Coming Soon…

Indicated by Signs – Contested Public Space, Gendered Bodies, and Hidden Sites of Trauma in Contemporary Visual Art Practices

http://www.eps51.com/projects/indicated-by-signs-cover

A publication edited by HAMZAMOLNAR
Book Launch in the General Public, Berlin
25th January, 2011, 19.00
The editors and some of the contributors will present the publication, screen some videos…

Free entrance, with friendly support of the Goethe Institut

http://www.generalpublic.de/

General Public

Schönhauser Allee 167c
10435 Berlin

ÖPNV / Public transport
U2 > Senefelder Platz

HAMZAMOLNAR’s editorial from the book

 

 

 

A Constant State of Urgency

a conversation between Hassan Khan and Edit Molnár

in: Arab Studies Journal, Spring, 2010

http://www.arabstudiesjournal.org/pages/issues/464/spring-2010



This conversation, conducted over skype, phone and email, took place on the occasion of the current issue of the Arab Studies Journal. A close reading of three recent works by the Cairo-based artist Hassan Khan undertook an in-depth engagement with several key issues informing and investigated in the pieces.

We discussed the shifting position of the artist in the contemporary cultural landscape and the phenomena of “amnesia” that is operational within cultural scenes. A consideration of the influence of personal histories lead to a conversation regarding the strategic application of mythological structures in talking about oneself in relation to how collectives operate through the subject.

Our dialogue about the position of the author tackled questions related to craftsmanship and art in Khan’s practice—from the various collaborations with actors to the use of the voiceover.

How can an artist create an emotionally charged space in which formal choices function as powerful tools in the production of a voice? Such questions were framed in relation to a critique of the influence of the geopolitical position of certain art scenes on the interpretation, dissemination and visibility of art.

The pieces discussed include the black-and-white video RANT (2008), a text of the same title, and a book project entitled Nine Lessons Learned from Sherif El-Azma (2009). RANT premiered as an installation in Cairo during “Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie”, an exhibition project curated by Nav Haq and Tirdad Zolghadr. The piece uses a rather minimalist form of expression. The subject, an actress, is sitting in front of the camera, behind a table. Over the period of roughly six minutes she utters ten phrases. Her gestures and facial expressions are accompanied by a musical composition. The video is accompanied at a later stage by a text under the same title that was published in the e-flux journal #2, 2009/1.

Nine Lessons Learned from Sherif El-Azma (2009) is a book project that was published in the framework of Publishing House, a temporary publishing unit operating within the framework of the 2008-2009 PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut. The book is divided into nine chapters (recalling educational books) in which Khan elaborates on the lessons he learnt, on an artistic and human level, from Sherif El-Azma, an artist, video and filmmaker who also happens to be one of his closest friends

Hassan Khan is an artist, musician, and writer who lives and works in Cairo, Egypt. He has been exhibiting widely internationally for the past ten years, selected solo shows include Gezira Art Center, Cairo (1999), Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris (2004), A Space Gallery, Toronto (2005), Gasworks, London (2006), Le Plateau, Paris (2007), and Uqbar, Berlin (2008). Khan has participated in several international Biennials, including the Istanbul (2003), Seville (2006), Sydney (2006), Thessaloniki (2007), Contour (2007), and Gwangju (2008) biennales as well as the Turin (2005) and Yokohama (2008) triennales.  Khan is also widely published in both Arabic and English

Book Launch in Cairo

Indicated by Signs – Contested Public Space, Gendered Bodies, and Hidden Sites of Trauma in Contemporary Visual Art Practices

A publication edited by HAMZAMOLNAR

cover by eps51 Design Studio (Sascha Thoma and Ben Wittner)

Book Launch: October 2010, Cairo, Berlin

Indicated by Signs was an international project jointly formed by curators based in Egypt, Germany, Lebanon and Morocco and presented in a series of exhibitions of newly commissioned and existing work, presentations, workshops, residencies and a publication.

