The effect of the parabolic satellite culture dominated by
Western/American media and advertising in the last two decades
is undeniably omnipresent today, and for the past two decades,
in the everyday behavior of societies of the middle East.
The new ferocious audio-visual material of the budding consumer
goods mass culture propelled the previously slowly-progressive
societies of the Middle East into a global visual culture that
led to a dramatic confusion of identities, especially among
the young, and a state of cultural ambivalence of love-hate
towards the West.
Contrary to the gloomy picture described in a media dominated
by a massive imagery of new “war aesthetics” and
now-taken-for-granted “aesthetics of violence”,
the confrontation/juxtaposition between the established, near-sacred,
values and the newly “penetrating” consumer goods
behavior change resulted not only in terms like “collision
of cultures”, but also a new and interesting artistic
expression by the local artists, carrying an amalgam of East-West
visual alphabets of a strong hybrid nature that attempts to
probe new values of visual nature capable of bridging and understanding
the other.
For the past ten years I have been appropriating images of the
consumer goods culture that taints the societies of the Middle
East since the late seventies. The effect of the parabolic satellite
culture dominated by Western/American media and advertising
in the last two decades propelled the previously slowly progressive
societies of the Middle East into a global visual culture that
led to a dramatic confusion of identities, especially among
the young, and a state of cultural ambivalence of love-hate
towards the West.
Contrary to the gloomy picture described in a media dominated
by a massive imagery of new “war aesthetics” and
now-taken-for-granted “aesthetics of violence”,
the confrontation/juxtaposition between the established, near-sacred,
values and the newly “penetrating” consumer goods
behavior change resulted not only in terms like “collision
of cultures”, but also a new and interesting artistic
expression by the local artists, carrying an amalgam of East-West
visual alphabets of a strong hybrid nature that attempts to
probe new values of visual nature capable of bridging and understanding
the other.
Since the year 2000 I started using video as one of my tools
of expressions; my first work, an experimental video collage
entitled visions of a cheeseburger memory (2000,11 minutes,
mini DV) probed the effect of the bombardment of the urban protagonist
by film and advertising images of the neo aesthetics of violence.
In later works, things we always do (2002, 7 minutes, mini DV),
Obsessive Compulsive Neurosis (2003, 5 minutes, mini DV) and
Idlers’ Logic (2003, 24 minutes, mini DV, Dak’Art
2004 Francophonie prize) all my work probed the label of the
identity of the Arab as terrorist until proved otherwise.
For my Fulbright Scholar proposal, I wanted to get back to in-depth
image-making research of painterly nature; my project text is
entitled interdisciplinary art approaches of contemporary nature
as a tool for communication. I was trying in my research to
find the roots for what we know now as effective and “impactful”
art practices like installation, sound, assemblages, image appropriations
and video/image installation. My research, that in fact started
as early as the year 2000 in my Cairo studio never aimed at
attaining particular results as much as it targeted continuous
probing into the (to me) misnomer “ancient Egyptian art”
and its impact on today’s visual culture.
In my Philadelphia studio at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
I started my project Philadelphia Chromosome, in which I worked
with several intersecting concepts:
Time: past and present, since in most research involving the
notion of time, focus is always on the differences. I have,
for years been looking for the anti-difference (not just similarities),
The Super-hero: across time, every civilization looked for the
imaginary super-hero for protection against evil forces, from
ancient Anubis to modern Batman
Continuous cultural recycling: that combines both time and the
superhero as well as ideas, faith and beliefs
Metamorphosis: and the continuous movement of states (like physical
forms) and ideas (like terrorism) from one form to the other
Kinetic versus static
Sacred versus consumable; at all levels, from packaging religious
ideas to sanctifying and/or selling the human body
My principal benchmark in my visual research for the past few
years has been ancient Egyptian painting. Here I get back to
why I personally believe that the term ancient Egyptian art
is a misnomer; I believe the term is too global and describes
all art as artifacts, while the principal function of each discipline/form
was entirely specific and functionally different from other
forms.
Ancient Egyptian sculpture is perfectly three-dimensional; the
two schools described by archeologists and art historians are
the idealist school that sustained for over 3000 years, where
all the pieces were initially inspired from their models, but
all physical (body) deformities are eliminated or corrected
to render the sculpture ideal according to certain preset specifications;
on the other hand, the realist school of the Amarna period at
the city of Akhetaten (horizon-of-aten, capital of Akhenaten,
tell el Amarna, Minia, 400 Km south of Cairo) that survived
anything between 28 and 80 years, worked with the physical imperfections
of models to render the work more human and realistic.
In both cases, the sculpture had the apparent function of symbolizing
God-King, in a static pose, with limbs close to the body to
minimize damage through time.
