Constructing the present and envisioning the future in the studio arts in Cairo

Abstract

This paper explores the post-revolutionary creative production of two prominent young studio artists in Egypt: Hany Rashed (b. 1975) and Bassem Yousri (b. 1980). Both of these artists were active prior to and during the 2011 Revolution and in the immediate post-revolutionary period. This paper focuses on some of their most recent work, created under the oppressive circumstances of the el-Sisi regime. I argue that both of these artists engage a set of artistic strategies and concerns common to creative producers of their generation, including experimentation with metanarrative, the relationship between the human and the non-human, and exploration of the harsh realities of a politically oppressive urban environment. I examine Rashed’s 2018-9 project mathaf al-jips [Gypsum museum] with a view toward elucidating the way in which he thinks about the interaction between people and machines within the context of the city; and Yousri’s 2016 project Guideposts, which deals with what Yousri calls the “institutional aesthetic’ and engages a metanarrative approach that examines the relationship between artist and audience.