Latest news with #Orientalist
Mada
01-06-2025
- Politics
- Mada
Demolitions return to Bab al-Nasr Cemetery
Despite promises by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbuly to halt the demolition of historic Cairo cemeteries, the removal of human remains and razing of tombs resumed in April in Bab al-Nasr Cemetery. Madbuly's pledge followed public outcry over the destruction of the funerary dome of Nam Chaz Qadin, a concubine of Mohamed Ali Pasha and mother of Prince Mohamed Abdel Halim. Bab al-Nasr Cemetery is one of Cairo's oldest, located opposite Islamic Cairo's Nasr Gate and falling within the bounds of historic Cairo as designated by UNESCO. Its wooden funerary structures are a rare and unique form of architecture. The site contains thousands of graves and tombs belonging to Sufi sheikhs and saints, as well as the Swiss Orientalist Johann Burckhardt (d. 1817). The cemetery also features several ornate mausoleums of wealthy families, and the mud-brick dome of Al-Sitt Zeinab al-Hanafiya (d. 940). In 2024, the cemetery lost approximately 13,000 square meters of its total area as officials moved forward with plans to construct a parking garage and shopping center in its place. Today, it appears authorities are intent on erasing what remains of the cemetery — piece by piece.
New York Times
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Dudamel Leads a Premiere by a Youthful Ravel. Not Bad for a Kid.
It's not every day that a critic gets to review a premiere by Ravel. He died almost a century ago, after all. And while some previously unknown works have come to light over the years, it happens considerably less than once in a blue moon. So my pen was out and alert on Thursday at the New York Philharmonic's delightful concert at David Geffen Hall, practically vibrating with the opportunity to be among the first to weigh in on a piece by the creator of some of music's most enduring and gorgeous classics. The work that the Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, its incoming music director, were playing, part of a program celebrating Ravel's 150th birthday, was long assumed to be lost. Written around 1900, when Ravel was still a conservatory student stormily at odds with the musical establishment, the score for selections from a cantata called 'Sémiramis' turned up at an auction in 2000, when it entered the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. An entry in the diary of one of the composer's friends, the pianist Ricardo Viñes, indicates that it was played, probably as a class exercise, in 1902. ('It is very beautiful,' Viñes wrote.) There's no record of it being performed in public between then and Thursday. Grave and gloomy, bronzed by the low luster of a gong, the first section rises to the dramatic punch of an opera overture. The music then accelerates into a gaudy Orientalist dance that looks back to the Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns's 'Samson et Dalila' and the 'Polovtsian Dances' of Borodin, one of the Russian masters Ravel adored. This 'Prélude et Danse' is over in five minutes. (The third surviving section, for tenor and orchestra, will be premiered in Paris in December.) The piece is most intriguing as a preview of what was to come: For one thing, Ravel divides the string sections into multiple parts to increase the complexity of the textures, a technique he would use in later masterpieces like 'Daphnis et Chloé.' The Suite No. 2 from 'Daphnis' followed the little chunk of 'Sémiramis.' This was clever programming, but it came together just a few days ago. The star pianist Yuja Wang, the Philharmonic's artist in residence this season, was supposed to join the orchestra for both of Ravel's piano concertos, but dropped out because of a health issue. Dudamel and the orchestra traded out the concertos for two Ravel suites, 'Daphnis' and the exquisite 'Mother Goose.' The Ravel pieces were bookended by Varèse's industrial-size 'Amériques' and Gershwin's jazzy chestnut 'An American in Paris,' for what ended up being an excellent immersion in the first three decades of the 20th century. With well over 100 players, 'Amériques' begins plaintively, like Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring,' but gears up fast into the first of a long series of granitic explosions, with a siren periodically wailing. Powerful but not blaring, the Philharmonic conveyed the work's elemental force. On this program, you were more aware than usual of Varèse's subtlety and range of colors, as in the languid alto flute at the start that reached across the concert to connect with the great flute solo in 'Daphnis.' In the jeweled atmosphere of the quiet parts of 'Amériques,' like the steady beat in the harp and celesta as muted brasses wandered, there was a sensual suavity not so far from the fairy tale fragrance of 'Mother Goose.' The Philharmonic played both Ravel suites with just the right delicate freshness, and Dudamel's tempos felt natural: unpressured yet never sluggish. The different sections of the orchestra were balanced with poise, as in the oboe just peeking out from behind the silky violins in the second section of 'Mother Goose.' The final dance in 'Daphnis' had, in the context of this program, a ferocity that recalled Varèse. And 'An American in Paris,' which usually comes across as blithe, was quite different, its brassiness more relentless, its structure almost as arbitrary-feeling as that of 'Amériques.' As with any good musical pairing, the shift in perception went both ways: Varèse's urbanity suddenly seemed a little more cheerful, Gershwin's a little more brutal. Coherently programmed and terrifically played, the evening was a showcase for big sounds and repertory staples. If the brief 'Prélude et Danse' from 'Sémiramis' got a bit lost in the shuffle, it still offered a glimpse of a rising star. My report? Not bad for a kid.