Curators: Sandra Dagher, Yilmaz Dziewior, Aleya Hamza, Abdellah Karroum, Edit Molnár and Christina Végh. Coordination: Yilmaz Dziewior.

Artists: Doa Aly (*1976, lives in Cairo), Tarek Atoui (*1980, lives in Beirut/Paris), Yto Barrada (*1971, lives in Tangier/Paris), Matti Braun (*1968, lives in Cologne), Sherif el-Azma (*1975, lives in Cairo), Kinda Hassan (*1984, lives in Beirut), Mahmoud Khaled (*1982, lives in Alexandria), Katrin Mayer/Sylvi Kretzschmar (*1974 and *1977, both live in Hamburg),
 LIGNA (founded 1995, based In Hamburg), Henrik Olesen (*1967, lives in Berlin), Jalal Toufic (*1962, lives in Beirut/Istanbul), Akram Zaatari (*1966, lives in Beirut).

About the Publication:

Indicated by Signs began in the summer of 2008 as a loosely formulated and process-driven visual art project by six curators working between Cairo, Fez, Rabat, Beirut, Bonn, Hamburg and Berlin. The initial underlying theme of the project was the depiction of forms of appearance in contemporary artistic practices. Investigating how categories of age, class, ethnicity, profession and sexuality influence the appearance of individuals, Indicated by Signs reflected on how these categories are negotiated in different cultural contexts.

Two years down the line, after multiple meetings and residencies, artist talks, presentations, performances and workshops, culminating in an exhibition at the Bonner Kunstverein in July 2009, this book, Indicated by Signs: Contested Public Space, Gendered Bodies, and Hidden Sites of Trauma in Contemporary Visual Art Practices, is presented as a series of endnotes to a multi-layered project.

The book builds on the traditional format of the exhibition catalog while not necessarily restricting itself to its limitations. Rather than focusing on a retroactive documentation and reflection of the various spatial or chronological stages of the project, or the original point of departure for Indicated by Signs, the structure of the publication follows a logic designed upon three key leitmotifs – as the titles suggests – which are often not mutually exclusive. These lines of enquiry have been formulated through an intensive scanning of the artworks presented by the participating artists and the disciplines from which they draw their inspiration. At the last stage of this morphing project is a desire to elaborate upon the vast mass of cultural references from which these artistic positions stem.

The creation of a platform for new artistic production is a principal impulse driving the publication. As an assemblage of sorts, the publication consists mostly of ‘site-specific’ contributions conceived for the capacities of a publication: essays, scholarly texts, conversations and art projects, developed in dialogue with the editors. Tones and approaches vary, not only from one text/project to the other, but also within each and every contribution. Shifting between theoretical and lyrical to analytical, introspective and critical, these degrees of densities are deliberate and shape a difficult discursive terrain.

Authors: Omnia El Shakry, Joseph Pearson, Jalal Toufic, Mia Jankowicz, Shahira Eissa, Mark Westmoreland, Thomas Burkhalter, Christina Végh, Aleya Hamza and Edit Molnár

Editor: HAMZAMOLNAR (Aleya Hamza and Edit Molnár)

Arabic editor: Lina Attalah

Design: eps51 Design Studio (Sascha Thoma and Ben Wittner)

Arabic Typesetting: Reem Naim

Published by Bonner Kunstverein

www.bonnerkunstverein.de

Indicated by Signs project was initiated and supported by the Goethe-Institute, Kairo.

Practicing Pragmatics

Two days long seminar in Budapest conducted by HAMZAMOLNAR

invited by TRANZIT, Free School for Art, Theory and Practice

28-29 November, 2009, in Labor (V. Budapest, Kepiro u. 6.)

