Papers by Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani
Post / Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 2021
Refusing to fit into the mainstream art of her time, Gazbia Sirry replaced formal modernist train... more Refusing to fit into the mainstream art of her time, Gazbia Sirry replaced formal modernist training with local Egyptian art conventions to critically address women’s rights, patriarchy, social justice, and Western imperialism. A spokesperson for seventy years of Arab history, Sirry creates social realist mosaic-like paintings that still allow for a multiplicity of culturally loaded interpretations. Notwithstanding her celebrated use of color, her art continues to serve as an urgent and contemporary political act.
Less than a month apart, two independent exhibitions recently opened to commemorate an important ... more Less than a month apart, two independent exhibitions recently opened to commemorate an important chapter of Egyptian Modernism and the achievements of a Cairo-based group of young rebels calling themselves Art and Liberty.
The exhibitions, later traveling separately on different international museum tours from Seoul to Liverpool, are the first substantial surveys on the Egyptian surrealists since 1987 and aim to position avant-garde Egyptian art as part of the narrative of global modernity. As they unveil to the international public thrilling connections with notions of Western surrealism, the breadth of the Cairo exhibition and the depth of the Paris exhibition should help change the paradigm of looking at non-Western surrealist contributors as mere splinters or derivatives.
Rawi - Egypt's Heritage Review
Dr Ramzi Dalloul, a Palestinian-born, London-based businessman whose second home is Lebanon, is s... more Dr Ramzi Dalloul, a Palestinian-born, London-based businessman whose second home is Lebanon, is set on challenging the dominant belief held by the West that the Arab world’s modern-day cultural contribution lags behind
or is insignificant. He wants to shatter the uninformed belief, or indeed the resentful satisfaction of some, that the region has been too absorbed and deeply marred by independence struggles, ethnic differences, social unrest, oppression, and religious extremism to produce or contribute anything of
significance to the global canon of modern and contemporary art. If the 2011 Arab Spring failed to achieve its call for ‘Bread, Freedom and Social Justice’, it certainly shed light on the power of the Arab people. It also triggered a set of questions in the mind of Dalloul: How can we tend to that which unites us, rather than concede to that which tears us apart? How can we protect our fundamental identity against extremism, ignorance
and external hostile forces?
At the end of the 1930s, a group of avant-garde Egyptian intellectuals rebelled against what they... more At the end of the 1930s, a group of avant-garde Egyptian intellectuals rebelled against what they saw as the gradual retreat of their nation into restrictive social customs and despotism. Forming the Art and Liberty Group, they sought to liberate the Egyptian consciousness by means of artistic freedom and radical political action, in the process creating the Egyptian surrealist movement.
In their last show of this 2015/2016 season, the Cairo-based ArtTalks Gallery presents a collabor... more In their last show of this 2015/2016 season, the Cairo-based ArtTalks Gallery presents a collaborative exhibition bringing together Adam Henein, the Arab world's most celebrated and influential living sculptor and Bahaa Amer, a mid-career surrealist painter.
In ‘The Sweetest Haven’, 87-year old Adam Henein returns to painting with six new works fresh out of his studio in Harraniyya. This time, however, Henein chose to explore the use of egg-based tempera, a painting technique found on early Egyptian sarcophagi decorations and many of the still existing Fayoum mummy portraits dating as far back as the 1st centuries AD. True to his commitment to Modernity, Henein constructs works that are sparse and minimalist, yet are striking because of the contrast between vivid and rich colors and space and perspective. With comparatively large blocks of color, the work glimpses on forms found in both Mother Nature and ancient Egyptian art and produces impressive geometric Suprematist effect to render softness and rawness at the same time.
Adam Henein chose to exhibit with 39-year old surrealist painter Bahaa. Where there is flux, Bahaa searches for continuity in that together with Henein, he has found a haven, a place of safety or refuge, in Mother Nature. Working out of Luxor or in Harraniyya with Adam in the museum, Bahaa seeks to express the self in the face of the world and his world resembles an animated ancient relief or a modern puppet theater.
The word patron, in Latin, means Father; hence, a patron of the Arts is one who "begets" and prot... more The word patron, in Latin, means Father; hence, a patron of the Arts is one who "begets" and protects the Arts. The history of Egyptian modern art is rich with individuals patrons whose legacy,; visionary commitment and generosity have set the structural foundations of where we are today.
During the first half of our centennial history of visual artsthe 20th century, the state and a few unordinary extraordinary individuals dug deep into their pockets and or provided different means of support, paving the way for the birth of spectacular Egyptian visual art movements and artists. Sadly, and for various reasons, both the state and the individual patrons abandoned ship in the late 1960’s.
