Egyptian artistic styles, particularly the dancing scenes so well loved from ancient tomb scenes. Showing changing traditions in different cultures, the work also captures the movement, colors and feeling of celebration evident in ancient Egyptian art while adding a modern message through Rashed’s more global human narrative.

Images courtesy of the artist and Mashrabia Gallery

HUDA LUTFi

Huda Lutfi’s work as an artist has evolved out of her background as a cultural historian. She is best known for her multimedia works that translate her view on historic and current events in a contemporary artistic practice. She combines the richness of the Egyptian culture and history, often using pharaonic symbols, styles and subjects to create multilayered works.

Her work Obelisque is one of many examples where she references ancient Egyptian elements but transforms them in a way to address current matters.

Huda Lutfi Obelisque , 2010 Photo collage, acrylic on wood and text 200 x 80 x 80 cm

Image courtesy of the artist and The Third Line Gallery

KHALED HAFEZ

Khaled Hafez is well known for the bold, colorful manner in which his work fuses ancient and contemporary icons. In this piece, we see the playful creation of the ancient Egyptian sky goddess, Nut , brought into being through an inspired collage effect which fuses paint with modern magazine models. Nut, like her companions the divine angels, reflects the hybridization of ancient Egyptian art, pop-art and superhero culture. Drawing on the past but communicating clearly with modern audiences, the work seamlessly crosses time and reveals ancient Egypt as the originator of so much of today’s popular culture.

Khaled Hafez Divine Classico , 2016

Mixed media on canvas 200 x 250 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

MOHAMED ABLA

Mohamed Abla is internationally recognized as an artist who is able to fuse ancient heritage and contemporary urban scenes in his work. Drawing on his own experiences in Egypt, Mohamed Abla encourages viewers to re-evaluate their surroundings and question the familiar. Reminiscent of ancient Egyptian wall paintings and reliefs, his motivation to provoke thought imbues much of his work with a mesmerizing effect as it oscillates between tranquility and action. In this piece two different worlds meet, as modern Cairo — ‘life’ — and the pyramids — ‘death’ — engage in an evocative discourse. Are the two dimensions vying for dominance or can they, like life and death, peacefully coexist?

Mohamed Abla Pyramids , 2015 Acrylic on canvas 140 x 160 cm Image courtesy of the artist

NAziR TANBOULi

British-Egyptian artist Nazir Tanbouli captures the vibrancy, movement and emotion evident in ancient Egyptian art in his work. Yet, these tropes are transformed through a sense of the artist’s twenty-first century vision and ‘energy’ into something busier, truly modern and inter-cultural. In this work, Tanbouli artfully transposes the same depth of expression onto the portrait of a man whose casual yet powerful pose and intense expression reminds us of depictions of the Pharaohs. The inclusion of the cat, an animal whose characteristics were admired to the extent of deification by the Ancient Egyptians, adds to this connection. The clearly contemporary setting, however, highlights the fusion of ancient and modern identities and creates the impression that the protagonist might start to speak, offering us his wisdom from across the centuries.

Nazir Tanbouli

The Giant , 2017

Acrylic on canvas 150 x 150 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

SAiD BADR

One could be forgiven, at a glance, for mistaking Said Badr’s History Guards as a normal fixture of an ancient Egyptian sculpture gallery. Yet, while reminiscent of museum arrangements, such as so many here in the Egyptian Museum, Badr’s works are reformed under the influence of a more contemporary and abstract character. Informed but not overpowered by the weight of history, these imposing ‘Guards’, now as eternal as the ancient monuments themselves, stand with a new task of protecting a wider human history for all cultures.

Said Badr History Guards , 2017 Black granite on wooden plinths 130 x 70 x 35 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

SARWAT EL BAHR

Sarwat El Bahr

Pyramids , 1985-2017

Mixed media on canvas

93 x 107 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

What first springs to mind when you think of ancient Egypt?

In this piece, Sarwat El Bahr sums up the eternal fascination and mystery of the pyramids, which are as present and important to the Cairo skyline today as in the past. El Bahr’s Pyramids appear to fade into the background, beyond our grasp, helping the modern viewer feel as an ordinary ancient Egyptian might once have done – overwhelmed and out of place in the sacred space of the pharaohs.

Youssef NaBil

Clockwise from top left:

Youssef Nabil

Say goodbye, Self Portrait, Alexandria, 2009

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

26 x 39 cm

Youssef Nabil

Self Portrait, Essaouira, 2011

Hand-colored gelatin

silver print

26 x 39 cm

Youssef Nabil

Self-portrait, Hawaii, 2013

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

26 x 39 cm

Youssef Nabil

Self-portrait next to the Wall, Luxor, 2014

Hand-colored gelatin

silver print

26 x 39 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

The four photographic portraits of Youssef Nabil provide a glimpse into his life story. Although the subjects are contemporary, the layering of hand-colored silver gelatin prints suggests nostalgia for earlier photography and eras past. Nabil’s unique interpretation of the techniques of early portrait studio colorists, alongside settings connected to his own identity, reveals a melancholic sensibility which flows fluidly across time and culture. Thus while the presence of elements such as water, ancient monuments and the gallabiyah clearly speak to us about Egyptian heritage, the body of work has global appeal which provokes meditative reflection on the human journey.

ADAM HENEiN

Adam Henein is one of the most prominent Egyptian sculptors of our time. Born in Cairo in 1929, Henein graduated from the sculpture department of Helwan University in 1953. He received a two-year grant to study at the Luxor Atelier, established a decade earlier by prominent Egyptian artist and diplomat Mohamed Nagi to promote ancient Egyptian art education in school curricula. This experience deeply impacted the life and art of Henein and he received the Luxor prize in 1954 and 1956. In 1958, he received a diploma in advanced practices from the Munich Academy in Germany.

In 1971, Henein moved to Paris and for two decades, he explored painting and continued to focus on ancient Egyptian themes and traditional materials. From 1989 to 1998, Henein headed the design team involved in restoring the Great Sphinx of Giza, which encouraged him to move back to Egypt in 1996. That same year, he founded the Annual International Sculpture Symposium in Aswan.

Henein was awarded Egypt’s State Medal, the State Merit Award, as well as the Mubarak Award in the arts. His work has been exhibited at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha), the ASB Gallery (Munich), as well as in London and Rome.

His work in public collections is included at the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo, the Mathaf and the Barjeel Foundation, Sharjah, UAE. A large collection of his work can be seen in his private museum in the Haraneya district of Cairo.

Adam

Adam

Clockwise from top left: Adam Henein Fish , 2000 Bronze, 16 x 66 x 6 cm

Adam Henein Sitting Figure , 1991 Bronze, 107 x 30 x 22 cm

Henein Civilized Being , 1977 Bronze, 63 x 26 x 19 cm

Henein Cat , 1961 Bronze, 15 x 43 x 12 cm

Images courtesy of the artist and Karim Francis Gallery

ADEL EL SiWi

Adel El Siwi (b. 1952, Behera) was initially trained as a doctor and studied medicine at Cairo University between 1970 and 1976, but simultaneously indulged in independent study at the Faculty of Fine Arts between 1974 and 1975. In 1980, he relocated to Milan, Italy, where he lived for a decade before moving back to Cairo, where he continues to live and work.

El Siwi has had numerous solo exhibitions in galleries around the world, including in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Italy, France, England, Bahrain, and Dubai. He has also participated in the Cairo Biennale in 1996 and again in 2008, the Sharjah Biennale in 1997, and the Venice Biennale in 2009.

His work has been included in several group exhibitions, among them, ’Rencontres Africaines’ at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris in 1994, ’Modernities and Memories’ at the Venice Biennale in 1997, ‘Transafrican Art’ at the Orlando Museum in Miami in 2000, ‘Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East’ in Dubai in 2008, ‘Oum Kalsoum: La Quatrième Pyramide’ at the Institut du Monde Arabe

in Paris in 2008, ‘ItaliaArabia’ at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York in 2008. He was invited by Le Laboratoire: Sculpture Urbaine to project his work onto historical buildings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1996), Grenoble, France (2000) and Alger, Algeria (2003).

In addition to his career as a visual artist, El Siwi has translated into Arabic numerous art historical texts by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Klee.

Adel El Siwi

Egyptian Cat , 2012

Mixed media on paper 100 x 70 cm

Adel El Siwi

Prince and Princess (2 pieces), 2013

Mixed media on canvas 307 x 147 cm each

Adel El Siwi

Primitive Taurus , 2009

Mixed media on paper 100 x 70 cm

Adel El Siwi

Geese of Medium (2) , 2007

Mixed media on paper 50 x 70 cm

Adel El Siwi

Geese of Medium (1) , 2007

Mixed media on paper 70 x 50 cm

Clockwise from top left:

Images courtesy of the artist and Mashrabia Gallery

AHMED ABDEL WAHAB

Ahmed Abdel Wahab is an Egyptian sculptor. Born in 1932, he received a diploma from the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1957, and several scholarships to study at the Fine Arts Studio in Luxor in 1957-1958, ceramics in Czechoslovakia in 1958 and sculpture at the Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1970.

Throughout his travels within Egypt, Abdel Wahab was deeply influenced by its ancient spiritual undertone, and translated this metaphysical inspiration in his artworks. His travels to Europe revealed to him international art movements, which also influenced with his work, without ever compromising it.

Abdel Wahab was a professor and head of the sculpture department at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo between 1979 and 1988, and then a deputy at the Alexandrian Faculty of Fine Arts between 1990 and 1992. He has been a freelance professor there since 1992.

Abdel Wahab was honored at the Cairo Salon in 1957, as well as at the 26th

National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1999 and received the State Prize of Merit in the Arts in 2002. He was also recognized with the second prize at the Alexandria Biennale in 1960, 1962 and 1966, and first prize in 1987.

Abdel Wahab has exhibited throughout Egypt, as well as at the Venice Biennale in 1972, 1976 and 1982, and has represented Egypt in the Sculpture Biennale in Hungary in 1986.

His work is included in private collections in Egypt, Italy, the United States, France and the Netherlands, as well as in museums across Egypt, and at the Museum of Modern Art in Prague, Czech Republic.