Mada
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Mada
Mario and Tamara
Mario. The Exhibitionist — the art journal, not a naked person flashing — once asked me to contribute an essay to their 'Curator's Favorites' series. I decided to write about Al-Nitaq, Cairo's foremost art festival, which took place twice in Downtown Cairo in 2000 and 2001 — a legendary event. I'll admit upfront that I'm an unreliable narrator, not because I wish to be duplicitous, but simply because I remember things as I lived them. Like relationships — everyone has their own story. My essay on Al-Nitaq was titled 'Have You Met Mario?' — a piece I had almost forgotten about until I was WhatsApping with a new friend a couple of weeks ago. 'How was your weekend?' 'I had dinner with friends the other night at Mazeej — the rooftop of what was formerly La Viennoise Hotel.' 'It's gentrification to the core,' I added, 'but it's nice.' My friend hadn't heard of Mazeej-qua-Viennoise, but it was a Saturday morning bursting with false optimism. He said: 'Same also — I'm at a brunch at Tamara Haus.' This was the first I'd ever heard of it, but my brain heard 'Tamara' and the first question that popped into my head was, 'Where the fuck is Mario?' I miss Mario — not the man himself, but the vibe. Mario was the appointed cultural attaché and later consul for the Italian Embassy in Cairo, but more importantly, he was a dilettante, a socialite, a painter, a writer, a huge flirt, somewhat of an Orientalist, comfortable with his sexuality, playful. He showed up in artists' work — as a persona, as himself. He appears as a homoerotic figure in the photography of Youssef Nabil. He starred as Mario in the epic Sandouk El Dounia by Lara Baladi, a kaleidoscopic manga-like figure among other fantastic personages in the monumental project that occupied the once upon a time Viennoise — poetically dilapidated, haunted, gorgeous, labyrinthine, dusty. The hotel was once part of Baladi's family estate, which now is owned by Al Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment — a company with assets throughout Downtown Cairo and a project focused on 'urban revitalization.' I remember it as one would a Berlin nightclub, feeling my way through a dark room. I met Mario during the opening night of the second edition of Al-Nitaq. I think of Mario as occupying this double position: a character in works of art, but also part of a support structure, culturally speaking — he presided over prime space in the Italian consulate in downtown, which doubled as an exhibition venue. My point here is not to enchant you with nostalgia but to make sense of the feeling — not cerebrally, but viscerally — of the impending revitalization-cum-gentrification of Downtown Cairo. It is not to mourn the disappearance of the kind of work that provides gentrification with its foundation (we're no better than Soho) — that grit, character and unhinged imagination, all of it unpredictable, messy, full of contested narratives, histories and infighting — of what was and what it is becoming. Tamara. So, a few days ago, I decided, with some trepidation, to visit Tamara Haus. I admit, every time I walk into an Ismaelia-touched property, my fight-or-flight gets activated, and I tend to freeze. Not because I am standing in the way of the tsunami of 'revitalization' but simply because I am still trying to get used to the fact that everything I know and value about the spaces that have been fundamental to Cairo's history of contemporary art — the kind that is actually relevant to the (art) world and has borne international (read 'star') artists such as Wael Shawky, Amal Kenawy, Anna Boghiguian, Hassan Khan and others — remains conspicuously absent from the new 'counterfeit' gentrified emerging scene of art, post coup. Anyway, I went to Tamara Haus. Approaching the building — situated right across from the historic Banque Misr. Neoclassical, the entrance: pristine pediment resting on decorative pilasters, minimalist deep-red brickwork striking in contrast, Marylebone. My eyes glaze upward as I enter. The dust and dawsha of the street recede — I don't register the peeling sign, الزهور: مكتبة السرعة، هدايا، أدوات مكتبة، خردوات, or the aging shop owner sitting at the foot of his shop, facing the street; he is my audience. Everything dims, and my first