Sharjah Art GalleryOctober 2019

Sherif Al AzmaAhmed Shawky Hassan

INAUGURATION

Sherif Al AzmaCommemoration2019

MASR Research in Modern and Contemporary Egyptian art is proud to present INAUGURATION, an exhibition of art by Cairo-based contemporary artists Sherif Al Azma and Ahmed Shawky Hassan. This inaugural exhibition of the 2019/2020 season at the Sharjah Art Gallery explores themes concerning the infrastructure and politics of art representation, the ergonomics of ritual, lexicons of mental architecture, and a fuzzy history of monumentalization.

Throughout the years, Sherif Al Azma has developed a sophisticated vocabulary of artistic creation with video, photography, sculpture, installation, sound, and print media. While past work has focused heavily on video, in INAUGURATION, we are confronted with installation, sculptural objects, text, and sound that act as ambiguous offerings throughout the gallery space. Cartographic connotations are evoked from tray-like surfaces, inhabited by other-worldly forms that silently are frozen within a highly complex and unknown codex. Plaster, resin, formica, and a variety of non-traditional art materials create a dialogue with the history of representation in art, while simultaneously refuting these strict stories. Narratives are created as quickly as they dissolve within a language of potentiality. Classification systems are undone. One is left to wonder what is knowable.

The art work of Ahmed Shawky Hassan is wry, conceptual, and most importantly, compels an audience to question the mechanisms at play within the art world itself. Whether commemorating the highly formal ribbon-cutting tradition found with state officials, or putting a maquette of a familiar but unknown architectural space on a pedestal (a nod to the same architect who designed the Sharjah Art Gallery), there is a clever playfulness in the art of Ahmed. In turn, the artist prompts the audience to question received-traditions in the presentation of art. We are left to question the politics of representation, and to understand that content is itself contextual.

INAUGURATION marks an important milestone in the impressive careers of mid-career artists Sherif Al Azma and Ahmed Shawky Hassan. This iconic exhibition, presented in the Sharjah Art Gallery, is a celebration of pomp, ritual, and the monumentalization of histories not yet known.

Duncan MacDonaldDirector, Visual Arts, AUC

Sherif Al AzmaAhmed Shawky HassanOct 28 – November 11

INAUGURATION

After receiving an invitation to take part in the “Inauguration” show, at the Sharjah Art Gallery at the American University in Cairo, I visited the place for examination. I soon realized that this visit felt like a déjà vu… just with another context. I concluded a feeling of familiarity of the space; the architectural characteristics of the gallery reminded me of the features that exist in the Palace of Arts in the Egyptian Opera House. In specific, this observation has been built on my participation in the “Salon of the Youth” exhibition and competition during the year 2013. The installation of my art work needed no more than a cubical space within the palace. However, it was important for it to be partially separated from the space as a whole. This partial separation was essential to keep my installation part of the show but distinct. The duration of the set up went on for almost two weeks, twelve days of which, I remained in the place trying to hide the features of the palace as its characteristics did not fit in my work frame; considering the fact that the place in itself is a work of art.

Tracing back to my déjà vu experience of the two spaces, I found out that they both have been designed by the same person, despite the differences in each ones’ methodologies and aims. Therefore, contemplating the potentialities of showcasing art works in spaces with intrusive architectural character-istics inevitably raises several important questions. See, a space in itself is an essence or entity that indicates specific features. Thus, what is the purpose of exhibiting an art work in a space that it does not need? Or more accurately, how can the artist work with such a space, if its features overwhelm the artwork? And how will the audience perceive this artwork that is surrounded by such a space? And how will the artwork yield to the space’s influence and architectural power? Should this be put into consideration or should the authority of such a space be dealt with as a granted matter?

Ahmed Shawky HassanPalace of Arts2019

D: I was thinking of starting with info about your artistic process. I know it is a very complex way of making art, and you engage with many people... it is quite fluid. You have assistants sometimes working with you... I guess we should maybe start with that, because here we are in the context of DARB near Old Cairo. I have never seen anything like it at all...

and because of this contemporary history we are in, these crafts are kind of dying; so they take another shape.

It is like people when they put on the in-ternet those badly made statues of Ne-fertiti and make fun of them and say: oh, we do not have craft anymore... craft is dead. I see something else in these bad statues, I see them as a kind of refuse in history and they still hold these kinds of references. Obviously, if you look at the gypsum they make on the road here, it is very European; it is very baroque, with classical motives. But I feel over time they take their own shape and I don’t want to label it as “Third World”- whatever. But I see it as a kind of desperate need to reflect on history without being part of historic context.I mean, I am working here not because the craftsmen are great. Me working here for me is where I can work with the worker and collaborate with the worker

S: For me the difference between work-ing here and somewhere like Italy, where the old traditions are still alive and well, where you can go to Florence and learn literally how to sculpt in marble like Mi-chelangelo. We don’t have that contin-uation of history; we have a break in history. So, I see this place as a refuse of history. The refuse meaning if you go somewhere like Domyat, where you have all the old French furniture, it is really the refuse of colonial times, where things are maybe crafted perfectly, but over time,

Sherif Studio 1. TranscriptSubjects: Sherif M. Al Azma (S) Duncan MacDonald (D)Transcription: Helena A.

D: Well, it seems like you are working in a team fashion. It is about of ecosystems of people around you. So the more I’ve been in DARB the more I’ve seen how there is this necessity to have people work together to achieve anything, which I find very interesting to see. So the social side of it is very fascinating; I wouldn’t go so far as to say you are making what we used to call “social sculpture”, but there is an element to how you’re working that is changing this environment… you are engaging with the locals in different ways and you’re becoming friends or hopefully best friends. What are your thoughts?

S: I mean, the most “educated” artists that commission people always tell me I have to trust this worker to work with him. I believed that in the beginning, that you have to trust them, that they won’t screw you basically, or not get the work done, or use the right materials or come on time or give effort. But then over time I realized that they have to trust me. And this is very important because a lot of workers didn’t trust me. A lot of workers work on this day-to-day basis. So, they’re obviously working to sustain their families and sustain themselves, so they want to work in the quickest way with the most money and they never see the client again. For me, I had to stay in the area for them to get to know that I’m not just here throwing money and bye bye. And that dynamic I’m against. Obviously, because of ethical reasons, and because of that loss of translation I was talking about. You can’t just meet somebody and they execute your dreams. You have to really work with them and you have to really realize your limitations before their limitations, because every single worker is gonna tell me Im gonna do the best thing. In the beginning, I used to go really mad that things were not coming out in the quality that I want. I was sticks and stones; I was trying to do polyester and polymer sculptures in a very clean way, and then I realized I’m in the wrong place for that, I should go to Europe to do that, or I should work somewhere that is used to that aesthetics and used to that industry. So I had to change my work, because you can’t push for certain quality. You have to work with what you have...