Public Lecture: 27th November, 2009, 7pm, in Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest

Poster Photo by Tarek Hefny

Practicing pragmatics

Contemporary cultural products circulate in a global art world with multiple and idiosyncratic centers and peripheries. In regions located outside of the Euro-Atlantic axis, these products, along with contemporary cultural practices and discourses are both entangled in and informed by unraveling histories of colonialisms and conditions of post-coloniality. During the past decade, artists and cultural operators working in the mega-cities of these regions, where social, political and economic realities are compounded, have generated new pragmatic and theoretical strategies that changed how contemporary culture is produced and perceived.

What are some of these strategies that artists, curators and institutions put into operation in places characterized by intense conflicts, changing socio-political climates, and a mode of perpetual crisis? How can local contexts be framed and brought into play without emphasizing cultural specificity and following stereotypical representations of cultural exchange and identity politics? What does it mean to curate in complex urban situations where power relations are not only negotiated within such socio-economic and political entities as the media and the public space, but also within the realms of informal economies and often illegitimate politics?

The seminar addressed these questions through investigating the curatorial work of the HAMZAMOLNAR collective. Special emphasis was given to the international multi-disciplinary visual arts project, PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut 2008-2009 that, featuring a series of exhibitions, screenings, presentations, residencies, a workshop and a temporary publishing house, took place in Cairo in 2008-2009. Through the close reading of this project, the seminar analyzed how manifestations of power relations and survival strategies present in everyday life can be mediated by the practice of experimental and radical curating in a contested urban environment.