impression is a musky scent, which I later learn has a name: Al-Layl الليل. I feel like a transition shot in a film, both starring and filming at the same time. The impeccably dressed security steward greets me with quiet formality. I am embarking on an experience. I stand, attentive, taking in the statement that tells me what this is all about. There's a museological quality to the experience. I am lured in by the dark, the shine, luster, glistening — display cases unfolding. I stand at the threshold, and all I can see is… hippos. Toy hippos. Toy hippos in every color and material: basalt, wood, light marble, dark marble. They come in three sizes. They range in price from LE5,000 to LE16,000 (c. US$100–320). There are also two scents: Al-Layl and Al-Nahar. Night and Day. Nondescript, nice, pricey. I have a long conversation with the hippo boutique attendant, whose gaze I find hard to hold, because it feels like if we click our gaze together, the suspension of disbelief will crack, and Tamara will turn into a pumpkin. He hands me a very expensive brown paper brochure, and I sneak a chocolate piece from the counter (it's for the clientele, i.e., me) and then I head to the upper level to further explore the house. The sprawling space, which comprises several top-notch design houses — furniture, office, fabrics, etc. — is grand. This is not a free review, brand name dropping irrelevant at the moment. There are no visitors except me — assumed to belong, white-passing, wrapped in a camel coat, blending into the surroundings — and two elderly gentlemen, likely downtown locals, who, in this setting, stand out as foreign to the place against its beige high-fluting design. While we peruse in wonder, we acknowledge each other. Here and there, we pause, taking turns asking for prices. Occasionally, a couch is called out for LE350,000. 'It is leather,' is the response to our knowing nods. 'Really? But it looks like fabric.' Two of us reach to touch it — true, it looks like fabric but feels like suede. We are both impressed. I continue alone and ask about more prices — like at an art fair — I am reassured that I will receive the catalog price list on WhatsApp. Bless. The experience has symbolic and surreal moments. My brain is trying to make sense of everything all at once. There are so many kitsch details to note, the veneer of age-value, sprinkles of archival matter, antiques, shabby-chic (but only for flair). Old gramophones, TV screens, a leather burgundy suitcase strapped with belts, an old clunky dial-pad telephone, vintage typewriters (many), Singer machines (at least two), movie posters — thrown together for a composite vibe that cries early 20th century, au courant, as we try to evoke a present that is pre-1952. قول للزمان ارجع يا زمان. It is an invocation, literalized, dark cursive calligraphy on a light wall. I walk around and think to myself, this is an expensive coping mechanism. But in a way, it's not that different from what Al-Nitaq represented. A revolution has passed, and we're still here. And yet, here I was, in the core of Cairo, browsing high-end design, squinting at statements draped around phrases like 'sociopolitical injustice,' 'symbols of resistance,' and 'beacons of hope,' for real, for real, resistance as aesthetic. Tchai, a serene teahouse. A young dark-skinned server, warm and polite, alerts me that the glass of water I am about to drink is very special. 'Zamzam?' I joke, and he laughs. Later, I ask for his name. 'Karawan.' I blink. 'Karawan,' he repeats, '…أصل صوتي حلو' 'أغنيلك؟' He turns down the volume — just a little — on melancholic Armenian revival and hums in search of his own melody. Can I place the song? I hesitate… He helps me out: 'Asalah.' I tell myself to look it up later, but I forget. Trying to reconstruct the scene, I know this wasn't the song he sang, yet another one of hers that comes to mind is إغضب, lyrics by Nizar Qabbani: إغضبْ كما تشاءُ.. واجرحْ أحاسيسي كما تشاءُ.. حطّم أواني الزّهرِ والمرايا.. هدّدْ بحبِّ امرأةٍ سوايا.. I know you won't take me seriously when I say this, but I miss Mario. It's not fair. And it's not just about the vibe — these spaces form around the false promise of exorcising ennui, lulling us into distraction, pampering and entertaining, while art has lost all interest in speaking truth to power.