But then we you’re talking about the social dynamics. The social dynamics are difficult. Most artists hang out in Downtown, or institutes, or galleries. I used to do that. But for personal reasons or age reasons, whatever, I isolated myself from that. That is like a double-edged sword. If you isolate yourself, you lose a lot of networking opportunities, but then you concentrate on your work more. You really think about the work, you don’t think about how your peers, the critics or the institutes see it. And then

instead of just commissioning a worker to execute a design. If the worker executes a design, there is this huge loss of trans-lation. Sometimes this loss in translation is interesting but I’m not looking for that and I’m not looking for the perfect execution I’m looking for using the language of the worker to make work. And this language I don’t analyse. I don’t sit with Hassan and say he is a naive artist. I don’t see him as a naive artist, I see him as a copy of a copy of something that was. And ob-viously he has a certain rhythm, a certain way of working, a certain nerve. It is al-most like I roleplay this nerve with him. So, it is not like I become him but it is kind of like understanding how he is working and then understanding how I can get work out of him.

Sometimes when you look at a worker’s work, a very naive work, you find these building blocks of civilization. I started to become obsessed with cubes and stairs for example, the building blocks of mon-uments... You find these very basic traits of civilization itself in this area somehow, more than you would in Khan El-Khalili or places that have more sort of intricate craft. And that’s what really interested me. It wasn’t the perfection of recreating proper pharaonic aesthetic and using a perfect pharaonic aesthetic, which is beautiful of course and some people can do it very well. I wasn’t interested in that, I was interested in the kind of break in history, the history of craft.

D: I think this is all very useful, but it makes me think about the work that you have been focusing on recently. Maybe talk a little bit about what you’ve been working on recently. And I think it is also ok to talk about the things that don’t work out. It’s good to talk about what got you to the pieces that you have.

S: Well, I learned over time that what really works is what you see. If I walk down the mechanic place and I see them fixing up the bodies of the cars and they become so smooth again and they become so cleanly done again, then I say that’s what I want. I do not think of something far away from what’s there. I mean these tables are made by guy who makes cars, who fabricates bodies of wrecked cars. And I tell myself I want this to look like the surface of BMW, as best as he can do. Then, I can contain my ideas within what works with him, not works with me.

Then I borrowed a lot of things, like this obsession with symbolism, that Egyptians have over history obviously, which could be problematic in contemporary

when you approach the institute, you can really see your work, because you have that distance, and that distance is a class distance. And for me, art in Egypt is very class-based, like anywhere else, maybe. But here, it’s just very loud and more prominent. So, by default I jumped classes, in a way.

... in the beginning, I was the pioneer educated colonial type who wants the workers around him. But over time, after one year or two, I realized I’m part of this place if I like it or not. If my landlord dies, I’m part of the funeral. If I don’t go, it’s a big no-no. But I can perform all of this, but I really don’t. I really do do it. But it just becomes that sort of social organism. I can’t say that there is equality because my profession is very strange to them but on the human level, there is this communality, if I like it or not.

art; contemporary art has many sub-languages and many discourses, which I’m obviously involved in. But then I got obsessed with recreating a lexicon of these symbols that I may or may not understand. For example like the ear. Obviously the ear hears, but if put with something else it could mean something else. So it’s what I see around me that dictates that, and I borrow a lot from it and I replace them in systems that could sort of parallel other philosophies in my head. I’m not so sure how they work on audiences, because when I make one of these tables, obviously you have to read the tables and understand its system, what are the elements, or the units and what kind of system they make and how does the system work. The audience may or may not understand how the system works because it is not very illustrative. It just becomes almost a mutation of that symbolic history or a cluster of that history

S: When you work with someone that deals with a lot of symbolism that comes from basic history, and you then tell them let’s put this symbolism in an object that functions, he will understand you... because he knows what a tray is, if I’m making trays. He has obviously used the tray before, and he’ll think to himself I’ll make you the best tray that you can ever eat in, or the best table that you can ever use. So when you work on that level of an object that actually has a function, like the barbeque downstairs, he (Hassan) got very excited about it because it has a function. It has a marketability; it has a use. And then that pride in making something that someone would use can

D: There is no clear codex that would allow all parts to be any one particular thing. But this is quite fascinating because there’s this huge exponential growth of potentiality that comes from the work. It seems to open up potentiality, which I find quite fascinating as opposed to defining anything. A lot of your pieces are more like complex questions than complex answers.

S: I don’t really care about ritual or the magic of it, or the dreaming of it. What I care about is the spaces that contain and control ritual in a certain way. When Foucault said “toss our bodies”, he meant spaces themselves conduct how human beings move, like prisons or schools. He was talking about institutes, something more political, but I see this in ancient monuments also, in normal life also, the spaces themselves the empty space itself conducts that. You can see it in graves and you can see it in temples. If you expand that a little bit, you can see it in this walkway here and you can see how the behavior happens through these walls of workshops. If they weren’t, it’s kind of psychogeographic, if you didn’t arrange them that way then people won’t behave that way. I’m very interested in that... That’s why me and Shawky wanted to work that way in the Sharjah Art Gallery, because this space itself will conduct a certain behaviour and if we can pick up on that behaviour, then we can work accordingly. Because space also informs power relations. In a way, the Sharjah Art Gallery, the design of it had that power relation in mind. And in power relation meaning, monumentalization of artworks or this grandeur relation, which is a very authoritarian thing or a very powerful thing... but it’s not that easy at the present to do institutional critique as

D: You reminded me, we’ve had a couple of discussions in your studio about something that seems important and powerful here in Egypt - this concept of rituals. So when you talk about gestures, or something that is utilitarian or has a function, then there is ritual attached to it. But I was wondering if you could talk more about rituals philosophically - but also in relationship to what you’re making - because I think there is a connection between them, maybe.