The ‘Other’ showed up in Alexandria on July 2, 1798, in the guise of an opportunistic, idealistic... more The ‘Other’ showed up in Alexandria on July 2, 1798, in the guise of an opportunistic, idealistic 29-year-old French general. When Napoléon Bonaparte landed with 38,000 soldiers and 167 savants, the shock was cultural as much as it was military. In retrospect, the violence of the cultural encounter caused the defeat of Napoléon, but set in motion forces that would change the nation forever. Sheikh Hassan al-Attar, the only non-Egyptian (Moroccan) to hold the office of mufti of Al-Azhar and who taught Arabic to some of the expedition scientists, rightly foresaw an imminent intellectual revolution.
The legal case recently launched by the family of late Egyptian modernist artist Abdel Hadi El Ga... more The legal case recently launched by the family of late Egyptian modernist artist Abdel Hadi El Gazzar (1925-1966) against art forgery has opened a Pandora’s box. The emergence of fake artworks can be traced to the surge in sales of Egyptian modern art in the early 1990s. Historically, private acquisitions of art produced by Egyptian modernist artists were insignificant, so there was no need to make and sell fakes. By the early 1990s, the situation was changing. Fueled by a few serious Egyptian buyers, a couple of prominent regional collectors and the appearance of auction houses in 2006 in the Gulf, demand for high-quality works by Egyptian modernist pioneers finally saw the light.
Books by Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani
Chant Égyptien - Private Collection of George Mikaelian, 2021
Google the name Chant Avedissian (1951-2018) and you will be led to over 20,000 links and images ... more Google the name Chant Avedissian (1951-2018) and you will be led to over 20,000 links and images presenting the artist primarily through the lens of his world-recognized signature stencils. “Icons of the Nile” (1991-2010), for example, composed of 120 portraits, set a record for the highest price achieved at auction by a living contemporary Arab artist in 2013 when it sold for over USD 1.5 million at Sotheby’s in Doha. Fueled by Egypt’s twentieth-century political and cultural heyday or Golden Age, Avedissian’s stencils may have started as “childhood memories,” but eventually, transformed into a subtle critical discourse of the Egyptian and Arab society. Using newspaper images from the Egyptian press, the stencil technique allowed Avedissian to discover the truth or rather the “lie” propagated through the media. According to an interview with doctoral candidate Sadia Shirazi titled "Europe, Europe, Europe" and published in Threshold in 2008, Avedissian stressed “how an image [in newspapers] is not true” because “neither the people stand like that nor look like that; everything [is] fake.” Avedissian explained he was “shocked” by what he discovered in newspapers: “The images said things about liberty and happiness, but the photos were composed for propaganda,” arguing that he did stencils to “emphasize the lie.” For Avedissian, it was the ideal medium, a fake façade as he defined it, because “it looks like a painting and it talks about something quite horrible, something quite dramatic.” In a way, Avedissian’s stencils shaped a multi-layered collective Arab culture torn between past and present, truth and lie, reality and propaganda. From Gamal Abdel Nasser to Om Kolthoum, well-known buildings and landmarks, Anubis, and other ancient gods, Chant Avedissian is a voyeur, a messenger of a sort, a kind of social realist or cultural critic. In celebrating our personal histories, Avedissian reminded us to dig deeper, peel the onion, and “see” beyond the visible and the montage fabricated to make us believe.
But what about the pre-stencil period? Who was Chant Avedissian then, and what was his message?
MAMDOUH AMMAR: A WORLD OF MAGIC AND WARS, 2016
Rich and versatile, Mahmoud Ammar’s oeuvre has extended over a period of six decades, without eve... more Rich and versatile, Mahmoud Ammar’s oeuvre has extended over a period of six decades, without ever ceding from its strength, even during the last years of his career. Mamdouh Ammar (1928-2012) began by linking post-WWII and post-1952 Egyptian culture, dominated then, by Egyptian Folk Realism, and the culture of popular rituals. The exploration of Egyptian reality through myth, Sufism and popular folklore, as well as the investigation of the agony of war (physical and psychological) blend as Ammar persevered in his confidence in the goodness and wisdom of mankind. As he fluidly moved between chronicling ordinary mystical life and releasing social rage, the prolific artist concluded by giving glimpses of what words do not say, and he may well be a timid wake-up call for us to realize that we are indeed in this together.
Sobhy Guirguis: The Self and The Other, 2013
As we enter the realm of one of the more perplexing twentieth-century artistic psyches in the Ara... more As we enter the realm of one of the more perplexing twentieth-century artistic psyches in the Arab world, we soon realize how the art of Sobhy Guirguis (1929-2003) creates a profound and intimate experience. His sculptural or painted shapes are a metaphor to his secluded life, an autobiography in a way, acknowledging the self and the otherness. His oeuvre is at once conceptual and emotional; minimalistic and complex; mature and childlike; ancient Egyptian and universal; abstract and figurative, but above all, human.