Egyptian Girl , 2006

Artificial stone

103 x 20 x 35 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

Bull , 1975

Artificial stone

118 x 80 x 53 cm

Ahmed Abdel Wahab

Ahmed Abdel Wahab

AHMED MORSi

Ahmed Morsi (b. 1930, Alexandria) is a New York-based artist, art critic and poet with a multidisciplinary career that spans seven decades of creative output. In the 1950s, he simultaneously studied literature at Alexandria University and painting at the studio of Italian master Silvio Becchi in his native city. Morsi moved to Baghdad in 1955, a time of cultural renaissance in Iraq, when Baghdad was a center for the literati, the artists and the intellectuals. It was also in Baghdad where the artist developed his talent for art criticism and covered significant exhibitions for notable newspapers.

Returning to Egypt, the artist moved to Cairo in 1957. In these years, Morsi was the first Egyptian to work alongside Egypt’s acclaimed playwrights designing stage sets and costumes for The National Theater and the Khedival Cairo Opera House. In 1968, Morsi co-founded the avant-garde magazine, Gallery 68, with a few of Egypt’s most prominent contemporary writers. In 1974, he moved to New York City, where he continues to paint, write and critique from his Manhattan home.

With relentless vitality, Morsi has produced an extensive oeuvre that encompasses painting, drawing, printmaking, poetry, art criticism, stage and costume design. His lyrical and introspective practice attests to the depth of his singular vision. His paintings exude an elegiac and mournful sensibility. Figures are androgynous. Animals are anthropomorphic. Space is nondescript. Morsi’s work offers a powerful meditation on memory, the passage of time, and the very personal state of not belonging, and bears witness to the artist’s life as an Alexandrian that has been living away from home since the 1970s.

Ahmed Morsi Flying Poet (1), 2007 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 80 cm

Image courtesy of the artist and Gypsum Gallery

Image courtesy of Yehia El Alaily

Esmat Dawestashy

Esmat Dawestashy is an artist who has often changed his style. His early work manipulated abstract forms with collage from past photographic work. His paintings presented somewhat irrational but symbolic arrays of strongly colored coils and bundles. Dawestashy then turned to Sufi mysticism and later started creating threedimensional forms using discarded items to caustically comment on societal issues.

Dawestashy was born in 1943. Having graduated from the department of sculpture from the Alexandrian Faculty of Fine Arts in 1967, he established the Gamaet Eltahawuul (Transformation Group) two years later.

The artist served as an exhibitions supervisor for the Ministry of Culture at the Mahmoud Said Museum in Alexandria. In 1993, he was appointed to serve as the director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Alexandria and supervised the organized of the 18th Alexandria Biennale for Mediterranean Countries.

Dawestashy published the Plastic Art Magazine , as well as several books, among them a series entitled Catalogue 67 , a commemorative book entitled Alam Dawestashy (Dawestashy’s World), to mark his 50th birthday. He has also supervised the publication of two volumes; Aklam El Sahwa (Pens of Consciousness) and Insan Wal Tatawor (Man and Development).

Other endeavors have included short stories, poetry and script writing, as well as art criticism. Dawestashy has also executed a series of films, using both exposed and unexposed color films, to which lines, colors and scratches were added. Since the 1960s, he has participated in several group exhibitions and has held more than 150 private exhibitions. In 1996, the Ministry of Culture awarded him the State Fellowship for Creative Artists.

Clockwise from top left:

Esmat Dawestashy

Woman Hairat , 2015

Oil on canvas

120 x 100 cm

Esmat Dawestashy

Princess Black , 2015

Oil on canvas

120 x 100

Esmat Dawestashy

The Key to Life , 1965

Oil on wood

30 x 40 cm

Esmat Dawestashy

Pyramid Goal , 1991

Oil on wood

275 x 340 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

FAROUK HOSNY

Farouk Hosny was born in Alexandria in 1938. Hosny graduated from the Alexandrian Faculty of Fine Arts in 1964. Upon graduation, he was appointed as director of the Anfoushy Cultural Palace in Alexandria and later moved to Paris as cultural attaché in charge of the Egyptian Cultural Center. Hosny managed the Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and upon returning to Egypt, he was appointed minister of culture of Egypt from 1987 until his retirement in 2011.

Hosny is a well-known artist, recognized for his unique abstract style in art. His works were exhibited in important museums, exhibitions and art centers around the world, where he was introduced by significant art critics, including Jessica Winegar, Philippe de Montebello, Michel Nuridsany, Enzo Bilardello, Giovanni Carladente, Lorenza Troki and Maria Trenga Benedetti.

His works have been exhibited in several international museums including the Metropolitan museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Fort Lauderdale in Miami, the

National Museum of Vienna, le Vittoriano Museum in Rome, Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, Tokyo Art Museum, in addition to several Arab and Egyptian museums.

Composed with exquisite balance, enigmatic imagery and a dynamic palette, Hosny´s paintings speak the language of the modern world. Through his use of abstraction, Hosny has transformed the eternal signs of his native country into restless, calligraphic gestures, using vivid colors evocative of the Egyptian landscape: the blacks of sudden nightfall, the blues of sea water, the whites of limestone, the violets of the Sinai mountain range, the burning ochres of the desert, the green of the flowing Nile, the grays of ancient stones, and the oranges of flaming sunsets.

Farouk Hosny Untitled , 2015 Acrylic on canvas 130 x 100 cm

Image courtesy of the artist

FAROUK WAHBA

Farouk Wahba was born in 1942, and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria in 1968. He received his master’s degree in the phenomenon of alienation in contemporary painting in 1977, after which he received a scholarship to Germany from 1985 to 1988 and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1988, where he researched the role of material in the art of painting.

Wahba has taught in the painting department of the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Specific Education in Alexandria. He has served as a cultural advisor to the embassy of Egypt in Vienna, Austria in 1997. Wahba was then appointed as President of Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 2000.

Wahba has had many exhibitions around the world, in Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Austria, France, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Chile, the USA and South Africa. He was recognized with an award for drawing at the National Exhibition of Egyptian Artists in 1982, the first prize in painting in 1984 and received a state incentive award for an installation in 1997.

He was also recognized internationally in 1980-1981 with the Gold Medal from the National Council in Kuwait, in 1994 with the Grand Nile Prize at the 5th Cairo International Biennale, in 1997 with first prize from Dubrovnik International Biennale of Mediterranean States, in 1999 with the Vienna Medal and in 2001 with the State Medal of Science and Arts presented by the Austrian President.

His works feature among collections in Egypt, Chile, Kuwait, Netherlands, United States, Denmark, Germany Western Australia, France, Italy, Malaysia, England, India, Greece and Russia.

Clockwise from top left:

Farouk Wahba

Family , 2004

Oil on canvas

120 x 100 cm

Farouk Wahba

Message , 1984

Mixed media, 3D

120 x 100 cm

Farouk Wahba

Embalming , 1994

Mixed media, 3D

130 x 100 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

GHADA AMER

Ghada Amer was born in Cairo in 1963. In 1974, her parents relocated to France, where she began her artistic training ten years later at Villa Arson in Nice, France. She currently lives and works between New York and Paris and has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, the Whitney Biennale, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.

“I believe that all women should like their bodies and use them as tools of seduction,” Amer stated; and in her wellknown erotic embroideries, she at once rejects oppressive laws set in place to govern women’s attitudes toward their bodies and repudiates first-wave feminist theory that the body must be denied to prevent victimization. By depicting explicit sexual acts with the delicacy of needle and thread, their significance assumes a tenderness that simple objectification ignores.

Amer continuously allows herself to explore the dichotomies of an uneasy world and confronts the language of hostility and finality with unsettled narratives of longing

and love. Her work addresses first and foremost the ambiguous and transitory nature of the paradox that arises when searching for concrete definitions of East and West, feminine and masculine, art and craft. Through her paintings, sculptures and public garden projects, Amer takes traditional notions of cultural identity, abstraction, and religious fundamentalism and turns them on their heads.

Clockwise from top left:

Ghada Amer

Thought #6 with a blue base and clown , 2017

Glazed ceramic

26.7 x 6.7 x 6.7 cm

Ghada Amer

Thought #13 writing in white and pink , 2017

Glazed ceramic

19.1 x 10.2 x 6.4 cm

Ghada Amer

Thought #9 a hand with the turquoise , 2017

Glazed ceramic

19.7 x 7 x 6.7 cm

Images courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York

Image courtesy of Arts/Industry and Cheim & Read, New York. Photographer Scott Seifert.

Hany Rashed

Hany Rashed is a self-taught artist, born in 1975. Before starting his own artistic journey, Rashed was an electrician at the Egyptian government-owned television. Nevertheless, he worked closely with renowned artist Mohamed Abla, who quickly became his mentor for ten years before starting his own artistic journey in 2003.

Over the past dozen years, Rashed has produced an extremely original body of work experimenting with a wide range of techniques and constantly reinventing himself. His predilection for the use of media images pushes the audience to recognize the banality and damage caused by the excessive exposure to Western media, highlighting the depersonalization of the individual. Rashed’s use of a wide range of techniques, from monotypes to painting, collages, and wooden installations, allow him to give striking commentary on the urban youth culture in Egypt. He has used many images from lifestyle advertising and celebrity coverage, on top of which he adds poignant

faceless subjects, to amplify the lack of individuality found in today’s societies.

Rashed is an avid photographer, carrying his camera recurrently to capture scenes from the Egyptian street. He uses many techniques to ‘convert’ his photographs in other media, such as sculpture, installation and painting. His photo archive is a major inspiration for much of his work. After the 2011 revolution, Rashed has played a leading role in documenting part of contemporary Egyptian history. Through sarcastic production, he used slogans and tabloid texts to raise questions and challenge public reactions of political events.

Rashed was engaged in many international group exhibitions in England, Greece, Dubai, Senegal, Spain, and Sweden, among others. He currently lives and works in Cairo.

Hany Rashed

Western Journey (28 pieces), 2017

Collage

30 x 30 cm each

Image courtesy of the artist and Mashrabia Gallery

HUDA LUTFi

Huda Lutfi works like an urban archaeologist, digging up found objects and images as loaded fragments of history. She then re-packages them using bricolage as an interceptive strategy. Recognizable objects, images and icons are re-contextualized and made to tell a different story, playing on collective memory and shared iconography, Lutfi blurs historical timelines and cultural boundaries in her work. Multi-layered and playful, Lutfi is known to work with a wide range of media, painting, collage, installations, assemblages, and more recently with photomontage and video.