S: I think one of the elements is understanding the materials and the references these materials have, at least in the local history, and what these materials are trying to do. Like the marble on the floor, you might have wanted it or not in the exhibition, but it’s there. Why is that certain granite used on that certain floor? So you start to think why are they using this granite and why did they see it as valuable and what is it supposed to evoke. And when you understand one of these things, then you can possibly use these things or emit these things. I think emitting is important. Also because Shawky and I we have this crazy idea, I don’t know if we can do it or not, but we want to omit the balcony; we don’t want people to look over. We want to change the dynamics of the space. And what does it mean for the architect to make people look over this balcony. And when you also understand all the different functions of the different elements of this space itself, then you can reuse or omit. People usually reuse but I think omission is important because its the real intervention really.

And then how do you give the ritual of the opening another function. Because people whisper together, why not make these whispers more public. Somebody greeting somebody and kissing their ass for example: “Oh hello, I missed you so much, I saw you in this exhibition, oh...

D: Based on your work, you mentioned a little bit on ritual and how it’s framed. We’ve had many discussions and it seems to me that you’re a phenomenologist in terms of thinking about the relationship between people, space, their bodies, psychogeography - all these elements. I wonder what could be different ways in which we can arrange the Sharjah Art Gallery in a way that is not purely based on formal aesthetics. How could a phenomenologist kind of flip formalism on its head maybe?

something political... it’s not so simple.become an artwork. Then I said to myself, I can make a barbeque that is a work of art - let me think how - but he’s excited enough to go on that journey with me...

D: You just said “Fanta-size”.

that work”; these are usually pockets of conversations here and there within the social dynamic. What if you bring those conversations where people are self-conscious of what they’re actually saying? Another example of how people talk to each other and greet each other in exhibitions or how they lightly critique the work, and how they’re looking at the work, and making them more self-conscious about that gaze.

Also all the ritual about exhibition, I don’t know why since I was 15 going to exhibitions, I have this one image of a tray with a fanta in it. And I don’t know why I have this image. So, I asked Shawky: did you know that they always have Fanta in the exhibitions? They might not have pepsi but they always have fanta… and then we started to talk about it and he said remembered that drink; it brings up films, memories of your aunt, of weddings, of Eid, and they’re always giving these colored drinks... as if they are celebratory drinks. Never coffee, really. And then when you notice something and you fetishize it; then all the references come to you. And then when that happens, then ok how can we use fanta? I mean that big monument is called Fanta. Explicitly, I was gonna fill it with fanta, but then I thought it’s too much. Let’s try to find a way where I can use aesthetics from different monuments with sort of display-representation, to fantasize that ritual of offer, where the opening has to be sort of a happy place.

S: When I thought about it, it’s Fanta “fantasia”. I’m also obsessed about the physical politics of representation in cultural institutes like information booths. How do you reuse the information booth to give something phenomenological for example or to re-contain the language of the information booth in another imagination? That is something me and Shawky are really into. Like we’re creating this sensibility and officiality of representing a country. We have museums and when we go to the Egyptian

D: I’ll just ask one last question. Or maybe you have a question for me?

museum we have this space that makes no sense whatsoever... and it’s almost like a non-place within the museum. And it’s all glass and they have these big poster of how great egypt is and it has no function. It has absolutely no usability. It’s almost like that space is where they get to represent how you should see history and how you should see Egypt and the museum. These politics of representation have a function… they have a language, but then after a while they have no function, they’re function becomes dead, like that space in the museum.

S: I’m just interested in how you observe students working with that space, because that’s something we want to engage with Shawky and I. Do they find it problematic, is it reusable for them, are they able to create their own system?

D: I try to get them into the space as much as possible and I try to imagine the possibilities there, and the ones who really go and check it out as many times as possible, they start to imagine what they can do. But often people get stuck thinking about walls; you mentioned the granite floor, like it’s true how do you compete with granite a floor? Not aesthetically, but maybe conceptually. There are these challenges, you have these interesting vantage points to see things The granite floor reflects sound a lot so you have to do acoustic treatments with a black box. I kind of work with students in a very pragmatic way, like who’s working with sound, with video, with various forms? And then we reverse engineer our ideas. So it’s actually fairly practical but you still have to make it successful so its not only about practicality. In a way it is a lot about subtleties...

Sherif Al AzmaFanta2019

Sami: What I recalled before the break is that you talked about history – to put it in a very general way. But then you made a very convincing argument, not to use history as a kind of content and material box, where you can do whatever you want with, because that’s open to ideology as well, as we know. So, that made me think, history, understood in phatic. Meaning doesn’t mean to be an object that is at the disposal of a subject. You know, you can take it as a wooden block and you can carve out some stuff. This would be, not history, but it would be commemoration, monumentalism, representation. Basically, what falls to the victor, wants to produce an image of himself or an entity. So, history would be a different power, maybe a negativity that cannot become positive so easily. So, if you want to deal with history, you have to make history the subject. You might or might not be the object, but as

Transcript 2Subjects: Sherif Al Azma (SA) Duncan MacDonald (D) Ahmed Shawky Hassan (AS) Sami Khatib (Sami)Transcription: Helena A.

an artist, you might be the medium of history, and how can you channel history? Because history is not positive. History is not there.

We can say that history is in the textbooks, what the historiographers have written. Okay – but then it’s always, as Benjamin would say, “the history of the victor”. The victors are those who determine what is in the textbook – then its representation. Or you say the history is also related to something that cannot become positive, then it would be the past. The past is a kind of burden, as something, as a push, something almost repressed, something that comes from a different visceral, you didn’t say intellectual, you said, it comes from a different channel. How you channel it, how you become the medium of which, something which can never become fully positive - because if it were positive,

Sami: Yes, exactly. And the other would be the official one, that would say, history is what is in the history textbooks, this is our narrative, and so on and so forth. It’s the authoritarian version. But the third version would be that history is related to a past, and the past can never be fully symbolized. There is something resisting this symbolization process and other channels, how to channel it, how to give shape to it, which can never be a definite shape, because then it would be positive or positivized. It’s something negative because history is something related to a past, unfulfilled, negative, and is related to shame, guilt, defeat, repression, everything that didn’t work out; basically it’s a power. It’s a power, but more of a power, almost like in psychoanalysis. More like an unconscious power. Something that also puts you in an uncomfortable situation. It’s more like a push, more like something you have to deal with.

SA: Yes, the aesthetics.

Sami: Of course, I can understand.

SA: But can you believe that some of the artisans have a fixation with history? An actual fixation which drives them.

SA: As an artisan, you’re really copying or you’re making the best you can make and then this fixation is there, this fantasy of history.

