Robert Colescott: The Cairo Years

The International Cairo Biennale is no transient art-world fad, but rather an established institution of over twenty years that has recently been carving a place for itself on the international scene. For its 11th installment, the organizational process and the artwork selection were restructured in an attempt to better reflect the diversity and complexity of contemporary art. 1 In its transition to a new format, X-TRA

2015

Arthur Streeton produced a comprehensive body of work in response to his two-month sojourn in Cairo on his way to London in 1897. This essay explores his range of responses to the city, expanding current understandings of the artist’s experience of travel through analysis of his stylistic approach to Orientalist subject matter, and examination of the degree to which he engaged with the medium of photography. The impact of the visit was much more than the brevity of Streeton’s stay suggests. Cairo signalled his first significant experience of a foreign environment, with a predominately urban landscape of monumental architecture and bustling bazaars, and the opportunity for engagement with the ethnographic figure as subject. In a departure from Australian landscapes produced during the late 1880s and 1890s that were painted in situ, Streeton synthesised a number of his Egyptian subjects, employing sketches together with photographic sources. During the journey Streeton amassed a collection of photographs purchased from commercial studios, as well as amateur photographs, which have been attributed to the artist. The subjects of these photographs point to strong trends in the market for tourist imagery that influenced the artist’s output. The photographs were used to provide details of costume, architecture and decoration in a small number of oil and watercolour paintings.

Dialogues artistiques avec les passés de l'Égypte, 2017

De l'architecture aux arts décoratifs et de la peinture au théâtre, ce recueil de textes traite d'oeuvres dialoguant avec le patrimoine égyptien dans toutes ses composantes. La notion « d'égyptianisme » se trouve ainsi examinée dans la plus large variété de ses acceptions artistiques, architecturales et critiques, dans le monde occidental comme en Égypte. Les textes révèlent un historicisme artistique de veine égyptienne qui ne se cantonnerait ni à la référence antique, ni au monde occidental : nombreux sont les peintres, les sculpteurs, les cinéastes, les architectes… d'Égypte à avoir intégré des représentations du passé national-pharaonique, copte, médiéval, ottoman, et désormais khédivial ou nassérien-dans leur pratique artistique. À l'encontre de l'image habituelle de l'Égyptomanie, c'est un panorama plus riche et plus diversifié qui prend corps ici à travers divers médias et contextes nationaux. Le présent recueil trouve sa source dans un colloque international organisé à la faveur de la venue à Paris de l'exposition « Le théorème de Néfertiti : itinéraire de l'oeuvre d'art, la création des icônes » présentée à l'Institut du monde arabe en 2013. Ce colloque s'est tenu les 26 et 27 juin 2013 en partenariat avec Mathaf : Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha) sous l'intitulé « L'Égypte en ses miroirs ; art, architecture et critique, à demeure et au-delà (XIXe-XXe siècles) ».

2024

Boyer, Valentin, "Contemporary Egyptian Artists: Perceptions and Reappropriations of Ancient Egypt", International Society for the Study of Egyptomania (ISSE) Online Conference 2024 "Past Perceptions, Modern Perspectives: Contextualising Egyptomania", 10th-11th August 2024 Abstract: In order to integrate a new perspective on modern Egyptomania, it is important to look at contemporaryEgyptian popular culture inspired by Pharaonic Egypt in its works. As Egyptomania - a universalphenomenon - is no longer exclusively the prerogative of Westerners, Egyptian artists arereappropriating the past of their country and drawing inspiration from it to offer an alternative historicalnarrative to the Western one, and to address the notions of national, religious and artistic identity intheir works. Historical knowledge and representations of the past need to be put into perspective,particularly when the reference to ancient Egypt plays the role of asserting identity affirmation. A newgeneration of contemporary Egyptian artists is renewing, reinventing and recreating ancient Egypt byrevisiting its most evocative motifs. The study of these singular works thus makes it possible tounderstand the way in which the processes of reinvention and subversion have generated multiplevisions of Egypt. The study of the works of Egyptian artists Ibrahim Abd Elmalak, Wael Shawky, HossamDirar, Karim Abd Elmalak, Ibrahim Khatab, Alaa Awad, Sara Sallam and many others, allow us to examineour relationship to time, the iconicity of motifs and the renewal of the Egyptomania phenomenonthrough the remanence of ancient Egypt infusing contemporary Egyptian art and its plural presence inour daily lives, as with street art. These emerging Egyptian artists, with a growing internationalreputation, are helping to spread this polysemic Egyptian Egyptomania and shines on the internationalart scene.