Her focus has been on the historical representations of the feminine body, and how it translates into the everyday. Working with the form of dolls in their various contexts, Lutfi explores the multiple roles of women within visual culture: as active producers of it and depicted symbols within it. Lutfi’s work introduces new technique and conceptual departures, Lutfi cleverly underpins socio-cultural forces defining masculine identity and exposes notions of

restriction previously explored in her works on the feminine body.

Trained as a cultural historian and, with her second career as an artist, Lutfi emerged as one of Egypt’s contemporary imagemakers. She received her Doctorate in Islamic Culture and History from McGill University, Montreal, Canada (1983), and has been teaching at the American University in Cairo until 2010. Drawing upon the historical, cultural and local experiences of Egyptian society, Lutfi began exhibiting her art work in the mid 1990s. She has exhibited locally and internationally in both international galleries and museums: Alexandria, Cairo, Paris, Marseille, London, The Hague, Frankfurt, Thessaloniki, Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Dakar, Bamako, Tunisia, Bahrain and Dubai. Lutfi currently lives and works in Cairo.

Clockwise from top left:

Huda Lutfi

Anarchy , 2013

Painted photo collage, acrylic on wood, text 110 x 140 cm

Huda Lutfi

Castor Oil Detox , 2013

Wooden shelf, glass bottles, paper, castor oil in water 30 x 100 x 25 cm

Huda Lutfi

Pointing Fingers , 2012

Photo collage, acrylic on paper 70 x 110 cm

Huda Lutfi

Ironing Board , 2013

Photo collage, acrylic on wood, text 100 x 30 x 5 cm

Huda Lutfi

Isis , 2012

Mannequin, acrylic paint 75 x 40 x 25 cm

Images courtesy of the artist and The Third Line Gallery

KHALED HAFEZ

Khaled Hafez is a Cairo-based visual artist; his practice spans the media of painting, installation, photography, video and experimental film. Born in Cairo in 1963, Hafez studied medicine and followed the evening classes of the School of Fine Arts in the 1980s. After attaining a master of science in medicine in 1992, he gave up his medical practice shortly after, in favor for a career in the arts. He later obtained a Master of Fine Arts in new media and digital arts from New York’s Transart Institute and the Danube University in Krems, Austria.

Hafez’ works were shown at the 55th, 56th and 57th Venice Biennales, at the 3rd Mardin Biennale, 6th Moscow

Biennale, 1st Trio Biennale in Rio De Janeiro, 1st Biennale del Sur in Caracas, 15th Fotofest Biennale, Houston; 11th Havana Biennale; 9th Bamako Photo Biennale; 8th Mercusol Biennale, Porto Allegre; Manifesta 8, Murcia; 12th Cairo Biennale; Dakar Biennale; 1st Singapore

Biennale, Sharjah Biennale; Guangzhou Triennale; Thessaloniki Biennale, as well as in Hiroshima MOCA; Uppsala Museum of

Art, Sweden; Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden; Tate Modern, London; Kunstmuseum Bonn; State Museum of Art, Thessaloniki; Herbert F. Jonson Museum of Art, Icatha, Queens Museum and the New Museum NY; as well as in Centre George Pompidou, Paris.

Hafez is a Fulbright Fellow (2005) and a Rockefeller Fellow (2009). In 2011, he was nominated and shortlisted for the Sovereign African Art Prize, and in 2012, he was nominated for the Prix Pictet, a global award in photography and sustainability.

Hafez was the prizewinner at the Dakar Biennale in Senegal in 2004 and the Bamako Photo Biennale in Mali in 2011.

Clockwise from top left:

Khaled Hafez

Angels Out , 2015

Mixed media on canvas

200 x 500 cm

Khaled Hafez

Flying Beatle , 2016

Mixed media on canvas

40 x 200

Khaled Hafez

Codes of Hermes (1) , 2015

Mixed media on canvas

80 x 120 cm

Khaled Hafez

Codes of Hermes (2) , 2015

Mixed media on canvas

80 x 120 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

MOHAMED ABLA

As one of the most established and recognized contemporary artists in Egypt, Mohamed Abla enjoys a strong following among both artists and art lovers in Egypt and beyond. Born in Mansoura in 1953, he is a painter, sculptor, engraver and installation artist with a focus on graphics and oil painting. He has combined various techniques, all against a backdrop of heavily relevant political and social commentary.

After graduating from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria in 1973, Abla embarked upon a seven-year journey around Europe in 1978, where he visited museums in Spain, France, Belgium and Germany, eventually studying art, sculpture and graphics in Vienna and Zurich.

He showed his first solo exhibition at the Hohmann Gallery in Germany, followed by shows at Gallery Ewat in Holland in 1989, Art Hall Orebro in Sweden and the Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1991. After the birth of his son, Abla moved back to Egypt, where he held several solo exhibitions around the country.

In 1994, he won first place at the Kuwait Biennale, followed by the Grand Prix at the Alexandria Biennale in 1997. He has also participated in several international art events such as the Havana Biennale, and his work was part of several group exhibitions at the Kunst Museum in Bonn, Germany. In 2007, Abla founded the Fayoum Art Center and two years later, he established the first caricature museum in the Middle East, also in Fayoum. He now lives between Egypt and Germany.

Clockwise from top left:

Mohamed Abla

Myths , 2005

Acrylic on canvas

120 x 160 cm

Mohamed Abla

Nile (1) , 2002

Oil and collage on canvas

120 x 160 cm

Mohamed Abla

Nile (2) , 2005

Oil on canvas

140 x 125 cm

Mohamed Abla

Nile (3) , 2002

Acrylic on canvas

115 x 165 cm

Mohamed Abla

Nile (4) , 2005

Acrylic on canvas

120 x 140 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

NAZiR TANBOULi

Nazir Tanbouli is a British Egyptian artist, born 1971 in a family of painters and Egyptologists, with whom he began working at the tender age of two. His paintings reveal faint traces of ancient motifs, deeply embedded with fundamental sources of color, symbol and dimensions, combined with familiar and recognizable elements of the everyday present.

Tanbouli studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria from 1989 to 1994 where he received his bachelor’s in expressive arts, before moving to Nottingham in the United Kingdom in 2002, where he was active as an artist and art educator and started exhibiting his work around Europe at that time. In 2007, he moved to London and received a master of fine arts in printmaking from Camberwell College of Arts, focusing on screen printing and book art. In 2013, he studied ceramics at Chelsea School of Art. He also founded an artist-run space called Studio 75, a hub for the local community and a place to encourage artists from all over the world to exhibit and collaborate.

For some time, his mainly focused on mural painting, but doesn’t identify as a street artist; he is a painter and a muralist. Tanbouli is interested in symbolism, iconography, zen calligraphy and shamanic practices. He was awarded the 1993 Grand Drawing Prize at the National Salon of Youth, Egypt and participated in Cairo Biennale and many other exhibitions in Egypt and abroad. Tanbouli currently lives and works in London.

Acrylic

286 x 36 x 20 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

Acrylic

235 x 31 x 15 cm

Acrylic

210 x 55 x 23 cm

Nazir Tanbouli

Mummy 1, 2017

on tree shaves

Nazir Tanbouli

Mummy 2, 2017

on tree shaves

Nazir Tanbouli

Mummy 3, 2017

on tree shaves

SAiD BADR

Said Badr was born in the Kafr El Sheikh governorate in 1965. He studied sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria, receiving both a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees in 1998, and then received a scholarship to study at the Carrara Academy in Italy from 2000 to 2004, where he received a Ph.D. in techniques of magnification and minimization in stone sculpture.

The artworks of the sculptor Badr are closely linked to ancient Egyptian sculpture. His works carry that sort of sobriety, gravity and oldness when he manipulates tough materials, while casting upon them a contemporary and more abstract character. Despite the solemn and firm qualities of such materials, we find that Badr manifests in them a state of spiritual sublimation. He relies upon the potential energy of the artworks, and thus he achieves a rare case of purity of the form.

Badr’s works carry certain implications that are related to his awareness of an important message, that of the human history, and

thus his sculptures rise to stand as new guards for this history.

Badr has been teaching at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria since 1991. He is also a member of the Plastic Artists’ Syndicate and has exhibited in Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Oman, Kuwait, Italy, Austria, France, China, Russia and Canada. He has also been part of Alexandria’s 19th, 23rd and 24th Biennales for Mediterranean Countries. Badr has sculpted monumental field artworks all over Egypt, as well as in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Lebanon and Turkey.

Said Badr Dream of Joseph , 2017 Black granite on wooden plinth 30 x 40 x 15 cm

Said Badr History Guards 1 , 2017 Black granite on wooden plinth 100 x 50 x 50 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

SARWAT EL BAHR

Sarwat El Bahr was born in 1944 and has had nearly 30 solo exhibitions in Egypt, Italy and Germany. El Bahr is also an active critic, curator and cultural commissioner.

El Bahr is an artist concerned with the concept of time. He does not abide by a singular style, as he uses whatever means necessary to express himself. He has explored many different media and styles, from pop art to Arabic calligraphy. El Bahr has used pharaonic imagery in his art, from mummies to pyramids. He has made assemblages using ancient Egyptian symbolism along with modern everyday advertisements, such as Coca-Cola, linking both past and present and pointing towards the future.

El Bahr has founded the Fekrun Wa Fann Gallery at the Goethe Institute in Alexandria, which honored him with a retrospective exhibition in 1985. He has served on several commissaries responsible for Egypt’s participation in international art surveys and festivals, helped establish Egypt’s branch of the International Association of Art Critics, and served on

the Plastic Arts Committee of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Culture. El Bahr has been awarded the first prize at the 13th Biennale of Alexandria, and the 11th Arab Biennale in Kuwait.

His work is in the collections of the Mahmoud Said Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, both in Alexandria, and in the Museum of Modern Art at the Cairo Opera House, as well as in the Egyptian Embassy in Bonn, Germany and in the Museum of Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito Memorial Center in Serbia, Belgrade.

Sarwat El Bahr Pyramids , 1985 Mixed media on canvas 100 x 100 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

YOUSSEF NABiL

Youssef Nabil began his photography career in 1992 by staging tableaux in which his subjects acted out melodramas recalling film stills from the golden age of Egyptian cinema. In 2003, he started producing self-portraits that reflect his dislocated life away from Egypt. This series that has evolved over the past fifteen years is characterized by liminal scenes in which he lingers between worldly realities and serene dreams, loneliness and fears of death.