Sami: I mean you can say the fantasy of history too, the fantasy would already be back at the supermarket of history, because then you take here, here, and you fetishize. Look, for instance, especially in left movements, you have melancholy, you fetishize the past, make it into an image, as an image of defeat; I mean look at the entire region. There is a longing for past that has been there in the first place. This is melancholy, basically. You have this deep feeding of loss, something has been taken from you, you try to repair it somehow, but there is some kind of fantasy about the past that never existed in the first place. So, you accept the loss prior to having really tried what were the potentials of the past. And this is a dangerous fixation, as well. It’s not the top down, history’s in the textbook, and it’s not the super liberal I take what I want, but it’s a kind of becoming the medium of the past. Because then, you say the history was with us, we lost it, and now we fetishize it as a loss. And look at Egypt as a prime case...

as you said, it would be representation again. You would be framing it as image/representation, and you would do just an alternative version of what official governments, state, whoever is in this authority, would make history. So, there are two alternatives to be avoided, basically I just summarized thinking a little bit in the same direction. One would be, the kind of liberal version – I can take whatever I want from history, like in the supermarket, I take this, this, and this content, and I use it as an object for my production.

ClusterSherif Al Azma2019

Ahmed Shawky HassanArt Representative2019

D: So let’s talk a little bit about where you’re coming from with the Walter Benjamin side of your project and where that is right now.

SA: And smoke hash

SA: text in one breath, like automatic writing?

AS: Yeah. I used to write my experiments in the opening, as a metaphor, I wrote nonstop writing. And at the end I placed a title, A Protocol of Paris, like 30 January, 2013. And on another day, I’d go to another exhibition in Paris, for example, and I’d meet a woman who’s the mother of an artist, exhibiting inside, and we talked about our VIP invitation and she asked me, when finding out I was an artist, how can the artist sustain themselves? She feared this because she thought her son had no future in art. And her son exhibited in Palais de Tokyo which meant a lot to me, and we talked about how the artist can sustain themselves, and it was a really long discussion, which meant a lot to me. When I then went back to the studio I wrote everything we talked about and titled it Protocol Paris, February 19th.

AS: I love to read texts by Benjamin, fortunately when I was in Paris, I read his book On Hashish, and I thought he was in the same situation as mine, or I was in the same situation as his. I was looking for something and I don’t know what this thing is, but I can describe what happened, and when I described what happened, like when he smoked hash and described what he saw, I can get what I want, or I can get what I’m looking for. So, I used to go to the opening and-

AS: No – laughs – I didn’t smoke hash. And I went to the openings with a notebook and everything happening to me – when I watched him and I touched him and I dealt with him – I then wrote about it. And I took note of it. And when I went back to the studio, in the same day, I used to write notes, as

Transcript 3Subjects: Sherif Al Azma (SA) Duncan MacDonald (D) Ahmed Shawky Hassan (AS) Sami Khatib (Sami)Transcription: Helena A.

Sami: This is what Benjamin did with his protocols as well. You remember he kept a diary?

D: Is this also, going back to when you were investigating the imagery that you think the Ministry of Culture was appropriating from the royal times of Muhammed Ali. There is kind of conceptual link as well, so the presentation of culture and how it manifests in Egypt, which is very interesting…

AS: Yeah, like a diary. Like a diary, but it’s not a diary. It’s like a transcription of an experiment. A specific experiment. And it was four in Paris, one in Cairo, one in Alexandria. The one in Cairo was an exhibition at the Palace of Art, an exhibition with lighting, and the artists made art with light in Ramadan. I wrote all the experiments from the cutting of the ribbon until the end of everything, and another one was in Alexandria, I did my film that I exhibited in Townhouse, and that I exhibited in my mixed-exhibition in Sharjah gallery, and it was a bureaucracy film when we were in the backstage, we prepared a table, I called it Castudi, the official critical table that I exhibited already with the plastic flowers and the mineral water and microphones, etc. All this was synced with the red velvet tablecloth.

D: Yeah – very objectively.

D: I think we’re probably on the same page with that, but one thing I wanted to ask you is based on your conversations with Sherif (and I’ve talked with him more than I have with you) I’m wondering how the work that’s coming together might act as another element to the show. Because you seem to have some conceptual architecture you’re talking about, as well as the physical, tangible space. With Sherif, what is the interplay between the gallery, your work, and his work – what does that mean for you?

AS: Yeah, if I understood you correctly, the art space in the Sharjah Art Gallery can lead the audience to how they can deal with – Yes, I can deal with this idea conceptually in this photo, I need to place this empty photo for this empty art space. I need to make a comparison between the audience and the art space.

AS: Yeah.

AS: Yes, I wrote a short text about the exhibition in Muhammed Ali in a Protocol’s way, and in all these experiments, I had no opinion about what I wrote, but I wrote what my eyes saw without any opinions.

D: Do you think that the physicality of the gallery itself might be a way to represent some power structures or physical or conceptual barriers that are implemented in the art world?

D: Engage with it? And that’s also interesting for me

AS: And the photography on the wall, even. There are many ways to exhibit photography but I will tape them on the floor.

SA: For me, I’m concerned with this anyway, and what Shawky’s talking about is this presentability with a national image and its history, and I’m concerned with the building blocks of civilization, history. And then they become their own sort of representation or they lose their symbolism and they become something else. Perhaps, the only difference is that Shawky’s not interested in these obvious images of history – these obvious icons, with primitive materials. But I think there is a reconsideration of ritual, for me. Ritual of space and how you use a space for ritual and to negate power, really. Of course, you can find this in Ancient Egypt. It’s very easy; in any temple you’ll find the language of power. But then how do you, not find value in history, as an image, but find value in history as a building block for this language? I can make it Disneyland, like they did in Venice Biennale but why do they do it in Venice Biennale? Why do you have to have pharaohs and grandiose historic

S: I think he has another language in his work. I think we’re both looking to build an experiment for the audience, not to attend a usual opening, but we need to build an experiment for the audience. For my work, I think maybe you remember the sculpture of the hands, how they cut the ribbon?

D: Yeah

AS: I need to exhibit it in a very big red box and it will be like a small object on a big base. And for me, apart from what you’re looking for, I think how the audience can deal with these protocols, with these traditions. I think I will bring something between the artwork and the audience. How I can put a fragile art text on the floor and how the audience will –

things? What are you really trying to say from that language? Perhaps, that’s the

D: Well, he’s (Shawky) talked about symbolism as well

D: But you’ve also mentioned this institutional critique within your work as well, and I think that’s something that you both have in common. You’re approaching it in very different ways, but I’m wondering what your perspective is on that.