Tales around the Pavement

A contemporary art project taking place on the streets of Downtown Cairo 5 – 15 November 2007 ABOUT THE PROJECT In the megalopolis that is present-day Cairo, public space is a scarce resource. TALES AROUND THE PAVEMENT is a contemporary art project exploring Downtown Cairo’s existing public spaces where residents are allowed to gather and interact as a site in which the complex relationship between the city’s dwellers and its various governing bodies is constantly negotiated and redefined. Seven artists, designers and architects are commissioned to produce new projects through which they subtly disrupt the urban landscape by reinventing some of the guerrilla-style tactics and survival strategies employed by city dwellers on a daily basis in the public sphere.Curated by Aleya Hamza and Edit MolnárPARTICIPATING ARTISTS Marwan Fayed | Eklego Design | Mohamed Allam | Malak Helmy | Mahmoud Hamdy | Kareem Lotfy | George Azmy PROJECTS Malak Helmy HOW TO MAKE YOUR BODY DOUBLE OVERNIGHT at KOSHK KOSHK is a kiosk transformed into an interactive art project that is composed of continuous artist collaborations that build upon the interactions and outcomes of the previous art project LOCATION: On the passage way between Mohamed Bassiouny St. and Kasr El Nil St., Downtown DATE: 5 November 2007 at 6:30 pm (until 15 November 2007) Malak Helmy’s Koshk project also managed to elicit interesting responses all around. Helmy’s Koshk is a work-in-progress: a kiosk transformed into an interactive art project that is composed of a series of artists collaborations that build upon one another with “How to make your body overnight” as its first manifestation. She chose a small abandoned kiosk on the beaten track. This kiosk is strategically located on the mouth of a tunnel-like passageway that connects two major Downtown streets. Overnight, she transformed this invisible space into a magical wishing booth. Over the shiny translucent paper she used to cover almost the entire structure, Helmy placed a sign above a slit inviting people to place their wish and come back in the following days to see what has become of it. Everyday, she would collect proclaimed desires and fantasies of the city that she then, along with a group of fellow artists, turn into images and post on the walls of the kiosk. Over the span of the week or so during which this project ran, people went from being intrigued to being offended and everything in between. Her stories are many, and she has included some of her encounters in a text that we have also included in the publication. Malak Helmy \ Mahmoud Hamdy TRANSMISSION A TV-based urban situation LOCATION: On the pavement in front of CiC (20 Safeya Zaghloul St., Mounira) DATE: 9 November 2007 during the football game between Ahly and El Negm El Sahili n Transmission, Mahmoud Hamdy’s point of departure was also a very specific, in this case male, urban particularity. Often in Cairo, groups of guys would watch entire football games in shop window displays of stores selling audio-visual equipment. Hamdy systematically approached a number of shop owners for permission to set up a fake living room on the pavement facing the TV monitor displays. Despite the fact that this practice is generally condoned, to authorise it is a completely different ball game, and so Hamdy’s quest for permission was not met with immense enthusiasm. Most likely it encroached upon the ill-defined border of the grey zone also known as Emergency Law, something about restrictions to freedom of assembly in public spaces. Since the final of the African Football League between Egypt’s Ahly playing against their Tunisian archrival, Al Negm El Sahili (Coastal Star), was at stake in his project, at this point it was also a question of national pride. As he set up his rented urban middle class living room down to gilted couches and fake Persian carpets on the pavement facing CiC in Mounira, Hamdy’s endeavour was once again met with sour resistance, this time from the owner of the building itself, who felt that it was grossly appropriate for the family to allow the neighbour hood to congregate on the pavement directly touching their property, a lovely 1920′s two-story villa. Any other pavement but ‘his’ will do. And so, finally Hamdy managed to recreate his al fresco living room ten meters away where majority of the guys from the street watched Ahly lose over peanuts and pumpkin seed. Mahmoud Hamdy Marwan Fayed PADDING THE CITY: AUTHORIZATION OF AN URBAN COMPLEX Prototype for an architectural public intervention LOCATION: Champollion St., opposite NSGB Bank, Downtown Cairo DATE: 13 November 2007 at 6 pm In his architecturally-conceived project, Padding the City: Authorization of an Urban Complex, Marwan Fayed re-cycled commonplace industrial material to build a prototype for a bleacher style street seating arrangement. He used discarded plastic coca cola crates as building blocks and inner tubes as cushions. Fayed installed the work opposite to a free-standing kiosk located on Champollion Street, a busy street in the mechanics district of Cairo. His piece was regarded with both suspicion and curiosity by passers by and in less than two days it was dismantled and used as individual seats by the custodian of the kiosk. The impulse for Fayed’s application was driven by a utopic desire to counter balance the unwelcoming physical harshness of the city. With his generous, almost protective gesture, Fayed adds a cushioned layer to its hard edges. But his approach is built upon a typical Cairo practise of multi-functional use of any and every material where a man’s trash is another’s treasure. Marwan Fayed Mohamed Allam A VERY PRIVATE CONVERSATION A mobile audio installation LOCATION: Corniche El Nil (adjacent to Kasr El Nil bridge) and various locations across the city DATE: 14 November 2007 at 7 pm Mohamed Allam’s mobile sound piece is entitled “A Very Private Conversation”. It is based on observation of male-female dynamics, youth culture and the Nile Corniche. Inspired by the levels of intimacy and public display of affection (highly modest) between young couples populating the banks of the Nile, Allam’s audio installation presents a recording of a fictional dialogue in an imaginary relationship between a young man and his fiancée. Two actors, an amateur and a professional, were given guidelines from Allam for the conversation, but left to improvise accordingly. As an aural manifestation of this recognizable Cairene image, their intimate dialogue was emitted in various locations on the Corniche becoming organically and immediatly absorbed into the overall cacophony of Downtown. At the same time if one got closer to the the source of the sound, the conversation carved out the siluette of the loving couple and one could listen to a secret conversation that would not have been accessible otherwise. A transcript of a section of their dialogue is included in this publication , revealing many of the peculiar topics and dynamics that dominate gender relations within Egyptian society Mohamed Allam Eklego Design DWELLiNG STATION A public furniture project LOCATION: Corniche El Nil (adjacent to Kasr El Nil bridge, opposite to Semiramis Intercontinental), Garden City DATE: 5-15 November 2007 Eklego Design also played on the idea of public furniture. But while Fayed’s approach to material and design had metaphorical undertones, this design group came up with numerous possibilities for a brand new product. Their concept was to create a prototype for an inexpensive chair that has the potential for mass production and that is specifically designed for individual use in public space in Cairo. They sketched out three different designs but due to financial constraints produced only one of the three ideas. Made out of thin aluminium tubes and durable plain canvas material, Dwelling Station is a portable chair that can be dismantled and carried in a bag. It is hook-able with long metal chains onto the railings separating pavements from the banks of the Nile. The life span of the actual prototype is unknown since it disappeared on the day after which it was installed in a lively area on the East bank of the Nile, despite the fact that it was not necessarily visible from the street. Eklego Kareem Lotfy CATCH ME IF U CAN A series of graphic interventions throughout the city LOCATION: Downtown Cairo DATE: 5-15 November 2007 Kareem Lotfy George Azmy NOTICE A set of signs designed and printed for Cairo LOCATION: Various locations across the city DATE: 5-15 November 2007 George Azmy TALES AROUND THE PAVEMENT (CAIRO UNCLASSIFIED) is a project commissioned by MEETING POINTS 5 (MP5), a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts festival organized by the YOUNG ARAB THEATRE FUND taking place in the Middle East and North Africa in November 2007. ALL IMAGES BY TAREK HEFNY.