Nabil’s distinctive technique of handcoloring silver gelatin prints removes the blemishes of reality. Nabil disrupts prevalent notions of color photography and painting, as well as assumptions about the aesthetic sensibilities associated with art and those identified with popular culture. His hand-coloring evokes a sense of longing and nostalgia and allows his photographs to flicker between our time and another era.

The artist presented his first video in 2010 entitled You Never Left , with actors Fanny Ardant and Tahar Rahim. In 2015, Nabil produced his second video, I Saved My

Belly Dancer , with actors Salma Hayek and Tahar Rahim.

Youssef Nabil is part of various international collections including Collection François Pinault, Paris; LACMA Museum, Los Angeles; The Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda; La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; the joint collection of The British Museum and The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; the Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York and Pérez Art Museum in Miami.

Youssef Nabil was born in 1972 in Cairo and currently lives and works in New York.

Clockwise from top left:

Youssef Nabil

The End , New York, 2007

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

26 x 39 cm

Youssef Nabil

Faten Hamama , Cairo, 2008

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

26 x 39 cm

Youssef Nabil

Ghada Amer , Cairo, 2006

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

39 x 29 cm

Youssef Nabil

Self-portrait , Beverly Hills, 2008

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

39 x 29 cm

Youssef Nabil

Will I ever come again , self-portrait, Havana, 2005

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

39 x 29 cm

Youssef Nabil

Fifi with a cigarette in her mouth , Cairo, 2000

Hand-colored gelatin silver print

39 x 29 cm

Images courtesy of the artist

MODERN EGYTPTiAN ART

iNTRODUCTiON

Egypt

'

s " Eternal Light ’: from Ancient Egyptian Art to Modern and Contemporary EgyPtian Art

What Art D’Égypte is presenting today in the curated exhibition ‘Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New’ at the internationally acclaimed Museum of Egyptian Art in Tahrir, Cairo, is the essence or ‘eternal light’ that has permeated through centuries from Ancient Egyptian Art until today’s Contemporary Egyptian Art. When we, foreigners, think of Egypt, the first cliché images that spring to mind are its pyramids, its Pharaohs, Cleopatra, the tombs of Luxor and Karnak or the feluccas on the Nile River. In other words, we identify Egypt with its Ancient cultural heritage dating from centuries ago yet modern history states that Egypt’s national identity only took shape during the 20th century, following the blood-drenched 1919 coup led by Saad Zaghloul, pathing the way towards independence from British protectorate in 1922 and ultimately expelling the last British troops in 1956 after the Suez Canal crisis. In reality, it could be argued that this Egyptian identity existed before and has in fact always existed. Consequently, it would seem that the ‘eternal light’ has somehow resisted centuries of foreign invasion and occupation.

It therefore comes with no surprise that the core of Modern and Contemporary Egyptian is deeply rooted in this unparalleled rich cultural heritage. Yet the modern or contemporary artist’s challenge lies in the way he/she transcribed social, political and cultural issues of present times or simply portrayed contemporary daily life by combining up-to-date universal aesthetic means with visual motifs inspired by Ancient Egypt. Dr. Nada Shabout, author of the ground-breaking book on Modern Arab Art (2007), mentions another challenge for the modern Arab artist, as she refers to the ‘artistic vacuum’ that existed in Egypt and the Arab diaspora 1 There was Ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Sumerian Art, followed by

early Christian and Coptic Art, and later Islamic art, but then there was a massive gap void of any new type of art until the end of the 19th century or early 20th century, when art institutions and schools were founded, very much under the influence of foreign artists. And still, despite that ‘artistic vacuum’, the ‘eternal light’ descending from Ancient Egyptian Art continued to exist in essence but also through the vestige of the past, as pyramids, temples and tombs survived the passing of time.

That ‘eternal light’ was fully re-ignited with what Liliane Karnouk refers to the “Egyptian Awakening” that comes hand in hand with ‘Al-Nahda’ , in her seminal book on Modern Egyptian Art 1910-2003 2. She describes this cultural phenomenon as starting with the Romantics, who travelled to Egypt to seek the original beauty of antiquity; the Orientalists who sought a new visual vocabulary through their travels in these exotic lands of the Middle East; Vivant Denon’s (1747–1825) publication of Description de L’Egypte in 21 volumes pursuant to the Napoleonic 1798 expedition to Egypt; Jean-François Champollion’s (1790–1832) deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822; the increasing number of acquisitions of Egyptian artefacts by leading European museums and the excavation of many archaeological sites in Egypt, which climaxed in Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. At the same time, according to Karnouk, all these events partly led to a renewed interest in ancient Egyptian art and to the cultural phenomenon of Neo-Pharaonism.

All of the above thus confirms the omnipresence of the ‘eternal light’, that Modern Egyptian artists picked on, considering this was what they were familiar with, and they created a pictorial vocabulary that merged

2 L. Karnouk. Modern Egyptian Art, 1910–2003 (Cairo, 2005), p. 4.

‘something old’ with ‘something new’ resulting in a modern and universal interpretation of their unique past. The three most famous Modern Egyptian artists who instigated a breath of fresh air to the ‘eternal light’ were the Cairene sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934) and the two Alexandrian painters Mahmoud Saïd (1897-1964) and Mohamed Nagi (1888-1956). Mokhtar’s landmark sculpture, Nahdat Misr (‘Egypt’s Awakening’) conceived in 1920, used to dominate Bab el-Hadid Square (today’s Ramses Square) in front of Cairo railway station from 1928 to 1955 after which it was moved outside Cairo University towering the roundabout at the entrance. That monumental pink granite sculpture incarnates and radiates the ‘eternal light’, as does Mokhtar’s many sculptures of fellahas . In a similar way, Nagi made clear references to his Ancient Egyptian heritage, often transposing classical European themes into Pharaonic contexts, epitomised by his monumental and almost hieroglyphic masterpiece La Renaissance de l’Égypte or Le Cortège d’Isis executed in 1922, now housed inside the Chamber of the Majlis alShuyukh in the Egyptian Parliament, Cairo. Mahmoud Saïd’s references to his Ancient Egyptian roots were perhaps more subtle yet they permeate through his entire oeuvre, whether through a felucca on the Nile River, a graceful fellaha carrying an amphora, or even more so in his pyramidal compositions, resonating the grandeur of Ancient Egyptian vestige. The pivotal role of these three pioneers of Modern Egyptian Art is further highlighted by the fact that all three were commissioned works to be presented at the Egyptian Pavilion of the 1937 Paris Exposition Universelle (officially the Exposition internationale des Arts et des Techniques appliqués à la Vie moderne ) by the pavilion’s general commissioner, Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil (1877–1953).

There, the works of these great Modern Egyptian masters were exhibited side by side with Ancient Egyptian artefacts, just as today, Art D’Égypte in some ways emulates for the first time the 1937 exhibition by juxtaposing a selection of Modern and Contemporary Egyptian artworks with the extraordinary collection of the Museum of Egyptian Art. ‘Eternal Light: Something Old, Something New’ further underlines how Egypt’s ‘reawakened’ artists – Mokhtar, Nagi and Saïd - also played the role of ‘awakeners’ for all the younger artists, some of which are featured in this exhibition, who continued to develop the concept of Modern Egyptian art using the ‘eternal light’ as guideline. Nagi’s and Saïd’s paintings as well as Mokhtar’s iconic sculptures taught the future generation of Egyptian artists to search inspiration in their own nation’s past in order to celebrate their intensifying feeling of belonging to that very nation, leading them towards the creation of Modern and Contemporary Egyptian art.

Valérie Didier-Hess

EFFAT NAGi

Effat Nagi (1905-1994) is one of the pioneers of modern Egyptian art. She was born in Alexandria to an aristocratic family, the younger sister of the artist and diplomat Mohamed Nagi. She was deeply influenced by her brother, who was promoting ancient Egyptian art to be taught in school curricula. Between 1947 and 1950, the Nagi siblings studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and she continued to study with the French artist and art critic André Lhote. Her husband, Saad El Khadem, was also a seminal person in her life, introducing her to Egyptian myths, legends and folk art in general.

Her early work used simple and abstract forms, but was not limited to a square or rectangular canvases. She multiplied the surfaces, transforming them into box-like objects. Nagi experimented with materials such as wood and leather in collages and assemblages, created mystical and magical works from the items she would gather. She relied on the mystical symbolism in ancient Egyptian, Coptic and folk art.

Effat Nagi’s concern with the sacred rendered her work primitive-looking. She was preoccupied with the idea that an object loses its cultural significance once it is removed from its original location, and becomes a mere collectible. Nagi’s art was deeply guided by her brother’s nationalism and her husband’s historic research. Continuously searching for a sense of identity, she created works that would resolve the disparate connection between history and myth, and art and culture.

Effat Nagi

Tal Al Amarna , 1965

Acrylic on wood

87 x 107 cm

Effat Nagi

Pharoanic Black Cats , undated

Oil on wood

50 x 70 cm

Image courtesy of the artist’s estate and Nadine A. Ghaffar

Mohamed Nagi (1888-1956) was a diplomat and an artist who was part of a group surrounding Mahmoud Mokhtar called La Chimère . Nagi portrayed Egyptians, within their ethnic variety and believed in the social mission of art; he continuously tried to bridge the gap with his ancestors.

Nagi studied law in Lyon, France and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He was also taught, like his sister, by André Lhote and visited Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, which deeply influenced him.

In 1925, he was assigned by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazil and France, and a few years later, served in Ethiopia, where the culture inspired him to produce his masterpiece Bayaa El Geloud (The Leather Seller).

In 1937, he was appointed as the first Egyptian to head the School of Fine Arts, and two years later, he became the director of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1947, Nagi became the cultural attaché in Rome and managed the Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts in the same city.

Nagi spent most of his life traveling, even within Egypt, where he set up the Luxor and Alexandria ateliers. He also spent some time in South America, where he was acquainted with mural paintings and became a muralist himself. One of his works, the Renaissance of Egypt, was executed on the walls of the Senate in Cairo.

Nagi’s work show his struggle to resolve the political and cultural ambiguities present in the society, but also within himself, and relentlessly searching for a national artistic identity.

Mohamed Nagi King Fouad, undated Pastel on paper 82 x 60 cm

Image courtesy of the artist’s estate and Nadine A. Ghaffar

SALAH TAHER

Salah Taher (1911-2007) is known for his mastery of abstract work with hard tools, such as knives that he uses to spread translucent layers of paint. He called this weaving of colors, words and rhythms, the ‘universal language’.