But the principal function of sculpture is/was to be part of
the temple, where architecture, sculpture, sound and light inflict
different emotional states into worshipers, temple goers or..viewers.
This, in my personal opinion, is what became in the twentieth
century known and defined as installation, and interdisciplinary
site-specific art practices.
On the other hand ancient Egyptian painting served another function
totally; if we examine the perfectly three dimensional sculpture
and compare it to the very two dimensional painting, we are
confronted by a question: were the artists who made those massive
site-specific public art sculpture/projects incapable of using
theories of shadow and light, composition and create more sophisticated
rules for a more realist painting?
Answer is quite simple: we need to look for the function of
the artwork; in my personal opinion the main purpose of painting
is not the simple aesthetics. In fact painting was kept two
dimensional so as not to fall in the trap of appraisal of aesthetics.
The painting serves the function of narration, weather reality
or fiction, and documentation of factual or value/belief-based
events.
The two-dimensional painting did not change or develop much
over three millennia, and always respected the same/initially
set rules; they were descriptive, there was a narrative, they
were always kinetic where figures moved from right to left or
vice versa, never in opposite directions unless for decorative
reasons, always following rigorous rules of expression: for
confirmation and accentuation the figures were repeated several
times in succession, and always there was descriptive text.
This combination of text and two dimensional graphic drawing
is what we know today as comic strips, and the kinetic aspect
of the figures gave birth to today’s film footage; the
whole narrative is propaganda, advertising or documentary work.
Perhaps (subjective opinion) to defy the damage of time as well
as to represent psychological facets of the humane, the resolution
to metamorphosis found its way in the extremely graphic lay-outs;
especially the metamorphosis of the feminine that almost always
signified life: Bastet the cat (domestication) metamorphosis
into Sekhmet (the ferocious) then into Hat-hor (maternity, bounty)
then into Iset the sensual woman (known today in Greco-roman
language as Isis); the metamorphosis is not just physical, but
also emotional and psychological and according to the role played.
In both art practices, painting and sculpture, the human figure
was indispensable; the body was sanctified, beatified, created
to certain specifications of perfection worthy of worship; all
goods were perfect female and male figures headed by the either
powerful or generous animals: jackal, lioness, cat, falcon,
cow, crocodile etc.
In the process of image-making I probe distance and time, while
looking for witty solutions rather than the more comfortable
aesthetic results: I look for the anti-difference in visual
alphabets between East and West; when one day I was looking
at a small stone model of Anubis and a Warner Brothers model
of Batman of almost the same size, I discovered that both figures
are identical from the front view and from the back view; the
only difference is from the profile view. It is a bit astounding
that both super-heroes of past and of present have, beside their
morphological resemblance, an identical function of protection
against evil forces.
In my canvases I try to examine the lay out (not standard composition)
of ancient painting to create a narrative that combines my vision
in recycling stereotypes, symbols, patterns, superheroes, time
and ideas.
The walking or running figures move from one side of the canvas
to the other; many times subtle changes occur in the figures,
like a mask transformation from Anubis to batman, from Bastet
(the cat-headed female, goddess of domestication and the meek)
to the superhero cat-woman to Sekhmet (lioness headed female,
goddess of the ferocious).
The repetition of moving forms creates a sense of movement and
when associated with the subtle change of form provides the
required witty solution to the surface.
For the female figures in my mixed media work I use images extracted
from advertising and from cheesy commercial tabloids, and for
male figures I use bodybuilding magazines. The images are enlarged
archival color and black and white photocopies and silk-screen
prints.
The choice of the image reflects always the perfection of body
proportions, a criteria used in all Mediterranean mythology,
and a trait that does not represent a significant proportion
of ANY population; this provides for my desire to mingle fiction
with reality.
The use of the flower symbol/image, represent beauty, perfection,
regeneration and metamorphosis; in cases of roses and tulips,
the use of images of roses and tulips carries a profane carnal/sensual
reminiscence; both represent in the European/western mythology
the counterpart of the lotus flower/plant in eastern cultures,
mythology and religions.
In my work, and in the work of other Egyptian contemporary image
makers, the use of déjà vu motifs like lotus is
avoided because it eliminates the esotericism and renders the
image too rhetoric or accessible.
The use of red tulips/roses to evoke both a spiritual/romantic,
near- sacred memories, as well as a carnal/commercial mood,
comprehensible to viewers by today’s post-MTV, post-film
and post CNN culture. After all, the rose is related to Aphrodite
(Venus), born from cupid smiles and fell from Aurora’s
hair during combing.
The use of other flowers of more Egyptian nature like the Sunflower
and Paradise Bird represent in ancient mythology the process
of metamorphoses, continuity of life, eternity, creation and
the never-ending. The influence of Akhenaten’s religion/art
of the Sun is omnipresent in my work. Footnotes
Khaled Hafez 2005