SA: Yeah, monumentalization, but I stick to history somehow, and I try to make the identity less grandiose. I try to look for other more visceral things. More urgent things like life, death, a grave, a monument, a monument which means life, a grave which means death, you know. The more basic things, really, that I’m trying to decipher. And these symbols are used, and over-used, but through the people I work with, how can I find new meanings, through these things if I’m working with a worker who wants to make a floral shape, what does a floral shape mean? Where does it come from? Or what does a dome mean? And you can find these things viscerally, not intellectually. And that’s the area I play in, it’s kind of like less slick.

SA: Critique has this very rye flavor to it, and this really ironic attitude. I think for me, it’s really about systems. How systems work, how I can see these languages and re-work them and try to find the phenomenological, perhaps the unexplained. But if you take a right-wing system, it’s always a system. It could be drawn, it could be symbolized. How do I take this system and really find its id, you know? Not even the subconscious, find its id. And every time you come close to finding this id, it becomes this very ancient monument, somehow. For me, anyway. It becomes this raw thing, from history, or prehistory.

D: Yes, this is good. Sami, do you have questions?

Sami: Yeah, many (laughs).

Ahmed Shawky HassanArt Representative2019

Protocols of An Object Resembling An Artwork

A specially designed wooden table to hold six handmade red chamois pocket folders in which lay twelve white sheets of paper, two in each folder written in both Arabic and English. Demonstrating a series of columnal texts showing an intertextual series of spatial and physiognomical observations, dissecting the spaces often taken for granted, and questions the standardized practices of art’s creation, display, and viewership.

Part of “An Object Resembling An Artwork”, 2017.

Ahmed Shawky Hassanprotocols of an object resembling an artwork. Printed on two white sheets of paper in both Arabic and English, inside a handmade red chamois pocket folder. Part of “AN OBJECT RESEMBLING AN ARTWORK” project2017

PROTOCOL I: Paris, January 30, 2017

Today I visited a gallery owned by a Scandinavian lady. The exhibition on display featured a collection of large photographs of landscapes taken in Sweden.

Upon entering the gallery, I heard someone coming up a metal staircase. I was so consumed by the sleekness, whiteness, and vastness of the space, that I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. It was a woman. She had sharply-framed red glasses that matched her red lipstick and wore an all-black two piece suit. I noted a black jacket with satin stripes on a white shirt and black pants with pointy suede shoes.

She gave me a warm reception and took me on a tour of the gallery, where she proceeded to provide a very detailed explanation of the artwork. This process began with her describing the work, then outlining the artist’s philosophy, and, finally, providing a general introduction to the artist. Though entirely unprompted by me, she began going through a standard description and walk-through.

We ended up standing at the top of the staircase for a few minutes until she asked me to follow her downstairs to see the rest of the show. I followed her to the basement,

where she continued to talk about the rest of the work.

A long time passed and she was still speaking. I felt embarrassed and bored; I wanted her to leave me alone - or for the ground beneath me to open and swallow me whole. With time, I realized that was reciting a memorized script and that I was not standing with a woman but an employee, so I went up the stairs and interrupted her, asking:

“When is the next exhibition?”

She told me, and proceeded to do the same routine again. She described the artwork to be exhibited, the artist’s philosophy, and gave an introduction to the artist. I was fascinated by the order by which she described the exhibition because unlike the previous time, I was being informed about something I had not seen yet. This was exciting for me and, as a result, I asked her many questions.

In the end, I advised her to quit exhibiting artwork and dedicate herself to describing what will be exhibited in the future without actually showing it. Surprised by my contribution, she fell silent. She then recoiled and gave me a look of helplessness and embarrassment in response to my suggestion.

PROTOCOL II: Paris, February 4th 2017

I returned to my studio in the Cité Internationale Des Artes and found posters hung everywhere that met my eye announcing an open studio for a group of artists titled “As You Like It / Comme Il Vous Plaira.” The studio number indicated that the open studio was situated in a garage area that hosted the studios of artists working with sculpture and objects.

I headed towards it excited about the prospect of a space dedicated to producing monumental work, as the fanfare claimed. I had heard before that this space was very different from our studio spaces.

When I entered the studio, it didn’t appear to be a studio at all. I did not find any traces of daily living or tools, like I was accustomed to seeing, given that I was familiar with studios that were also living spaces. All I could see was artwork displayed in a white cube, deliberately and with careful order and calculation of its position in the surrounding space.

I walked around looking at the poetic plastic work, engaging with it with my senses. At the same time, my mind was distracted by a question that hindered my engagement with the work itself: was this an open studio for a group of artists? Or was it an exhibition in a gallery aiming for perfection?

I climbed a spiral staircase to the second floor and found most of the attendees gathered by the bathroom on the far-left looking at something. As I was heading towards them, I almost stepped on something moving on the floor; at about fifteen centimeters high, the object was covered by a dirty black wig of braided hair.

I finally met one of the artists in the show and introduced myself, I started asking a long question and he interrupted me saying: “Je

ne peux pas parler anglais” (I can’t speak english) and proceeded to call someone over. The second man spoke English, and told me that he was a resident artist and one of the participants in the exhibition/open studio. I interrupted him and asked “If you are a resident artist then why did you change the characteristics of the space and invite other artists to share this exhibition with you?”

He told me that he didn’t and pointed at a lady standing by, saying that this exhibition is organized by a curator (he explains she is French of Arab origin). He went on to explain that an open studio is usually miserable if the artist shows his or her work alone. “Look at that long black corridor,” he exclaimed, “do you see how many resident artists are lining the sides, do you see the candle on the floor at the end of it? That is a tell-tale sign that a resident is having an open studio! So I invited artist friends from France, Italy, and Spain to come back with me to the Open Studio. The curator agreed with us that the exhibition could be inspired by Shakespeare’s ‘The Twelfth Night’ or ‘As You Like It.’”

I asked him about the artwork he contributed to the show, to which he claimed to have never exhibited an artwork. He pointed to the moving object on the upper floor saying: “I made the thing whose stomach fills with liquid ink and draws lines on the ground while moving and greeting the audience. I alone can control it. While the audience walks around the exhibition, they can erase the drawings with their feet.”

I was amazed by this artist who held such an elusive position towards traditional forms, who transformed the space to a gallery with all the elements and conventions the audience is historically accustomed to, yet exhibited a fleeting object that cannot be acquired.

repulsion around it, and I naturally thought that I shouldn’t get close to it, to ensure that I don’t get involved in an unknown problem that could potentially arise. The space was massive and difficult to see in one visit.