Taher obtained his bachelor’s degree from the School of Fine Arts in Cairo, and then worked as an art professor, before he was appointed in the 1960s as head of the Museum of Modern Arts. In 1962, he was selected as head of the Opera, and a few years later, of the Al-Ahram newspaper, where he maintained a position as a consultant till his death.

Taher was granted the Guggenheim Foundation Award in 1961, the State Award in 1974, the first prize at the Alexandria Biennale in 1996, and in 2001, he was honored at the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina with a retrospective book entitled The Brush and the Pen . in 2002, he was granted the two highest awards in Egypt; the Sciences and Arts Medal and the Mubarak Award.

His background was in academic painting, but his liberation from traditional values, after a trip to the United States in the 1950s, is emblematic of his work. Taher also painted academic portraits of many famous and celebrated Egyptians, but moved from academic realism to figurative symbolism, before reaching the abstract style he is now famous for. His purely gestural and chromatic interpretation translate his emotions into material and visible works.

Taher has exhibited extensively in Egypt, Italy, the United Stated, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland. He is known for his writings on Egyptian and international art.

Clockwise from top left:

Image courtesy of the artist’s estate and Nadine A. Ghaffar

THE EGYPTiAN MUSEUM iN CAiRO

No visit to Egypt is complete without a trip through the galleries of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo , which contains the world’s most extensive collection of pharaonic antiquities. Designed in the neoclassical style by Marcel Dourgnon, the Egyptian Museum boasts 107 halls filled with artifacts dating from the prehistoric through the Roman periods, with the majority of the collection focused on the pharaonic era. The museum houses approximately 160,000 objects covering 5,000 years of Egypt’s history, including around 1,700 artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamen.

The original collection was established in the late 19th century under Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist and scholar, and founder of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, and was housed in the Boulaq district of Cairo. The objects were moved in 1891 to the palace of Ismail Pasha in Giza, before being transferred in 1902 to the current building in Tahrir Square, which is the first purpose-built museum edifice in the world. Since 1983, it has been classified as a protected monument under the control of the Ministry of Antiquities, due to its unique architectural style. Law 117 stipulates that in no case shall protected buildings be tampered with, except through the Islamic and Coptic Sector within the Ministry.

Since 2014, the museum has been undergoing intensive restoration. The Revival of the Egyptian Museum Initiative is dedicated to defining the future role of the Egyptian Museum within the local and international museum landscape and giving it the credit it has been long overdue. This initiative was instigated in May 2012, with the aim of studying the museum’s existing conditions and developing a practicable plan for its full rehabilitation. The initiative was funded by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Centre for International Migration and Development. It was executed by Environmental Quality International (EQI), an internationally acclaimed investment and consulting firm specialising in natural and cultural heritage conservation and sustainable development. Together, the Ministry of Antiquities and a high-calibre team of local and international architects, engineers, conservators, Egyptologists, environmentalists and botanists worked closely to de ne and launch the execution of the Revival Initiative. The implementation of the initiative was made possible by an exemplary public/private partnership, engaging members of the business community, research institutions and scholars, both locally and internationally.

Photo by Diego Delso (diego.delso.photo), licensed under Creative

OUR SUPPORTERS

Barjeel Art Foundation is an independent, UAE-based initiative established to manage, preserve and exhibit an extensive collection of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art. The foundation’s guiding principle is to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region by building a prominent, publicly accessible art collection in the UAE. Part of this objective involves developing a public platform to foster critical dialogue around contemporary art practices with a focus on artists with Arab heritage internationally. The foundation strives to create an open-ended enquiry that responds to and conveys the nuances inherent to Arab histories beyond borders of culture and geography. By hosting in-house exhibitions, lending artwork to international forums, producing print and online publications, and fashioning interactive public programmes, the foundation strives to serve as an informative resource for contemporary art by Arab artists both locally and on the global stage. In addition to building an informative database of artists, the foundation is seeking to develop an educational programme that both understands and involves the local community. By establishing partnerships with arts and cultural institutions internationally, the foundation looks to create opportunities to encourage public awareness of the importance of art to the community.

The Sawiris Foundation was founded in April 2001 as a grant-making foundation. Set up with an endowment from the Sawiris family – which is made up of prominent members of the business world and the development community - it is one of the first family donor foundations dedicated to social development to be established in Egypt. In 2005, the Foundation was granted special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The Sawiris Foundation’s focus, mission and work have

evolved from the collective thinking of like-minded individuals within the international development community. Mrs. Yousriya Loza Sawiris, founding chair of the Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE), and the late Dr. Ibrahim Shihata, Senior Vice-President and General Counsel of the World Bank, began the dialogue and thinking of how to shape the Foundation. They were further encouraged in their efforts by the collaboration of advocates such as Mrs. Mary Asaad, a community development expert, and the late Dr. John Gerhart, former President of the American University in Cairo (AUC). Dr. Shihata helped codify the Foundation’s by-laws and processes, and recruited the members of its Board of Trustees and the Foundation’s first Executive Director. All board members are leaders of Egyptian society and experts in their field.

Environmental Quality International (EQI) is an internationally acclaimed investment and consulting firm specialising in natural and cultural heritage conservation, and sustainable development. Since 1981 it has designed and implemented sundry landmark initiatives nationwide. Its Siwa Sustainable Development Initiative is a notable example of how the private sector can conserve a region’s cultural and natural heritage, build local economies, and pro t at the same time. EQI is the leading institution behind the development and implementation of the Revival of the Egyptian Museum Initiative. The company has been privately funding some of the soft costs associated with the implementation of the Initiative, as well as the organization of public events.

Art d ' EgYPTE

Art D’Égypte is a privately owned Egyptian multidisciplinary company that provides art consultancy services. It provides services to institutions, corporations and private collectors. Working closely with curators to provide curatorial services to artists, art centers and foundations, public spaces and museums. The team has a strong background and extensive experience in the Egyptian art market. The company aims to promote Egyptian artists and the art scene locally, regionally and internationally.

Art D’Égypte aims to support young artists or artists that have scarce funds in publishing their work. The company also sets itself the target of bridging the gap between the Egyptian artists and the world.

The company works towards filming documentaries on modern Egyptian artists starting with Alexandria. Cataloguing Egypt’s modern and contemporary art heritage is a further goal of the company.

Through raising funds Art D’Égypte aims on supporting young artists or artists that have scare funds in publishing their work. The company also sets itself the target of bridging the gap between the Egyptian artists and the world. Art D’Égypte is working on organizing yearly pop up shows in historical spaces for the first time in Egypt. The shows will allow the world to experience Egypt and its visual arts from a new angle. The objective is to raise awareness and aid NGOs to raise funds to revive its heritage, that is considered world heritage.

THE TEAM

Nadine Abdel Ghaffar is a multitalented professional. Her hard-work, interest and dedication to art and design help her enhance the cultural and social development landscape in Egypt. In 2003 she founded the interior design consultancy Veradeco. Abdel Ghaffar’s constant work on expanding her knowledge is surely a reason to the success of her company. In 2005, she decided to professionalize her passion in art dealing. She started organizing exhibitions in Egypt and Dubai to promote Egyptian art and artists. Her well-kept connections with collectors and artists are a solid base for her work. Committed to documenting Egypt’s modern art heritage and promoting Egyptian art she established the art consultancy Art D’Égypte With this Egyptian art initiative she aims to encourage the modern and contemporary art scene on an exclusive level.

Abdullah Dawestashy is a photographer, DOP and filmmaker. His introduction to the art world happened through his father, one of Egypt’s important art historians. He then discovered his passion for photography and slowly made it a profession. He participated in different exhibitions as an artist; the Youth Salon, the Mediterranean Youth Biennale in Bari and the Annual Photography Exhibition at the Alexandria Atelier amongst others. Dawestashy also curated photography exhibitions. His photographic vision has been demonstrated in several short fictions and documentaries. Dawestashys first achievement as a film director was the documentary Unseen Alexandria for which he won the second prize of the Mohamed Bayoumi Youth Prize for Short Films under the auspices of the 13th edition of The Alexandria Mediterranean Film Festival in 2014. He also won The State Incentive Award for Photography of Architecture and Sculpture at the exhibition ‘The Original and the Image’ in Alexandria in 2013.

Noura Abla is a graduate from the Zurich University of the Arts. After growing up in Egypt she moved to Switzerland to complete her studies in fine arts with a specialization in theory. During her studies, she focused on the connection between art and politics as well as intercultural issues. Simultaneously she has been increasingly active in the arts and culture field. She was involved in various projects in Switzerland and the Middle East, which included researching, curating, organizing and managing art projects and workshops. Coordinating the Fayoum Art Center’s Winter Academy amongst others. Through fruitful work experiences she gained great insight on the art market as well as film production. She found a fascination for the collaboration with artists and liaising their work and a passion for Egyptian and Middle Eastern art in specific. Abla now lives in Zurich and works between Switzerland and Egypt.

Nora Al Kholi, with her background in psychology, has been able to apply her work to many different aspects. From writing in fashion and lifestyle magazines, to handling events and outlets at the first mall. She has been able to create new events which everyone enjoys, find new concepts in many different aspects, and run her own multi-brand fashion store. Collecting art and consulting on special art pieces , Al Kholi surely has the eye and passion for working hard, creating, engaging people in entertaining events as well as siting on several boards and dedication to charitable work. She has longed for exposing the mystery and beauty of Egyptian art and treasures of Egypt to the world, in hopes that the whole world can see the beauty that is only found in Egypt.

CONTRiBUTORS

Dr. Zahi Hawass is a worldrenowned archaeologist, whose extensive knowledge have sparked global interest in ancient Egypt. He received his bachelors from Alexandria University in Greek and Roman archaeology and a diploma in Egyptology from Cairo University. His master’s and doctoral degrees were granted by the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied as a Fulbright fellow. He began as inspector of antiquities, quickly becoming Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, as well as the first Minister of State for Antiquities. Dr. Hawass has been recognized internationally with the Egyptian First-Class Award for Arts and Sciences in 1998, as well as Time Magazine ’s top 100 most influential people in 2006, and most recently, in April 2017, he was appointed Ambassador for Peace and Cultural Heritage by the International Federation of Peace and Sustainable Development, an affiliate to the United Nations. Currently, Dr. Hawass is working with the Ministry of Tourism to promote tourism to Egypt.

