ENGLISH Fe e re l fre tur e n m to e
5.2–18.4 2022
BASIM MAGDY Avtrycket / The Dent
@rodastenkonsthall rodastenkonsthall.se
Still from The Dent, Basim Magdy
INTRODUCTION The title of the exhibition The Dent / Avtrycket derives from Basim Magdy´s film The Dent, which represents a departure point in the artist’s solo exhibition at Röda Sten Konsthall. The Dent / Avtrycket presents five films together with a newly commissioned film work, along with various photoinstallations and one interactive artwork. The exhibition also includes a selection of paintings which the artist was working with extensively during the lockdowns of 2020/2021. Throughout his work, Magdy exposes very complex and convoluted constellations of contemporary social and political power structures, and the ways in which they might bring an end to the world. The dramatic tension in
Magdy´s artwork is built upon present and (still) not existing realities and relies on counter-narrative plots, scripted by the artist, which are played against the backdrop of the absurdity of life and banality of existence. Looking closely at the exhibition concept, it is important to stress that its reference to Magdy´s film The Dent is twofold. Etymologically the word ”dent”, among other things, denotes a material change on the surface of hard metal; a slight hollow in a hard even surface made by a blow or pressure; a distraction caused by accident.1 Regarding the film plot Magdy says: The Dent weaves loosely linked events and irrational occurrences to reflect
upon collective failure and hopefulness. An anonymous little town struggles for international recognition as it becomes obvious failure is a monster too big to slaughter. The literal meaning of the ”dent” inspired the labyrinth-like structure of the exhibition. In other words, the mental imagery of the ”dent” works as a metaphor for the exhibition which can be perceived as Lewis Carroll’s topsy-turvy Wonderland ”rabbit hole” phenomenon.2 This imagery is used to induce a ”going down the rabbit hole” experience when stepping into Magdy’s topsyturvy-like approach to reality where colorful paintings, distorted Polaroids, poetic and enchanting 16mm films meet historical and contemporary phenomena, and where the earliest forms of life, technological achievements and the post-human species are placed alongside each other. As the author Kathryn Schulz argues, a “rabbit hole has many metaphorical applications—from frustrating red tape to the mind-bending complexity of science to hallucinations during altered states—all united by a common sense of passing into some labyrinthine, logic-defying realm that, once entered, is hard to get out of.”3
The interpretations of the ”rabbit hole” phenomena have significantly changed and further evolved in the digital age. Thus, ”going down the rabbit hole” seldom means winding up in a completely strange and new setting. More often it means, like in both Magdy´s film The Dent as well as in his overall practice, that “we got interested in something to the point of distraction— usually by accident, and usually to a degree that the subject in question might not seem to merit.” 4 Another important aspect of the exhibition grew out of site-specific research carried out in Sweden last year, in the Bohuslän region, near Tanumshede. Two significant historical places meet each other at this location: the prehistoric Rock Carvings of Tanum (UNESCO World Heritage Site from 1994) and the Tanum Teleport, built in 1971, which was the first satellite transmitting telephony, data, and TV signals from this part of the world to other continents. Fifty years later, Tanum Teleport is no longer operational, and is mostly forgotten. The promised modernist vision of the future disappeared along with the belief and trust in anything or anyone.
At the same time this type of rockcarved art is the most widespread testimony of the existence of prehistoric humans, yet it is under almost constant threat to disappear entirely. This threat, among other socio-political and economic causes, is enhanced by human impact, “of which the most obvious and widespread is environmental pollution such as acid rain and related circumstances.”5
Relying on humor and self-irony – Magdy´s strongest critical tools, The Dent / Avtrycket aims to bring hope to the future by admitting to current mistakes. Accepting our own failures and even being able to laugh at them might not be a bad place to start at all.
Curator Amila Puzić
As Basim Magdy so astutely narrates in New Acid, one of his other films presented in the exhibition: My father was a mathematician and a linguist He had golden teeth and a jellyfish tongue One day he got caught up in a revolution Revolutions taste like goat eyes, delicious and momentary Along these lines, doubting everything and leaving the conclusion open, Magdy´s criticism has no name, no trademark, no definition, no country, no ideology. His criticism tackles the finest parts of our tiny selves by laughing at the fallacy of human omnipotence.