I started moving and the woman from earlier appeared again. She stopped me and said

“I am looking for my son, he is one of the artists exhibiting here and I cannot find him, he is not answering his cell phone. I think he can’t hear it in the middle of this big crowd or is too busy receiving the audience for his work. Can you help me find him so I can share this moment with him? He is a tall man, he looks white even though his father is black, he behaves as if he’s from the Mediterranean and the only thing he inherited from me is my beautiful eyes. This morning he wore very strange clothes; it’s very unusual for a man to wear clothing embroidered with bones.”

Then she interrupted herself, asking “Can an artist really sustain themselves with their art? Can you sustain yourself from your work as an artist, that is, if we can call it work?”

We were walking quickly through the space, taking wide steps, entering galleries, climbing stairs and avoiding bumping into artworks.

I respond to her saying, “It’s a job like any other job you know or heard about before but…” Then a security guard interrupted me and another guard approached the woman beside me. The first one said that the cocktail hour hasn’t started yet so that we could go on a tour and come back in 7 minutes!

PROTOCOL III: Paris, February 9th, 2017

I was looking for any shop - tobacco or supermarket - close to Palais de Tokyo to buy a water bottle. Though I had almost half an hour before the exhibition started, it quickly became clear that there were no shops close by. I went on a 10 minute walk until I found what I was looking for and then quickly headed back to attend the show from the beginning before the line outside got too long.

A lady stopped me in front of the supermarket and asked for directions to the Palais de Tokyo, I told her that I was also heading there and she asked me to come along, so we walked together. She started looking anxious (perhaps from my silence) on the way and she asked me where I came from. I interrupted her and asked “Why?”, she said she wasn’t from Paris and that she came from Marseilles to attend the show. She followed it with another question and slowed down: “Do you really know where the Palais de Tokyo is?” I silently pulled out my VIP invitation from my pocket so she can be sure and I thought to myself “Even the French haven’t escaped the media!”.

She also pulled her VIP invitation out from her bag to prove to me that she is no less important.

I finally entered after passing a long queue, comprised of over five hundred human beings and animals. After entering, I found myself facing an exhibition I was unable to decode. I was in a large reception area with marble floors and ancient stone walls, and the audience filled the spaces around me. I found a Macbook Pro laptop placed on the ground. The audience had formed a magnetic circle of

PROTOCOL IV: Paris, February 19th, 2017

Today we received invitations to a new exhibition. We were all waiting for it, and each of us had something we wanted to do at the event. We agreed to meet before the opening to have enough time to cook some food and eat before going; it seemed as if everything we did revolved around eating.

We gathered around someone’s table after we had all finished cooking and preparing what we preferred. I set the plates and placed between them tobacco packs and two containers, originally intended for beans and hummus. In the end, however, one was used as an ashtray and the other for pencils, small drawing tools and pieces of chocolate. We started eating.

During the meal, one friend reminded me of an old house overlooking the Seine that belonged to a bourgeois French family who had invited us over, so I interjected, “How can I forget what the dining room looked like and the way the dining utensils were arranged on the table, it looked like a museum piece that aspires to perfection!” I also remembered our interesting conversations with the hosts, which lasted for two hours and revolved around different topics like spices and everyone’s cultural backgrounds. There were four different nationalities gathered around the table with very diverse cultural backgrounds and everyone loved to cook. We almost ran out of time and missed the opening.

We promptly arrived to a very long white corridor that led to the audience. We were four minutes late for the opening and were all nervous about it because the envelope that contained the invitation had this handwritten on the back: Please join us on timeWarm regards,The Director.Inside, the audience had formed a mass that filled the space. The security guard watched the audience (who, in turn, didn’t seem to mind being watched). Each person was

holding a glass of wine and contemplating the various interventions of fate present in the encounter.

One of us asked the guard about the exact time of the opening and he said “Usually the time is set half an hour before the actual opening and the audience appreciates it because they all have something to do and don’t feel like they’re waiting. Now you can go to that table on the left and get a glass of wine, have some hors d’oeuvres, and mingle with the happy crowd.”

We entered the exhibition and took a tour of the artwork that was sometimes hidden by the the crowd. Slowly the audience shifted from a chaotic mass to form a circle around thirteen other people who had formed a half circle inside of the larger circle. Everyone was paying attention, and the superfluous noises in the space began to fade: I could pinpoint the direction from which any small whispers were coming. My friend was embarrassed when his cell phone rang, and the manager traversed the circle and came towards us - all eyes followed her traversal and everyone turned towards her. She then shook our hands while smiling happily and asked “Do you feel comfortable with us?” She continued, “Do you need anything here that we might have forgotten to provide?” “Yes, everything is fine,” we answered, with awkward smiles hiding our confusion about the circle that the audience agreed to form which was then disrupted by the phone ringing. Still smiling, she then asked us to turn off our phones. She returned to her place in the middle of the half circle, welcomed everyone and started introducing the other thirteen people. She asked them, in order from left to right, to introduce their work and the nature of the services they can offer. After they all finished, she provided the final word: “We are here at your service, so please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.”Everyone applauded, which slowly disrupted the circle, until it finally dissipated.

PROTOCOL V: Cairo, June 7th, 2017

Today is the opening of an exhibition themed around “light.” I went with friends who are obsessed with criticism and theory. As usual, we stood outside the wooden palace gate waiting for the arrival of the Minister’s car or his representative. We stood there for about half an hour past the official time of the opening until a black car with tinted windows approached us flashing bright lights in the eyes of the attendees. It came without a convoy and passed through the crowds until it arrived to the gate of the main palace. Some said, “This looks like the head of the Fine Arts Sector”.

The crowd began to gather and move towards the palace gate that had just been opened. We found ourselves trapped behind another glass door a few meters away from the wooden one while we waited for the head of the sector to cut the ribbon. We went through the narrow corridor slowly and stopped for a third time behind a wall of photographers and tripods that only allowed two people to pass through.

The head of the sector and the exhibition commissioner climbed a marble step that was about two meters away from the gate, making their heads visible to the attendees from behind the cameras. The commissioner wore a white shirt embroidered with streaks of light. They started talking to the cameras and taking turns without any moderator, while we listened. At the same time, I had arrived next to the copper pole around which the ribbon was tied. I originally thought the cameras belonged to television channels, but upon further inspection I recognized that they were in fact the faces of the sector photographers.