Launch of PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut Catalogue

 

Catalogue Cover

The publication PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut documents and expands upon the 2008 project curated by Edit Molnár and Aleya Hamza through CIC.

In addition to documentation and reflection on the exhibited works, the publication contains newly commissioned essays, conversations, artist pages and a ‘catalogue’ of the Publishing House project. Art historian and critic Clare Davies introduces a critical reexamination of the practice of commissioning in contemporary art production. Sociologist Mona Abaza elaborates on current urban developments in Downtown Cairo, giving a futuristic vision on how the city would transform in relation to the interests of real estate investors and the growing number of satellite cities. Curator Bassam El Baroni talks to artists Hassan Khan and Raed Yassin about their artistic strategies and more specifically about the pieces they presented in The Long Shortcut. Motaz Attalla, the editor of the temporary Publishing House, provides an insight into the two-month long collaboration between designers and artists in which six low-budget publications were produced.

PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut was an international multi disciplinary visual arts project in five venues in Downtown Cairo featuring a series of exhibitions, screenings, presentations, residencies, a workshop and a temporary publishing house.

PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut explored the dynamics between informal and official modes of operation that continue to shape the social reality in this region and beyond.

The project revolved around a number of loose coordinates. One main site was Cairo itself as a quintessential example of an explosive mega city situated in a state characterised by a mode of perpetual crisis. Under these conditions one can think of informal structures and strategies of existence as creatively pragmatic answers that are by default subversive.

On the one hand, the project examined transformations in images of officialdom and the rhetoric of power through media representations. However, it also presented poetic accounts of daily life, personal narratives and creative strategies employed by individuals in the face of the reality of navigating mutating and hybrid structures.

Artists in PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut:

Agency, Ala’ Younis, Ahmed Kamel, Artur Żmijewski, Babak Afrassiabi, Bernard Guillot, David Thorne & Julia Meltzer, Doa Aly, Hala Elkoussy, Hassan Khan, Heidrun Holzfeind, Ihab Jadallah, Kareem Lotfy, Larissa Sansour, Leopold Kessler, Maha Maamoun, Mahmoud Khaled, Mandy Gehrt, Mohamed Allam, Pages, Raed Yassin and Rana El Nemr

RWE Dea, the sole sponsor of the PhotoCairo4: The Long Shortcut catalogue, is an Oil & Gas company with headquarter in Hamburg – Germany. RWE Dea is working in Egypt since more than thirty years in the field of oil and gas exploration and production. The company’s current activities in Egypt are concentrated in the areas onshore and offshore Nile Delta, the Gulf of Suez and the Western Desert.