NOTES 1. The Oxford English Dictionary. See at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/ english/dent (January 11, 2022). 2. According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the literal meaning of a rabbit hole is what the animal digs for its home. The earliest written record of the phrase dates back to the 17th century. The figurative interpretation of rabbit hole begins with Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. See at: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/rabbit-hole/ (January 11, 2022). 3. Kathryn Schulz, “The Rabbit-Hole Rabbit Hole”, The New Yorker, June 4, 2015). See at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/ cultural-comment/the-rabbit-hole-rabbit-hole (January 9, 2022). 4. Ibid. 5. See at: https://www.icomos.org/risk/world_ report/2000/isc-rockart_2000.htm (January 15, 2022).
© : Berlinale 2021
BIOGRAPHY
Basim Magdy (b. 1977, Egypt) is an artist and filmmaker. Avtrycket / The Dent is Basim Magdy´s first solo exhibition in Sweden. His work appeared recently in solo exhibitions at museums such as MHKA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, Mulhouse, France; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MAXXI National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome; Jeu de Paume, Paris; Arnolfini, Bristol; CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux; Art in General, New York and in groups shows at MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Castello di Rivoli, Torino;
New Museum Triennial, New York; Istanbul Biennial; Sharjah Biennial; Athens Biennial; GIBCA Gothenburg; SeMA Media City Seoul Biennial; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Magdy won the Abraaj Art Prize, Dubai (2014) and he was selected Deutsche Bank’s 2016 Artist of the Year. Magdy lives and works in Basel, Switzerland.
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PINGPINPOOLPONG, or How I Learned to Laugh at Failure, 2018
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13 Essential Rules for Understanding the World, 2011
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The Dent, 2014
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M.A.G.N.E.T, 2019
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Sleeping Prophets and Clairvoyants with Flashlights, 2019
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A 240 SECOND ANALYSIS OF FAILURE AND HOPEFULNESS (WITH COKE, VINEGAR AND OTHER TEAR GAS REMEDIES), 2012
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Investigating the Color Spectrum of a Post-Apocalyptic Future Landscape, 2013
1ST FLOOR
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2TH FLOOR
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Paintings, 2020–2021
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Polaroids, 2018–2021
10 New Acid, 2019
11 FEARDEATHLOVEDEATH, 2022
3RD FLOOR 9
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4TH FLOOR
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WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION PINGPINPOOLPONG, or How I Learned to Laugh at Failure
13 Essential Rules for Understanding the World
2018 Ping pong table Metal and 3D printed parts Vinyl lettering, metal cups
2011 Super 8 film transferred to HD Duration: 5 min. 16 sec.
PINGPINPOOLPONG, or How I Learned to Laugh at Failure, is a hybrid table-based game that combines features from ping pong, pinball and pool. By introducing pockets at both ends of the table and interchangeable static and kinetic obstacles that can be rearranged by each player, Magdy creates a situation where our knowledge is challenged by randomness and unpredictability.
13 Essential Rules for Understanding the World starts as a hypnotic seance where the distant voice, accompanied with the sound of the old-fashioned film-projector clatter, lulls you to sleep. Thirteen different instructions for understanding the world are given in a monotonous tone, starting with the ontological dilemma uttered by the narrator (Magdy himself ): “Never assume or pretend to understand anything”.
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The work aims to introduce failure as the breeding ground for new and imaginative ideas that, ultimately, initiate progress and encourage participants to celebrate failing together.
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The narrator shifts to a more inner, psychic life-instruction: “Never let yourself fall asleep”, is followed by the imagery transcending from still images of tulips to mundane and hypnotic outdoor footage. The ending of the film has neither objective moral nor personal involvement; it is rather an alienated, though unassertive, cautionary tale stating that:“Life is a tangled web of unexpected events. Never claim or believe that anything is certain.”
Still from 13 Essential Rules for Understanding the World, Basim Magdy
locations, the film constructs a narrative through gestures and indirect affiliations between layers of sound, image and text to respond to the absurdity of the little details that manifest into our reality.