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Papers by Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani
The exhibitions, later traveling separately on different international museum tours from Seoul to Liverpool, are the first substantial surveys on the Egyptian surrealists since 1987 and aim to position avant-garde Egyptian art as part of the narrative of global modernity. As they unveil to the international public thrilling connections with notions of Western surrealism, the breadth of the Cairo exhibition and the depth of the Paris exhibition should help change the paradigm of looking at non-Western surrealist contributors as mere splinters or derivatives.
or is insignificant. He wants to shatter the uninformed belief, or indeed the resentful satisfaction of some, that the region has been too absorbed and deeply marred by independence struggles, ethnic differences, social unrest, oppression, and religious extremism to produce or contribute anything of
significance to the global canon of modern and contemporary art. If the 2011 Arab Spring failed to achieve its call for ‘Bread, Freedom and Social Justice’, it certainly shed light on the power of the Arab people. It also triggered a set of questions in the mind of Dalloul: How can we tend to that which unites us, rather than concede to that which tears us apart? How can we protect our fundamental identity against extremism, ignorance
and external hostile forces?
In ‘The Sweetest Haven’, 87-year old Adam Henein returns to painting with six new works fresh out of his studio in Harraniyya. This time, however, Henein chose to explore the use of egg-based tempera, a painting technique found on early Egyptian sarcophagi decorations and many of the still existing Fayoum mummy portraits dating as far back as the 1st centuries AD. True to his commitment to Modernity, Henein constructs works that are sparse and minimalist, yet are striking because of the contrast between vivid and rich colors and space and perspective. With comparatively large blocks of color, the work glimpses on forms found in both Mother Nature and ancient Egyptian art and produces impressive geometric Suprematist effect to render softness and rawness at the same time.
Adam Henein chose to exhibit with 39-year old surrealist painter Bahaa. Where there is flux, Bahaa searches for continuity in that together with Henein, he has found a haven, a place of safety or refuge, in Mother Nature. Working out of Luxor or in Harraniyya with Adam in the museum, Bahaa seeks to express the self in the face of the world and his world resembles an animated ancient relief or a modern puppet theater.
During the first half of our centennial history of visual artsthe 20th century, the state and a few unordinary extraordinary individuals dug deep into their pockets and or provided different means of support, paving the way for the birth of spectacular Egyptian visual art movements and artists. Sadly, and for various reasons, both the state and the individual patrons abandoned ship in the late 1960’s.
Books by Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani
But what about the pre-stencil period? Who was Chant Avedissian then, and what was his message?
The exhibitions, later traveling separately on different international museum tours from Seoul to Liverpool, are the first substantial surveys on the Egyptian surrealists since 1987 and aim to position avant-garde Egyptian art as part of the narrative of global modernity. As they unveil to the international public thrilling connections with notions of Western surrealism, the breadth of the Cairo exhibition and the depth of the Paris exhibition should help change the paradigm of looking at non-Western surrealist contributors as mere splinters or derivatives.
or is insignificant. He wants to shatter the uninformed belief, or indeed the resentful satisfaction of some, that the region has been too absorbed and deeply marred by independence struggles, ethnic differences, social unrest, oppression, and religious extremism to produce or contribute anything of
significance to the global canon of modern and contemporary art. If the 2011 Arab Spring failed to achieve its call for ‘Bread, Freedom and Social Justice’, it certainly shed light on the power of the Arab people. It also triggered a set of questions in the mind of Dalloul: How can we tend to that which unites us, rather than concede to that which tears us apart? How can we protect our fundamental identity against extremism, ignorance
and external hostile forces?
In ‘The Sweetest Haven’, 87-year old Adam Henein returns to painting with six new works fresh out of his studio in Harraniyya. This time, however, Henein chose to explore the use of egg-based tempera, a painting technique found on early Egyptian sarcophagi decorations and many of the still existing Fayoum mummy portraits dating as far back as the 1st centuries AD. True to his commitment to Modernity, Henein constructs works that are sparse and minimalist, yet are striking because of the contrast between vivid and rich colors and space and perspective. With comparatively large blocks of color, the work glimpses on forms found in both Mother Nature and ancient Egyptian art and produces impressive geometric Suprematist effect to render softness and rawness at the same time.
Adam Henein chose to exhibit with 39-year old surrealist painter Bahaa. Where there is flux, Bahaa searches for continuity in that together with Henein, he has found a haven, a place of safety or refuge, in Mother Nature. Working out of Luxor or in Harraniyya with Adam in the museum, Bahaa seeks to express the self in the face of the world and his world resembles an animated ancient relief or a modern puppet theater.
During the first half of our centennial history of visual artsthe 20th century, the state and a few unordinary extraordinary individuals dug deep into their pockets and or provided different means of support, paving the way for the birth of spectacular Egyptian visual art movements and artists. Sadly, and for various reasons, both the state and the individual patrons abandoned ship in the late 1960’s.
But what about the pre-stencil period? Who was Chant Avedissian then, and what was his message?