Dr. Gemma Tully is an archaeologist and museum professional who has spent 15 years working as an academic researcher and consultant on collaborative heritage projects

in Egypt, Sudan and Europe. Much of her research has focused on the use of contemporary Egyptian art as a medium for provoking new interpretations of ancient Egypt. She has curated numerous museum exhibitions on art and archaeology and has taught on undergraduate and master’s courses in archaeology and museum studies. Dr. Tully has published her research in academic journals and edited volumes. She has also developed heritage resources in partnership with communities in Egypt and Sudan that are used in schools and at archaeological sites. Dr. Tully is currently a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge and Durham University where she is working on heritage projects which integrate local stakeholders in the management of cultural landscapes in Egypt and Europe.

Walid El Batouty is a passionate and reputable tour guide in Egypt. For ten years, he has served as the Vice President of the Syndicate of Tour Guides in Egypt. He was elected as an executive board member of the World Federation Tourist Guide Association (WFTGA). As part of A&K, El Batouty was named Guide of the Year 2007. Today, El Batouty is called the ‘Guide of the Stars’. Over his years as a tour guide,

El Batouty has guided through the beauty of Egypt some of the biggest stars and dignitaries of the world such as Roger Moore, Morgan Freeman, Yanni, Samuel Jackson, Shakira and Will Smith.

Valérie Didier-Hess has spent the last nine years working in the art world in the cultural hub of the Middle East, Dubai, and has recently moved back to her home country in Paris. During her time in Dubai, she developed an academic passion for Modern Egyptian Art. Following the success of the Mahmoud Saïd Catalogue Raisonné (Skira, 2016), co-edited with Dr. Hussam Rashwan, the first book of its kind for a Middle Eastern artist, Didier-Hess and Dr. Rashwan are dedicated to continue preserving Modern Egyptian Art’s rich cultural heritage and are currently working on the Abdel Hadi El Gazzar catalogue raisonné with the artist’s family, as well as on the English translation of Aimé Azar’s seminal book entitled La Peinture Moderne en Égypt e (1961).

Didier-Hess graduated from Cambridge University with a BA in Art History (2004), and from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, with a master’s degree in art history (2005).

Mehri Khalil is an artist and arts manager. Beside her own artistic practice, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in art theory and visual studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where she is focusing on modern Egyptian art, which complements her own work and research interests. Khalil holds a master’s degree in arts administration and policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (’12). She has experience from working at the Louvre Museum in Paris, as well as with a well-established Chicago art consultant and at galleries abroad. In Egypt, she has worked as an exhibition specialist in a museum, as well as in arts education. Khalil earned a bachelor’s degree from the American University in Cairo in 2009 and has completed a degree at the Accademia d’Arte in Florence in 2007.

Mennat-Allah El Dorry is an archaeologist specialized in culinary archaeology and heritage. She is an Egyptologist with a focus on archaeobotanical analysis, which the study of ancient plant remains that have survived on archaeological sites. This has led her into a world of food archaeology, where she works on trying to understand how people in the past cooked, ate, and how food played a role in their social and religious lives.

She has worked extensively on the field as an archaeologist, surveyor, illustrator and archivist. She is affiliated with the Ministry of Antiquities, and now serves as a postdoctoral research fellow at the French and Polish Archaeological Institutes in Cairo. She has a bachelor’s degree from the American University in Cairo, an MA from University College London and a Ph.D. from the University of Münster in Germany.

Noha Kabbani has grown up in a multi-cultured family in Cairo — one of the world’s most densely populated melting pots — so it has been easy for her to tackle a diverse number of roles and responsibilities over the globe. From working at a Luxury Milliner’s in London, coordinating projects in Kuala Lumpur, Doha, and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, to locally managing Egypt’s largest energy event Kabbani has built on her bachelor’s degree in communications and media arts to include a multitude of skills and life experiences, which now, with a keenness on honing in on her love of Art, Kabbani would like to use in servicing Egypt’s rich art scene.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Nadine A. Ghaffar founder of Art D’Égypte takes great pleasure in collaborating with all of her supporters on this ground breaking initiative.

My deepest gratitude goes to all of those who contributed in making this project come to see the light. For the trust, support and the undivided love of Egypt. Our light for Eternity.

Ministry of Antiquities, H.E. Dr. Khaled Al Anany

Dr. Mennat El Dorry

Iman Zidan

Ashraf Salah

Nevine Aref

Dr. Yasmine El Shazly

Mona Abdel Nazeer Sayed

Museum Director, Sabah Abdel Razik Saddik

Fatma El Zahrae Ragi

Eng. Mariam Salama

And all museum staff and employees

Thanks to H.E. Naser Kamel and Dalia El Batal Egyptian Ambassador in the United Kingdom for their support.

Special Thanks to all the companies that trusted us and contributed with in kind donations to the museum.

Philips for lighting the atrium with the newest museum lighting technology. Mohamed A. El Azayem John Fahmy and Hossam Nabawy for making it happen.

Allam Sons for renovating the washrooms, specially Eng. Hassan Allam and Eng. Mohamed El Assar .

Inertia for renovating areas in the garden and creating our museum exhibition display. Their amazing team for making it possible Eng. Hussein Rifai and Eng. Tarek Salem

Thanks to our partners who contributed in turning this into a beautiful night Abercrombie & Kent :

Mr. Amr Badr for his great support and motivation from the very beginning. His amazing team: Mrs. Heba Matar and Mrs. Dalia Khater .

Prolite Mr. Baher George for the lights projector and screen.

Four Seasons Nile Plaza for the Ancient Egyptian tasting ceremony.

Sawiris Foundation for the great work they do in Egypt. Special Thanks to Eng. Samih Sawiris for his support, trust and guidance. Dina Nagaty for assistance in every step

Dr. Mounir Neamatalla for believing, encouraging and driving the project forward.

Thomas William , Eng. Ramez Azmy and Nancy Adel for all the logistics.

Barjeel Art Foundation and their entire team, Mandy Merzaban and Karim Sultan for supporting the curatorial work. Imran Ahmed Kamal for taking care of all the logistics. Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi founder of Barjeel for his immense support and undivided commitment to arts of the Arab world. His passion and support to Art D’Égypte initiative has made it possible for Night at the Museum to see the light.

Our gratitude goes towards Dr. Gemma Tully , Valérie Didier-Hess , Mehri Khalil , Nadine Nour and Noura Abla as contributors to this publication.

The Nile Ritz-Carlton team: Mr. Tawfik Mokhtar Gorgette Fakhry , Mr. Elhamy Azmy and Islam Sherif Marriott team and Mr. Aly Abou El Gheit .

Our esteemed printing partner Sahara Printing Company and, above all, its CEO Nadim Elias for being a true supporter of the art scene in Egypt.

To the galleries that collaborated with Art D’Égypte : Karim Francis , Mashrabia , Cheim & Read , The Third Line and Gypsum

Rasheed Kamel f or his legal advice (Kamel Law).

To all those who believed in me and supported from day one: Thanks to the Art D’Égypte team and partners who contributed tremendously to the success of ‘Eternal Light’. My deepest gratitude to my beloved family, friends, Zahrbanelians , Karim Wissa , Sorraya Bahgat , Dr. Hossam Rashwan , Sherine Badrawi , Dr. Mohamed Awad , Jane Smithe for the vessels, Rima Maktabi , Ghena Al Hariri for helping with the invitations, Dr. Ramzy Dalloul the godfather, and Bassel Dalloul

Dr. Zahi Hawass for agreeing to be part of this initiative, his encouragement and support were of utmost importance to me. To Maryan Soby for being a great assistant.

Walid El Batouty for taking care of all the guided tours and being part of this initiative from its creation. Special thanks to the finest team of Egyptian tour guides for accompanying our guests.

Veradeco design house team: Eng. Raghda Mohsen and Eng. Rawan Abdulhalim for their dedication and attention to full details designing all gallery exhibition and museum display units. Mohamed Saad for assisting in every possible way.

Big thank you to the Egyptian Center for Culture and Arts - Makan (ECCA) for providing us with all the musical performances. Makan aims to record and present traditional music and musicians in Egypt. By researching and documenting traditional music, safeguarding and re-establishing popular traditions.

Ahmed Maghrabi and Phillipe and Olivia Maari

Thank you to our logistics partner: our banking partner: and our media partners:

ARTiSTS ' ACCOMPLiSHMENTS

Adam Henein

Selected Exhibitions

2014 Opening of the Adam Henein Museum, Harraniya district, Cairo, Egypt

2013 The Sweetest Haven, Art Talks, Cairo, Egypt

2006 Selected Sculptures, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2004 Awarded the Mubarak Prize

2002 Paintings and Pottery, Zamalek

Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1999-2000 Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

1998 Egyptian State Merit Award

1996 Founded the Aswan

International Sculpture Symposium, Aswan, Egypt

1991 Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France

1989- 1998 Restoration of the Sphinx with the Ministry of Culture, Giza, Egypt

1988 ASB Gallery, Munich, Germany

1987 Egyptian Cultural Center, Paris, France

1983 Sultan Gallery, Kuwait.

1980 Egyptian Academy, Rome, Italy

1960 Illustration of the work of the poet Salah Jahine

Adel El Siwi

Selected Exhibitions

2017 In the Presence of the Animal,

Mashrabia Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2014 Contemporary Egyptian Art, Egyptian Academy, Rome, Italy

2013 Artspace Gallery, London, UK

2009 Contemporary Icons, Artspace Gallery, Dubai, UAE

2009 Invisible Presence: Looking at the Body in Contemporary Egyptian Art (curated by Stefania Angarano), Samaakhana, Cairo, Egypt

2008 Word into Art - Artists of the Middle East: traveling exhibition (curated by Venetia Porter), The British Museum, Dubai, UAE

2008 Mediterranean Trilogy, Palais des Arts, Marseille, France

2008 Arab artists in between Italian and Mediterranean Traditions (curated by Martina Corgnati), Damascus, Beirut, Cairo

2006 My Stars, Mashrabia Gallery, Espace Karim Francis, Cairo, Egypt

2004 Agial Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

2003 Repliques, Algeria

2002 18 International Artists: Homage to King Henry IV, Lyon, France

2001 Contemporary Art in Egypt, Mexico City, Mexico

2000 Trans African Art, Orlando Museum of Modern Art, Florida, USA

1999 Vision Egyptienne d’Eternité, Agde, France

1998 Bellektin - Moderling, Dolmabachi Cultural Center, Istanbul, Turkey

1997 Venice Biennale, Italy

1997 Sharjah Biennale, UAE

1997 Sans Frontières, Micheline Fallet Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland

1996 Biennale of São Paulo, Brazil, parallel works in Rio de Janeiro and Cairo Biennale, Egypt

1994 Rencontres Africaines, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France

1993 Modern Art Museum, New Delhi, India

1988, 1990 Mashrabia Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1987, 1985, 1980 Cairo Atelier, Cairo, Egypt