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The Dent
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M.A.G.N.E.T
2014 Super 16mm film Transferred to Full HD video Duration: 19 min. 02 sec. Commissioned by the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014
2019 Super 16mm film transferred to Full HD Color and Black and White Duration: 21 min. Commissioned by MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon
Starting with shiny rooftops and ending with the seemingly insignificant demise of the last circus elephant of its kind, The Dent weaves loosely linked events and irrational occurrences to reflect upon collective failures and hopefulness. An anonymous little town struggles for international recognition as it becomes obvious failure is a monster too big to slaughter. Their mayor resorts to hypnosis in the shape of a circus. An ambiguous dream that defies interpretation leaves the circus owner baffled. He wakes up and puts his clowns and their wives to work. The consequences of this series of events hit the elephant where it hurts. Fate becomes its enemy.
M.A.G.N.E.T starts with a balloon floating in the sky above Manhattan, New York and ends with the collapse of capitalism in the same city. In between, in the aftermath of an unexpected rise in gravity, the narrator embarks on various ambiguous trips in an attempt to decode the misperceived historical occurrences of this phenomenon. Standing stone sites, prehistoric rock carvings, a volcano crater on an island, undated drawings on clam shells and a dangerous but unfruitful trip to the center of the earth offer unprecedented clues in a poetic progression. A robot questions its own existence while we are constantly reminded that the past and the present are poles apart. In the words of the narrator, “things have changed since then.’’
Shot between Paris, New York, Brussels, Quebec, Basel, Madeira, Prague and Venice, among other
Sleeping Prophets and Clairvoyants with Flashlights 5
2019 Light box, Duratrans print 193.6 x 146 cm Commissioned by MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon
In recent years, Basim Magdy has been making works that he describes as tentacles or extensions of his films. They are mostly elaborations on short scenes from his films that he feels could be expanded upon in separate works. Sleeping Prophets and Clairvoyants with Flashlights, 2019 pays homage to a very short scene in his longest film M.A.G.N.E.T, 2019. Here the Super 16mm film strips are laid out in a photographic manner, scanned and presented in a light box. In a way this presentation detaches the sequence of images that briefly appear in the film for less than 2 seconds from the sequential quality of the passing of time. On the other hand, the fact that photography in all of its forms is an attempt to capture the movement of light in space and how this informs the way we know the world we live in, is highlighted in the choice of medium, a light box. In this case, the image only becomes visible through the passing of light through its colorful, yet transparent surface.
A 240 SECOND ANALYSIS OF FAILURE AND HOPEFULNESS (WITH COKE, VINEGAR AND OTHER TEAR GAS REMEDIES) 6
2012 160 color slides and 2 synchronized Kodak slide carousel projectors
A 240 SECOND ANALYSIS OF FAILURE AND HOPEFULNESS (WITH COKE, VINEGAR AND OTHER TEAR GAS REMEDIES) is a double slide projection where the two projected sets of 80 slides overlap in the middle creating a procession of colorful and sometimes abstract images. Shot over the period of a month of a demolition site as it evolved into construction and presented in a non-chronological order, the work draws parallels to what the artist sees as the ever-recurring cycles of collective hopefulness and failures that all generations and societies experience. Prior to shooting the photographs, the artist exposed his film rolls to household chemicals that have been proven effective as teargas remedies – a process he calls “film pickling.” The outcome is a time-based testimony to the ambiguity of defining collectivity.
Investigating the Color Spectrum of a Post-Apocalyptic Future Landscape 7
2013 80 slides and slide projector
Shot in the volcanic and arid landscape of Lanzarote, the slide projection presents a sequence of post-apocalyptic landscape images that propose the existence of a record for a possible future memory. Using an elaborate photographic method, the slides where partially degraded by exposing different film stocks to a variety of household chemicals as they reacted with one another, causing drips, different degrees of loss of detail and a dominant color in each film stock.