I asked an acquaintance next to me: “Why are there always cameras at every opening here?”

The acquaintance responded, “The footage is stored in the Sector’s archive, which hosts documentation from the opening ceremonies of art events that are headed by the senior staff of in the Ministry, especially in the Fine Arts Sector.”

I asked “Great! Is the archive available to the public?”

The acquaintance replied, “No!”

Suddenly, we were pushed from behind, and moved once more. We went up the marble step and stood in the main hall, where we formed a circle approximately three meters in diameter. In the center of the circle, a dancer was performing without music. Like the exhibition commissioner, she also wore a white shirt embroidered with streaks of light. The commissioner appeared and took his place standing in the front row next to the head of the sector.

Their eyes met many times. The dancer made violent movements with her body while the commissioner swayed a little with perfect balance until he was interrupted by an audible Skype call ring. The commissioner took his phone out of his pocket and started communicating with his caller through silent hand gestures over mobile video. He surprised us when he directed his phone at the dancer and we could see a lady’s head appearing very clearly to all on his phone screen. Maybe the screen was exceptionally clear because of the size of his phone or maybe because of the relative darkness of the space and the way in which the performance relied on the two light sources coming from the dancer and commissioner’s shirts. I was astounded by what was going on and convinced myself not to impart any judgement until the performance was over, because it was possible that the Skype Call was a part of it. My thoughts were interrupted by exclamations of admiration coming from the phone which made the commissioner nervous and direct the phone at himself; it lit his face while he gestured to the caller to be silent and that he had to end the call. He returned to swaying again until the dancer returned to her starting point and the audience understood that the performance was over.

The commissioner took a few steps to the center of the circle and thanked the audience. He mentioned the name of the performance, the name of the dancer, and his own name. Everyone applauded and the commissioner returned to join the head of the sector and the palace employees to continue their tour of the artwork in the exhibition.

Official Critical Table/Custody

This piece was a representation of objects stored in custody in museums and exhibitions which have the custom of only appearing on special occasions.

It was inspired by an interview Shawky had with the employee responsible for the custody of objects stored in which the latter kept going proudly on about how this stuff is precious, in one point he said while showing Shawky these objects “only through these things a seminar becomes a SEMINAR!”

Part of “An Object Resembling An Artwork”, 2017.

Ahmed Shawky HassanOfficial critical table/Custody. Containing a wooden table with red velvet tablecloth, plastic bouquet, two handmade wooden boxes covered with a seashell for Tissue, three microphones with stands, three glass cups and three bottles of mineral water2017

The Official Exhibition Point Of View

Ahmed Shawky Hassan“The official exhibition point of view” of the series An Object Resembling An Artwork. Casting from polyester at the real size, painted in white 2017

S: So I sent you a few sentences about ergonomics… this idea that the body scientifically has a usability with efficiency - a certain type of efficiency with economics or power, or the sense that you have a chair that is efficient for your back you will work better…these ideas. But then ergonomics for me became systems of confinement, really, and perhaps a system of control - whatever… This is known in prisons where you have spaces segregated, etc., etc. Right?

Yeah, this lecture about ergonomics and ritual - why ritual?

Because for me there is a parallel between ritual and ergonomics. Because ritual is based on the body; ritual is based on time, distance, the body, and how the body operates within a certain frame. Ritual doesn’t go outside this frame. But, what does ritual actually mean? We don’t care what ritual means - ritual can be a ritual of evil. Ritual can be an exorcism of control even. But, at the end of the day there is a fuzzy link between the control of institutional space and ergonomic sensibilities, and they are connected with just pure-ritual. Pure-ritual in a non-political sense. How do you make a ritual in a non-political sense? It is kind of impossible.

Ritual here is seen as a visceral thing - to make a ritual is to almost save yourself, or almost to save humanity. But I can I re-negate ergonomics and these spaces of power. Ergonomics were always there. The control of space is always there. The control of space is about pushing you to make certain rituals. Mugamma is designed for you to go

On Ergonomics, Power, and Ritual, September 21, 2019

Subjects: Sherif Al Azma (S) Duncan MacDonald (D)

through certain rituals - literally. You go in through here (gesturing) you stand in a queue; it pushes you to use your body ergonomically in a certain way to negate power, or to assert power, or to remind you what power really is. And then, how do you play with all of this in a non-kitsch way? Kitsch meaning that you just make some kind of black humor about the government and how they control us, etc., etc. There have been many comic films about this, about totalitarian spaces and totalitarian regimes. OK. Charlie Chaplin does it. Charlie Chaplin does use ergonomic space, and he does re-negate space in a certain way… This idea of the monumentalization of space, where you take over a space, and completely design the space as being a space that asserts power. It is not a space that reflects anything - ideas - it is a space that reflects the monumentalization of a certain power. That is a hidden power

and then anybody who works within that space has to work within the ergonomics of that space.

The idea of the trays is the simplest idea where you have a very flat space and then each space is really segmented and you are supposed to use that bit for the salad, and that bit for the knives and forks, and that bit for the mean meal. OK - what if I take that space away (gesturing)? What if I take the main meal away and I leave the knives and forks, and I just leave this small compartment for the salad? It is a language. And then if you take these spaces, they become abstract spaces. If you work them, and work them, and work them, they become almost non-coherent. And then when you start using them in your own negation of power, or your own creative way, then they perhaps they can reach something else.

How do you re-use the control of power through space in saying what you want using the exact same format? I worked with trays for a long, long time and then I found libation tables. Oh my god, this format did exist. It did exist since the ancient times. The priests put this compartment for this (gesturing), and this compartment for this, for the negation of ritual. Not a negation of power. So, I think to myself trays are a useful negation of control of something and then they are used as the exorcism of that power. They are used for a ritual that is supposed to neutralize that power. And how do you discuss this in your work? How do you take a tray and really understand it without going through research and research-based art? It kind of finds itself in the thing somehow.

Sherif Al AzmaLIBATIONS2019

Sherif Al AzmaOfferings2019

Sherif Al AzmaThe Arab Foundation for Wild-life preservation2019

Sherif Al AzmaCorrections2019

Fragile Artwork, Do Not Touch

A series of mobile photography contains 81 printed photo was established as an archive for searching for the objects that Ahmed Shawky Hassan called “An Object Resembling An Artwork” in his previous project.