Al Jazeera
08-03-2025
- Al Jazeera
A tribute to Um Adnan
I first met Um Adnan in 2006 in the south Lebanese village of Chehabiyeh, which lies not far from the border with Israel and regularly suffers accordingly. I was travelling in Lebanon shortly after the end of that summer's 34-day Israeli assault, which had killed some 1,200 people and littered swaths of the country with unexploded ordnance. Um Adnan was born in 1939, nine years prior to Israel's violent self-invention on Palestinian land. She had married a Palestinian refugee from the vicinity of Nazareth, who had fled to Lebanon in 1948 as a child, separated from his family along the way. Her husband was already deceased by the time we met, but her son Hassan told me with a nostalgic chuckle that the pair's first encounter had been 'like magic'. Um Adnan bore eight children, two boys and six girls, three of whom died – one in a car accident and one during the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90. The third was accidentally shot by a cousin. A robustو veiled woman, Um Adnan already had difficulty walking in 2006 when my friend Amelia and I turned up at her house – which unlike many other south Lebanese residences had managed to avoid irreparable damage during the summer's assault. Amelia and I had been hitchhiking our way through the devastated landscape, and Hassan had been one of countless motorists to pick us up on the side of the road and cart us home to be stuffed with food and put up for the night. I returned to Lebanon alone in 2008 after taking the bus from Turkiye to Syria, where Hassan volunteered to retrieve me. I would then spend the better part of two months sleeping on Um Adnan's living room floor beneath a colourful portrait of her late husband. Hassan slept on a mattress beside me, an arrangement that occasioned not so much as a batting of the eye from Um Adnan. By this time, Um Adnan had even greater difficulty manoeuvring, and yet she could rarely be made to sit still, dedicating herself to an endless rotation of chores, gardening, and cooking. A vat of green beans was always on hand for me – as well as an array of other treats – and the fact that one had to pass through the kitchen to reach the only toilet in the house meant that Um Adnan had plenty of opportunities to intercept me and plunk me down at the table for yet another obligatory feeding session. Um Adnan had a smile for everyone, her stoic grace all the more notable given her life's trajectory, which included surviving such episodes of mass slaughter as the Israeli invasion of 1982 that killed tens of thousands in Lebanon. The acute losses she had endured over the years – all against a backdrop of persistent torment by the state that had made her husband a refugee – made the mere act of getting up every morning one of fierce resilience. Whether cooking, cleaning, singing or bellowing for one grandchild or another to make haste on an errand, Um Adnan embodied an everyday heroism that is denied in Orientalist discourse, which reduces the Arab/Muslim woman to a weak and oppressed figure. Never mind that, in Lebanon and Palestine, it is quite the opposite of weak to hold families together while contending with the ever-present existential Israeli threat. During the brutal Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which lasted from 1978-2000, Hassan had fought with the Lebanese resistance – meaning that Um Adnan never knew at what moment she might lose a fourth child. Now that she had him at home, she held him close. Though unfazed by the sleeping arrangement in her living room, Um Adnan welcomed Hassan's announcement that he and I were getting married – part of a scheme we had devised while under the influence of too much wine. As per our wine-induced vision, Hassan's marriage to me – a United States citizen – would eventually enable him to procure a US passport and travel to his father's village in present-day Israel. With my less-than-tidy ways and general uselessness in the kitchen, I was no doubt not the daughter-in-law Um Adnan had envisioned for herself, but she took it all in noble stride. We were wed by a sheikh in the village of Tibnine, and I was inserted as wife number one on Hassan's identity document for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a category to which he had been assigned by Lebanon's law that barred Lebanese women like Um Adnan from passing their citizenship on to their offspring. Needless to say, the passport scheme did not pan out, but Um Adnan showered us with good wishes upon our return from the sheikh and promised a proper party in the future. I would later lose contact with Hassan for many years – and feared the worst – until one day in December 2022 he materialised in my WhatsApp messages with a series of emojis and a 'Belennnnnnnnnn'. He was alive, but Um Adnan was not, having passed away during the coronavirus pandemic. His voice cracked as he told me: 'She broke my heart.' Um Adnan's house has since been converted to rubble along with much of the rest of Chehabiyeh – the handiwork, of course, of the Israeli military, which launched its latest invasion of Lebanon in the autumn of last year. Her family was able to salvage nothing from the ruins, leaving only memories of the place where Um Adnan had loved and lost and emanated strength in the face of adversity, day in and day out. make earthly existence hell for countless international women, I'm thinking a lot about Um Adnan.
Arab News
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
Medhat Shafik's ‘Odyssey' on show at Riyadh's Errm Gallery
RIYADH: Riyadh's Errm Gallery is hosting an exhibition by Italy-based Egyptian artist Medhat Shafik until March 31. Titled 'Odyssey,' the showcase features select works by the artist who won Egypt's first Venice Biennale award in 1995. Shafik, born in El-Badari, Egypt, in 1956, has lived and worked in Italy since 1976. He graduated from Milan's fine arts Brera Academy with a diploma in painting and set design. Shafik built up a reputation for blending the colors and lines of Orientalist art forms with the visual vocabulary of Western avant-garde movements. 'This is my first exhibition in Riyadh,' Shafik remarked to Arab News. 'I found it very welcoming and hospitable. This was expected, as the people of the Gulf and the Arab world have a long history dating back to the time of the Pharaohs. I feel a close connection between these ancient civilizations; it resonates with my travels.' Inspired by the poetry of Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy, the exhibition explores the concept of 'life (as) a continuous journey, filled with experiences that enrich our understanding of existence,' the artist explained. Known for his use of mixed media, the artist often employs materials that have been discarded. 'I feel like an archaeologist, digging to uncover fragments of history,' he said. One unique piece depicts an archaeological formation resembling a half-moon, with mixed media mounted on a large-scale canvas.