Ahmed Abdel Wahab

Selected Exhibitions

2007 1st Festival of Fine Creation, Egypt’s 1st Salon, Cairo, Egypt

2005 Egyptian Cultural Center, Paris, France

2003 Exhibition with artist

Mostafa Abdel Moati, Bibliotheca

Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt

2001, 2003 27th and 28th National

Exhibition of Fine Arts, Egypt

1993 Group Exhibition, Spanish

Cultural Center, Cairo, Egypt

1979 Al Salam Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1978 Exhibition of Alexandrian artists, Alexandria Atelier, Alexandria, Egypt

1978 Group exhibition, Al Horreya Culture Palace, Egypt

1977 Exhibition of Contemporary Egyptian Art, Sudan

1976 Represented Egypt in Rome Exhibition, Rome, Italy

1972, 1976, 1982 Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

1964 Alexandria Atelier, Alexandria, Egypt

1964 Youth Biennale, France

1961- 1965 4th, 5th and 6th

Alexandria Biennale, Alexandria, Egypt

1957 Cairo Salon, Egypt

Ahmed Morsi

Selected Exhibitions

2016 Debunking Orientalism, SYRA Arts, The Untitled Space - SoHo, New York, USA

2016 Looking at the World Around You: Contemporary Works from Qatar Museums, Santander Art Gallery, Madrid, Spain

2007 Spirit of the Moment... Spirit of the Image, Ebdaa Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2007 1st Egyptian Salon, Amir Taz Palace, Cairo, Egypt

2005, 2003 Akhenaton Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1996 Accademia D’Egitto, Rome.

1995 The Artist’s Book, Mashrabia Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1991 Cavafi Suite, Mashrabia Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1987 Vorpal, SoHo, New York, USA

1985 Alif Gallery, Washington DC, USA

1977 Asifs Gallery, New York, USA

1975 Columbia University, New York, USA

1958, 1959 Cairo Atelier, Cairo, Egypt

1970 The Pace Gallery, London

1958, 1956, 1954 Biennale of Mediterranean Countries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Alexandria, Egypt

1958 Alexandria Museum of Fine Art, Alexandria, Egypt

1956 El Waziriyeh Gallery, Society of Iraqi Artists, Baghdad, Iraq

of the Temples / Steps in Darkness, Alexandria, Cairo

Esmat Dawestashy

Selected Exhibitions

2017- 1962 Over 100 exhibitions, Egypt and various other countries.

2017 With Dawestashy, Art Corner Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2016 The Key, organized by CARAVAN, Nile Art Gallery, Cairo, London, England, and New York, USA

2016 From Alexandria to India, Art Corner Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2015 - 1964 Group exhibitions, Cairo, Egypt

2015 Generations, Art Corner Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2011 Before and After the Revolution, Extra Gallery, Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt

2007 Alexandrian Faces, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt

2001 Directed the short film

Mahmoud Said

1997 Directed the short film

Al Risha Wal-Qalam (The Brush and the Pen)

1990

21st General Exhibition of Fine Arts, Cairo, Egypt

1987 Alexandria Biennale, Alexandria, Egypt

1986 Sculpture Biennale, Hungary

1980 Sporting Club, Alexandria, Egypt

2016 Focus: Works from Mathaf Collection, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar

2012 Surrealism, Present-day Cairo, The Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2012 Metaphysics, Gallery Misr, Cairo, Egypt

1953 First solo show at the University of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt

Selected Publications

2012 The Collected Poems, Supreme Council of Culture published his anthology.

1949 First poetry collection Songs

1967 Second exhibition, Alexandria, Egypt

1962 First exhibition before enrolling at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Egypt Participated in more than 20 international biennales.

Farouk Hosny

Selected Exhibitions

2017 Ubuntu Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2016 SYRA Arts Gallery, Washington DC, USA

2015 Ward Gallery, Dubai, UAE

2015, 2011 Mohamed Mahmoud

Khalil Museum, Cairo, Egypt

2013 ART Abu Dhabi, UAE

2008 Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA

2004 Vittoriano Museum Complex, Italy

2001 National Exhibition of Fine Arts, Egypt

2000 Arab Museum of Fine Arts, Doha, Qatar

1999 Contemporary Egyptian Artist Metropolitan Museum, New York, USA

1998 Vigor Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

1997 Carrousel Museum, Louvre Museum, Paris, France

1995-1996 Raoshan Art Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

1995 Gallery UNESCO

Organization, Paris, France

1992 Bahrain National Museum, Bahrain

1990 Retrospective Exhibition, Zamalek Art Center, Cairo, Egypt

1989 Kuwait Biennale, Kuwait

1987 Studio S, Contemporary Art, Rome, Italy

1983 Gallery Beaux Arts, Venice, Italy

1982 Modern Egyptian Art Cabela de Santa Barbra, Naples, Italy.

1980 Biennale (Castle of the City), Marino, Italy

1980 Egyptian Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany

1979 Egyptian Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy

1976 Cammionale De Mantes-laJolie, France

1968 Palace of Culture, Alexandria, Egypt

Farouk Wahba

Selected Exhibitions

2008 2nd Festival of Fine

Creation, 31st General Exhibition, Cairo, Egypt

2007 1st Fine Art Festival, the General Exhibition, Cairo, Egypt

2006 Identity exhibition, Karmat

Ebn Hanea Cultural Center, Ahmed Shawky Museum, Cairo, Egypt

2005 29th National Art Exhibition, Cairo, Egypt

2002 Cleopatra International Exhibition, Egyptian Arts Academy, Rome, Italy

1997 Tovilis Art Gallery, Vienna, Austria

1993, 1995, 1997 23rd, 24th and 25th National Art Exhibition,

Cairo, Egypt

1993 State Academy Exhibition, Düsseldorf, Germany

1992 Egyptian Contemporary Art

Exhibition, Rome, Italy

1991 Group exhibition, Art Konsult Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany

1990 International Art Fair, Los Angeles, USA

1990 Venice International Biennale, Venice, Italy

1989 1st International Biennale Havana, Cuba

1989 Second International Festival of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq

1989 Museum of Fine Arts, Alexandria, Egypt

1986 Fula Art Gallery, Warsaw, Poland

1984 Boushahri Art Gallery, Kuwait

1984 1st Cairo International Biennale, Cairo, Egypt

1983 Grand Ballet, Paris, France

1982 14th Alexandria International Biennale of Mediterranean Countries, Alexandria, Egypt

1980 Al-Salam Art Gallery, The Ministry of Culture, Cairo, Egypt

1977 Egyptian Contemporary Art Exhibition, Madrid, Barcelona, Spain

1975 Cairo Atelier, Egypt

Ghada Amer Selected Exhibitions

2018 Ghada Amer, Cheim & Read, New York, USA

2017 Ways of Seeing, curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, ARTER, Istanbul, Turkey

2017 Third Space / Shifting Conversations about Contemporary Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama

2014 Seeing Through Light, Selections from the Guggenheim

Abu Dhabi Collection, organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in collaboration with Abu Dhabi Tourism & Cultural Authority, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE

2014 Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA

2012 Ghada Amer, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

2012 Tea with Nefertiti: The Making of the Artwork by the Artist, the Museum and the Public, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar

2011 The Women in Our Life: A Fifteen Year Anniversary Exhibition, Cheim & Read, New York, USA

2009 Roses Off Limits: Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh, Pace Prints Chelsea, New York, USA

2008 Love Has No End, Elisabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA

2008 Prospects I, curated by Don Cameron, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, USA

2007 Ghada Amer, curated by D. Eccher, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome, Italy.

2006 Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

2005 Fairy Tales Forever: International Homage to H.C. Andersen, AroS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Copenhagen, Denmark

2002 Ghada Amer, Gagosian Gallery, Heddon Street, London, UK

2000 Whitney Biennial, curated by M. Lincoln Andersen, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA

2000 Greater New York: New Art in New York Now, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York, USA

1999 APERTO Over All, 48th International Art Exhibition, curated by Harald Szeeman, Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy

Selected Publications

2018 Jenny Sorkin, Ghada Amer. New York: Cheim & Read.

2010 Maura Reilly, Ghada Amer. New York: Gregory Miller & Company.

2010 Martine Antle, The Gardens Next Door. Lisbon: Galeria Filomena Soares.

2007 Germano Celant, Danilo Eccher, Teresa Macri and Elizabeth Janus, Ghada Amer. Rome:MACRO.

2004 Teresa Millet, Ghada Amer: 9-IX-2004/7-XI-2004, Valencia: Institut Valencià d’Art Modern.

2003 Sahar Amer and Olu Oguibe, Ghada Amer. Amsterdam: De Appel.

Hany Rashed

Selected Exhibitions

2017 The Last Farewell, Mashrabia Gallery and SOMA Art, Egypt

2015 Bulldozer, Mashrabia Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2015 A Season in Hell, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2014 Toys, Mashrabia Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2014 BACK TO (THE) SQUARE 1, Forum Box, Helsinki, Finland

2013 Freedom, Viennoise Hotel, Downtown, Cairo, Egypt

2012 Identitaeten, Kunst-Nah Galerie, Hamburg, Germany

2011 Black Ice, Gezirah Art Center, Cairo, Egypt

2011 Maspero, Darb 17/18, Cairo, Egypt

2010 Human Bodies, Art Palace, Cairo, Egypt

2009 Art Dubai, Dubai, UAE

2009 Selma Feriani Gallery, London, UK

2009 Where are you?

Townhouse Gallery, organized by Pro Helvetia, Cairo, Egypt

2008 In the Middle of the Middle, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

2008 Cairo Scape, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, Germany

2007 Frieze Art Fair, Regent›s Park, London, England

2007 Cape Town Biennale,

Cape Town, South Africa

2007 Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece

2006 Dak’Art Biennale, Dakkar, Senegal

2006 People from Cairo, Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cairo, Egypt

2003 Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona and Granada, Spain

2003 Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands

1995-1998 Youth Salon, Cairo Opera House Complex, Egypt

Huda Lutfi

Selected Exhibitions

2017 Tell me the Story of all These Things, Villa Vassilieff, Paris, France

2016 Magnetic Bodies: Imaging the Urban, The Thirdline Gallery, Dubai

2016 The Turn, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna

2014 Alexandria Biennial for Mediterranean Countries, Alexandria, Egypt

2014 Fotofest Biennial, Houston, USA

2013 Cut and Paste, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2013 Terms and Conditions, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore

2013 De Colline en Colline, Sidi

Bou Said & Takrouna, Tunisia

2010 Making a Man out of Him, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2010 My World Images, Festival

for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark

2010 Dak’Art Biennale, Dakkar, Senegal

2008 Zan’it al-Sittat, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE

2007 Contemporary Egyptian Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Bonn, Germany

2007 Contact Zone, The National Museum of Art, Bamako, Mali

2007 Out of Place, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

2005 Retrospective of Recent Works, al-Riwaq Gallery of Contemporary Art, Bahrain

2002 Dawn Portraits, Fortis Circustheater Gallery, The Hague, Netherlands

2001 Paintings by a Contemporary Egyptian Artist, The Muscarelle Museum of Art, Virginia, USA

Selected Publications

2016 Kevin Jones, Magnetic Bodies: Imaging the Urban, Review Art Asia Pacific, 99, July-August review.

2014 Margot Badran, The Creative Activism of Huda Lutfi, Postcolonial Studies, 11 June 2014.

2013 Laura Gribbon, Cut and Paste: Impressions of Power and Resistance, Mada Masr, 17 December.

2012 Huda Lutfi: Retrospective Catalogue, Dubai: The Thirdline Gallery.

2005 Seth Thompson, Cairo’s Avant

Garde, The Journal for Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, vol. 36, no. 2.

2008 Guangzhou Triennale, China

2008 The Queens Museum, New York, USA

2007 Tate Modern, London, UK

2007 7th Sharjah Biennale, UAE

2007 Expressions on Paper, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2006 30 Years of His Art, Gallery

Hohman, Walsrode, Germany

Artlounge, Cairo, Egypt

Selected Exhibitions

2013, 2015, 2017 The 57th, 56th and 55th Venice Biennale, Italy

2015 3rd Mardin Biennale, Turkey

2015 6th Moscow Biennale, Russia

2015 1st Trio Biennale, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

2015 1st Biennale del Sur, Caracas, Venezuela

2014 15th Fotofest Biennale, Houston, USA

2014 Uppsala Museum of Art, Sweden

2012 11th Havana Biennale, Cuba

2012 Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan

2011 9th Bamako Photo Biennale, Mali

2011 8th Mercusol Biennale, Porto Allegre, Brazil

2011, 2013, 2015 State Museum of Art, Thessaloniki, Greece

2010, 2012 Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France

2010 Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain

2010 The New Museum, New York, USA

2010 The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Icatha, New York, USA

2010 12th Cairo Biennale, Egypt

2009 Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece

2009 Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

2007, 2011 MuHKA Museum of Art, Antwerp, Belgium

2007 Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany

2006 1st Singapore Biennale, Singapore

2004, 2006 6th and 7th Dak’Art Biennale, Dakkar, Senegal

Mohamed Abla

Selected Exhibitions

2017 A Glimpse of Heritage, SafarKhan Gallery, Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt

2016 On the Silk Road, Mahmoud Khalil Museum, Cairo, Egypt

2014 Mohamed Abla in Retrospective, The Arts Mart Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2012 The Family, Artspace Gallery, Dubai, UAE

2012 Road to Tahrir, El Bab Gallery, Museum of Modern Art Cairo, Egypt

2010 Cairo Towers, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2009 City Lights, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2008 Labyrinth, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2008 Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Marseille, France

2006 The Family, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2006 Word into Art, The British Museum, London, UK

2006 Masterpieces IV, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2005 Nostalgia, Cairo, Egypt

2004 Cairo…Portraits of a City, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2002 Conviviality…The Nile & The Trees, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

2001 30 Egyptian Artists: Generations in Contemporary Art, Zamalek Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1998 The Nile, Goethe Institute, Cairo, Egypt

1997 Group exhibition, Grand Prize of the Alexandria Biennale, Alexandria, Egypt.

1997 1st Prize, Kuwait Biennale, Kuwait

1996 Cairo Biennale, Egypt

1979 First Solo Exhibition, Galerie Hohmann, Walsrode, Germany

Nazir Tanbouli

Selected Projects and Exhibitions

2016 Conversation, A Drawing Exhibition with Julien Sole, French Cultural Institute, Alexandria, Egypt

2015 Remains of Old Albums,

2015 Drawing Performance, Chelsea Theatre and The British Museum, Shubbak Festival, London, UK

2014 Full Circle: Drawings and Live Performance, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt

2014 Black Books, Westminster Central Art and Design Library, London, UK

2013 Orientophobia, Hackney Downs Studios, London, UK

2013 Draw to Perform, Performance Space London, UK

2012 The King›s Land Murals, London, UK

2011 Keeping Afloat, La Clinica Mundana, Valencia, Spain

2010 Paper Murals, Wilson Road Gallery, Camberwell College of Art, London, UK

2009 Baptism of Hailstones, Surface Gallery, Nottingham, UK

2009 Tales from The Electric Forest, St Pancras Crypt Gallery, London, UK

2009 Prospero’s Library, Accademia di Belle Arte, Catania, Italy

2008 Next We Change Earth, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK

2008 Private Nightmares, Red Gate Gallery, London, UK

2008 Digital Media 1.0, La Nau, Valencia

2007 Coldstore, Kühlhaus am Gleisdreieck, Berlin, Germany

2006 Lighten Up, Wysing Arts

Khaled Hafez

Center, Cambridge, UK

2005 Urban Clearance, Gallery PS2 and Site-Specific, Belfast, UK

2004 Trio Exhibition, Blackfriars Art Center, Boston, USA

2002 Solo Exhibition, De Montfort Hall, Leicester, UK

2001, 2000 Cairo Festival of Contemporary Art, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt

1993 - 1995 National Salon of Youth, Cairo, Egypt

Said Badr

Selected Exhibitions

2018-2016 Mustanad, Darb 1718, Cairo, Egypt

2016 Alexandrian Artists, Canada

2016 Generations, Mahmoud Said Hall, Alexandria, Egypt

2015 Contemporary Egyptian Art, Moscow, Russia

2013 Contemporary Egyptian Art, Vienna, Austria

2013- 1995 General Exhibition, Cairo, Egypt

2011 Contemporary Egyptian Art, Kuwait

2011 The Statue, Gallery Misr, Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt

2010 Arts Center, Cairo, Egypt and Nigeria

2010 El Gezira Art Center, Zamalek, Egypt

2009 Second African Culture Festival, Algeria

2009 SafarKhan Gallery, Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt

2008 The Dream, Ahmed Shawky Museum, Cairo, Egypt

2008 Autumn Salon, Paris, France.

2008 An Egyptian Hymn, Khan El Maghraby Gallery, Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt

2007 Alexandria’s 24th Biennale (Mediterranean States), Alexandria, Egypt

2007 The Eighties Generation, Faculty of Fine Arts, Alexandria, Egypt

2005 Art and Peace, Egyptian Culture Center, Rome, Italy

2002 Alexandrian Artists, Egyptian Culture Center, Rome, Italy

2001 Academy of Fine Arts, Carrara, Italy

1998 Egyptian Academy for Arts, Rome, Italy

1997 Alexandria’s 19th Round (Mediterranean States), Alexandria, Egypt

1994- 1991 3rd, 5th & 6th Annual Youth Salon, Cairo, Egypt

Sarwat El Bahr

Selected Exhibitions

2005 Retrospective, Ofok Gallery and Mahmoud Khalil Museum, Cairo, Egypt

2002 2nd Biennale of Mediterranean Cities, Tunisia

2002 Joint Exhibition with the Italian

artist Giovanni Soccol, Egyptian Academy, Rome, Italy

1998 International Museum of 20th Century Art, EXPO98, in collaboration with UNESCO, Lisbon, Portugal

1997 The Sea Exhibition, The Egyptian Academy, Rome, Italy

1994 International Painting Festival, Nice, France

1993 International Biennale of Cairo, Egypt

1991 8 Egyptian Artists, Bremen, Germany

1990 INF Group, Langen, Germany

1990 8 Egyptian Artists, Augsburg, Germany

1989 11th Arab Biennale, Kuwait

1988 Alexandria Contemporary Art, Egyptian Academy, Rome, Italy

1983 International Salon of Paris, Paris, France

1980 International Biennale of Venice, Venice, Italy

1980 Exhibition of Egyptian contemporary art, Mexico, Romania and Germany

1977 Egyptian Youth Exhibition, Cordoba, Spain

1977 The Egyptian Week, Essen, Germany

1974 10th Biennale of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt

1971 Exhibition with sculptor

M. Moussa, Atelier Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt

Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions:

2017 Youssef Nabil, I Saved My Belly Dancer, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), USA

2017 A Painting Today, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2017 Hips Don’t Lie, Centre Pompidou Paris, France

2016 Botticelli Reimagined, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

2015 The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA

2015 Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, USA

2014 Ri-conoscere Michelangelo, Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, Italy

2013 Safar Voyage, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, Canada.

2012 Youssef Nabil, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France

2011 Facing Mirrors, Museum of Photography, Thessaloniki, Greece.

2010 Youssef Nabil, I Live Within You, Savannah College of Art and Design-SCAD, Savannah, USA

2009 Youssef Nabil, I Won’t Let you Die, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy

2009 Unconditional Love, The Venice Biennale - 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice, Italy

2008 Far From Home, North Carolina Museum of Art NCMA, North Carolina, USA

2008 Youssef Nabil, CINEMA, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2006 Word into Art, The British Museum, London, UK

2005 Nazar, Photographs from the Arab World, The Aperture Foundation Gallery, New York, USA

2004 Contemporary African Photography, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona MACBA, Barcelona, Spain

2003 Youssef Nabil, Pour un Moment d’Éternité, Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France

2001 Youssef Nabil, Obsesiones, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City, Mexico

Monographs:

2013 Youssef Nabil, Flammarion

2008 I Won’t Let you Die, Youssef Nabil - Hatje Cantz

2007 Sleep in my arms, Youssef Nabil - Autograph & Michael Stevenso

Youssef Nabil

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