It expands into the nature of the performative and behavioral practices during the exhibition that is not considered artworks such as guided art tours, the ceremonies and protocols of exhibition openings and symposiums inside exhibition spaces. These bodies posses a hyper-flexibility, their similarities and differences are influenced by the spacial and temporal aspects of the environment and the culture surrounding it. This includes an infinite number of forms, factors and occupations (fire extinguishers - architectural flaws - labels - security personnel - tour guides - light and shadow, etc…).

During his visit to Paris, he followed all these objects through galleries and museums and collected them with mobile photography. the idea of this project was inspired by an exhibiting method used in Centre Georges Pompidou museum in Paris which is used with objects and art work that requires a great deal of care and focus from the crowd.

Part of “An Object Resembling An Artwork”, 2017.

Ahmed Shawky HassanDetail of “Fragile Artwork, Do Not Touch” 2017

Ahmed Shawky HassanFragile Artwork, Do Not Touch. Installation containing 81 photos (8 cm * 10 cm per one), exhibited on the wall surrounded by a text frame “FRAGILE ARTWORK, DO NOT TOUCH” on the floor, 2017

Ahmed Shawky HassanDetail of “Fragile Artwork, Do Not Touch” 2017

Field Studies Drawn in Charcoal

Series field studies drawn in charcoal. Charcoal on recycled paper.The idea was produced by walking on the same steps as the academic curriculum of fine art students when they were assigned to visit museums for field studies through drawing the artwork inside the museums, here shawky took the same curriculum but to study those bodies and formation in art museums in Cairo and Paris which he termed “an object resembling an artwork”.

These objects possess a hyper-flexibility, their similarities and differences are influenced by the spatial and temporal aspects of the environment and the culture surrounding them. This includes an infinite number of forms, factors and occupations (fire extinguishers - architectural flaws - labels - security personnel - tour guides - light and shadow, etc…).

Part of “An Object Resembling An Artwork”, 2017.

Ahmed Shawky HassanNo.12. From the series field studies drawn in charcoal. Charcoal on recycled paper. 20 x 30 cm without a frame. Part of “AN OBJECT RESEMBLING AN ARTWORK”2017

Ahmed Shawky HassanNo.06. From the series field studies drawn in charcoal. Charcoal on recycled paper. 20 x 30 cm without a frame. Part of “AN OBJECT RESEMBLING AN ARTWORK”2017

Ahmed Shawky HassanNo.04. From the series field studies drawn in charcoal. Charcoal on recycled paper. 20 x 30 cm without a frame. Part of “AN OBJECT RESEMBLING AN ARTWORK”2017

Administration of Public Relations Is Pleased To Invite You

FHD video digitized from Sony HVR-Z1U - 5min and 54sec. Funded by Pro Helvetia Cairo through Medrar for contemporary art, produced by Fig Leaf Studios.

It was produced to reconsider the prospects of benefiting from the opening ceremonies/ performances of the official art exhibitions as artistic performances in themselves.

Part of “AN OBJECT RESEMBLING AN ARTWORK”, 2017.

Ahmed Shawky HassanVideo stills from Administration of Public relations is pleased to invite you. FHD video transferred from Sony HVR-Z1U - 5min, 54sec2017

Sherif Al Azma

A Cairo-based contemporary artist who recently has been creating sculptural forms, installation, and photo works that dive deep into the ergonomics of ritual, the lexicons of monuments, and the potentiality of conceptual architecture. Past work questions the inscription of tradition upon and through media language, particularly its Egyptian variants. For the past few years, Sherif Al Azma has been contributing to an evolving and collaborative project entitled The Psycho-Geography of Loose Associations which weaves its way through text, photography, diary entries, diagrams, fiction, video footage and the informational lecture format. Of central concern with this work are the social dynamics, modes of cultural integration and organisational systems operating within cosmopolitan environments, particularly those of Cairo’s new quarters.

Al Azma’s work has been shown at institutions and events as varied as: the Venice Biennial (Egypt Pavilion), the Camden Arts Centre, Ashkal Alwan and the Zico House, Beirut, HAU Berlin, Witte De Witte Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Meeting Points Festival, Brussels, Bethanien, Berlin, the Alexandria Library, the Modern Art Museum, Kiel and the Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo. Al Azma has also worked with Nermine El-Ansari on a contribution to the Transit 1 show at the Museo Madre, Naples (2009) and his work was part of Pictorial Mappings of Islam and Modernity, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2010).

Ahmed Shawky Hassan

An artist and writer. Born in 1989 in Ismailia, Egypt, he currently lives in Cairo. He completed his university study in Faculty of Art Education at Cairo’s Helwan University in 2011, and has worked as co-director of MHWLN (a research group devoted to researching and reflecting on the history of contemporary art in Egypt). His work explores the infrastructure of art representation.

With his solo exhibition “An Object Resembling an Artwork” in Townhouse Gallery 2017, Ahmed Shawky Hassan first drew the viewer into the gallery, the studio, or the museum hall, and invited them to look carefully at the world of meaning-constructions that surround art. At the end, all of the effective elements - the curator, the artist and the viewer - are complicit in the pre-conceived assumptions about the space and the artwork.

Recent awards and grants include Pro Helvetia’s Research Trip for the visual arts program, Switzerland, 2018. Visual Arts grant of AFAC, 2017. The official award of the “Institut Francais/Cite international des arts” residency program, France, 2017. Roznama Award (presented by Gypsum gallery) Medrar for Contemporary Art, Egypt, 2016.

© The American University in Cairo,Department of the Arts | Visual Arts Major

Project Investigators: Duncan MacDonaldResearch Associates: Nour Abdel-Baky, Helena Abdelnasser, Jomana El Soufani, Lamees Abdelaziz and Nathalie MorcosGallery Coordinator: Rodeina FouadPublication Designer: Ahmed Elhalawany and Noor IbrahimPhotography by: Mostafa Abdel-Aty, Karim Badr, Mohamed Elmasry and Tarek AbbasCatalog Editor: Duncan MacDonald, Rana Magdy

©2019 artists, authors, AUCAll rights reserved

I would like to acknowledge support from AUC in the form of a multi-year research grant that has made this exhibition possible. An artist catalog will be published with support from this grant

MASR Research in Modern and Contemporary Egyptian Art is a three-year long research project led by faculty in the Visual Arts that aims at exploring and documenting critical issues within the Egyptian art fabric.

Visual Arts Program | AUC Center for the ArtsDepartment of the Arts | The American University in CairoAUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74 | New Cairo 11835, EgyptEmail: arts@aucegypt.edu | Phone: 20.2.2615.1281