56th MESA ANNUAL MEETING, 2022

A presentation in the occasion of the 56th MESA Annual Meeting, 1-4 December 2022, Denver, Colorado. Session XI-18: Visual Arts, and Images of Nationhood, Legacy, and Memory Chair: Sadam Issa, Michigan State University Presenters: Insia Malik, CUNY Graduate Center, “The Transnational Vocal Talent Competition Arab Idol and the Construction of Arabness”; Liat Berdugo, University of San Francisco, “A Tree in Palestine: A photographic view of afforestation as a tool for colonization and control”; Faezeh Faezipour, University of Arizona, “Legacy and Memory: Portraits of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution Leaders”; Elisa Pierandrei, Independent Scholar, “Photography and Cultural Heritage: How the Van-Leo Collection Captured the Surreal Majesty of Cairo”; Chelsea Haines, Arizona State University, “Gershon Knispel’s Transatlantic Solidarities”; Suzy Halajian, UC Santa Cruz, “Reimagining Narratives of Crisis: Contemporary Art and Speculative Politics.”

Funding details This project will engage university students and school children in the re-discovery and emotional appropriation of eleven forgotten and unknown Cairo museums established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an era known as the "Belle Epoque". These museums have the potential to reconnect the young generation of Egyptians with an important historical era during which Egypt was leading a renaissance in the Arab world. They represent three types of Egyptian cultural heritage: their tangible architectural heritage of high historical significance; their tangible exhibited content; and their intangible heritage linked to socioeconomic , cultural and political conditions of the Arab renaissance era. They also represent an important part of the memory of the Egyptian nation as depositories of the history of iconic figures in politics, music and literature that have shaped the whole of the Arab world. Despite their cultural and historical importance in Egypt, and the Arab world, these museums remain unknown to the vast majority of the Egyptians, particularly the younger generation. Furthermore, their location in down town Cairo and within walking distance from three metro stations means that they are highly accessible but not necessarily visible. The main objectives of the Belle Époque Cairo Museums Itinerary (BECAMI) are as follows:

The Summer 2016 issue of the PSA Newsletter: #17 Postcolonial Cities, 2016

Egypt occupies a major place in the Western scholarly and artistic representation of the Middle East, hence its significance as well in the study of Orientalism in its various aspects. Unlike other areas of colonial hegemony, however, the reception of Egypt is rooted in a tradition that precedes by far colonial culture, being rather rooted in antiquity and having evolved over the ages along with the evolution of European culture itself. Egypt's ancient civilization and her geographic position have integrated her in Europe's very self-understanding, including her in its culture and cultural memory in the same manner as Greece and the Bible. 1 With the Greek and Roman conquests, a European reception of Egypt was established with its own artistic expressions of Orientalism and Egyptomania. This tradition, furthermore consolidated by the presence of Egypt in the Bible, is mirrored in the plethora of Egypt travelogues since the Middle Ages, notably the accounts of pilgrims to the Holy Land, a subject about which much has been and is being written. 2 Before the age of discoveries, pilgrimage to the Holy Land was a major occasion of peaceful encounter between Europe and the Arab world. Pre-modern travelers came looking for biblical sites and antiquity; however, their passage through Cairo was an overwhelming experience to many. The capital of the Mamluk sultanate (1250-1517) with its wealth of princely architecture and its worldwide commercial and diplomatic network was commonly described in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance as the largest city in the world, stimulating in its own right interest and fascination. In a previous work, I looked at the gradual evolution of Cairo's Islamic architecture in the accounts of European travelers and explorers towards what became in the late nineteenth century an academic discipline of history of Islamic art and architecture. The present chapter focuses on the pre-modern reception of Cairo from the perspective of pictorial documentation. Although an enormous amount of literary descriptions of Cairo were available by the end of the fifteenth century, the Egyptian capital was not among the first Middle East subjects to be depicted in European books and works of art. Jerusalem was there first. The pilgrimage account by the German cleric and politician Bernhard von Breydenbach in 1483, which provided one of the most informative descriptions of the Mamluk capital from that period, was among the first printed books to be illustrated. Its illustrations

Urban Studies, 2013

The Egyptian revolution of 2011 has significantly changed the relationship between citizens, public space, and visual expression. »Cairo: Images of Transition« traces these developments and their effects on political communication, urban space, and cultural production. The book is the first publication to offer a deep view on the relationship between aesthetics and politics in the wake of the Egyptian revolution 2011. Renowned Egyptian and international writers, artists and activists trace the shifting status of the image as a communicative tool, a witness to history, and an active agent for change.