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Paintings
2020–2021
Magdy’s practice started with painting and over the last decade expanded to film, photography, text and other media. Most of the works he created during that period could be structurally and conceptually linked to his paintings. In March 2020, the artist returned to painting after a long break. The works on view are a selection of his most recent body of work that shows a fascination with a twisted gaze into
reality. In doing so, the artist focuses on creating imaginary situations that deviate from the dominant humancentered perception of nature. Magdy intertwines non-existent and existing phenomena to show the complexity of knowledge production in a non-linear way. At the same time, the artist confronts the viewers with the absurdity of life and banality of existence. Several Molecules of Future Liberties Manifesting as Baby Miracles 2020 Oil on canvas 167 x 244 cm Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin / London / Seoul
Three Dinosaur Bones Disguised as Extinct Birds 2020 Oil, graphite on wood pa nel mounted on canvas board 60 x 77.5 cm Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin / London / Seoul
Courting the Idea of Overdue Equality with the Wisdom of a Sprouting Owl 2021 Oil, spray paint on canvas board mounted on canvas board 60 x 75 cm Courtesy of the artist
Alone Again in a Restless Pool of Faces 2021 Oil and spray paint on pastel board mounted on canvas board 48 x 55 cm Courtesy of the artist
A Three-Headed Ghost Arrives at the Altar of Unavoidable Regrets 2020 Oil, spray paint on claybord mounted on canvas board 40 x 47.5 cm Courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin / London / Seoul 9
Polaroids
2018–2021 12 Polaroids 8,5 x 11 cm Buy Eggs. Don’t Buy Milk, 2019 Leila at Coney Island, New York, 2019 Middle Kingdom Red Dots, 2019 Red is the Color of Intelligence, New York, 2019 Paris Marathon, 2021 Death in Monastiraki, 2019 Ghost Extinctions (T-Rex and Stegosaurus), Lourinha, 2019 Humans Admiring and the Work of Humans, 2019 The Trap of Other People’s Fantasies, 2019 Dead INTELSAT, Tanum, No. 1, 2021
Along with Magdy´s interest in film came an interest in the analog technology with which reality can be represented in an altered state. The artist bought a Polaroid Polaprinter, a slide copier that was made in the 1980s to print any color or black and white slide onto a polaroid. His aim was to stretch it beyond its initial purpose, so the artist started printing collaged compositions onto Polaroids using slides, Super 8 and 16mm film strips, color filters and semi-transparent objects which he would wedge inside a glass mount. The Polaroids became a way for Basim Magdy to discover new potential within analog image-making, but also a humbler yet meaningful way of finding new joys in converting ideas into artworks, which he runs parallel to the filmmaking, photography, text works and of course, painting.
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New Acid
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FEARDEATHLOVEDEATH
2019 Super 16mm and computer-generated text messages transferred to Full HD Duration: 14 min. 18 sec. Commissioned by La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France
2022 Super 16mm transferred to Full HD Commissioned by Röda Sten Konsthall, Gothenburg
Several animals chat via text messages. Between their mundane exchanges of words void of life, conflict and rivalry emerge. Their mirrored physical appearance hints to entrapment inside a reality TV show, one where uncertainty and doubt prevail. Social media-induced insecurities and escapism become evidence that at least some of them are not bots.
Basim Magdy’s new film, commissioned specially for this exhibition is an exploration of the way we adapt to our inability to understand death. The film was shot in several locations in Sweden, Georgia, Switzerland and Greece and includes analogue film animated footage the artist created directly on the film material in an allusion to the abstract films of Stan Brakhage.
They question selfishness, self-love and sel-destruction as the “ugly ones” arrive wearing their “cheesy sunglasses”. Is tradition an alter ego of racism? What about nostalgia and nationalism? Have they become what they always despised? Human? An escape attempt by a group of censored ring-tailed lemurs steals the show. A giraffe finally understands why this has been hell all along.
Weaving personal stories with absurdity, subtle humor and a lack of conclusion, the film creates a portal for the acceptance of death as a form of understanding it.
#DearBasim @basim.magdy @rodastenkonsthall
Instagram take over Basim Magdy will take over Röda Sten Konsthall’s Instagram account for a week during the course of the exhibition to elaborate more on the works in the exhibition. He also invites visitors to take their own photographs and videos within the exhibition to “create their own narratives or parodies, tell different stories, express how the work makes them feel, or simply to add filters, stickers, or digital doodles.” Please share your creations with us on Instagram using #DearBasim and mentioning @rodastenkonsthall and @Basim.Magdy.
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