2014-Interview with Wafa Gabsi for dissertation project

Est-ce que vous avez changé d’avis par rapport à votre positionnement sur la question de l’identité? Have you changed your opinion about your position on the question of identity?

In fact I am still a firm believer of the intricate nature of the Egyptian identity: Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, African, Arab, with ancient Egyptian, Judeo-Christian and Islamic cultural layers. Such layers provide us with two perspectives: one is the universality/universal influence of this Egyptian identity that goes both ways: it affects and influences the world through culture, invasions and trade, and is influenced by the interaction with the world through culture, invasion and trade. The second perspective is the uniqueness and cultural specificity of this identity. As an artist, I enjoy the liberty to draw from the universal and from the local. In my practice, I transcend time and space.

Pensez vous que votre identité est renforcée par les événements de la révolution ? Do you think that your identity is strengthened by the events of the revolution?

I would say NO, but also “perhaps”. I can speak here from my own experience, and from my perception of other artists who had similar or opposite reactions like myself. I do not think identity is enforced by one event, no matter how emotionally engaging that was, like the Egyptian revolution of 2011, which was beautiful and indulging as a collective act. I thought that I am lucky to live and witness such change, and that that change would certainly impact my work. A few months later I took voluntary distance from the political scene in Egypt as this beautiful collective act was stolen by regressive religious forces, just like all revolutions in the south of the world. Certainly adopting emotions either towards or away from such collective events may have an indirect impact on my artwork, but nothing can affect my identity, and certainly not enforce it or reinforce it.

Pensez vous qu’il existe encore un rapport de domination entre les pays occidentaux et ceux du sud de la Méditerranée (en prenant l’exemple de votre pays d’origine) dans le domaine de l’art contemporain : en matière de jugement, de diffusion, de distribution et de visibilité des œuvres et de reconnaissance et de visibilité des artistes de cette rive sur la scène internationale de l’art? 

Do you think that there is still a domination relationship between Western countries and those of the southern Mediterranean (taking the example of your homeland) in the field of contemporary art when it comes to judgment, broadcasting, distribution and visibility of  works and recognition of artists at the international art stage?

You see, I think everything has to do of how we see ourselves as artists of a certain region of the world that is not Europe or the USA. Indeed the whole international art movement is decided and directed by central players from “the North”, and it is those who select and choose certain practices that would fit the curatorial and audience expectations. I was just part of two panels within the FotoFest Biennale in Houston. In the first panel, art historian and Arab art authority Salwa Mikdadi showed a keynote with statistics about exhibitions that tackled feminist issues and had a “selection” of female artists from the Middle East. The projected slide had names of around 25 exhibitions in the past 12 years produced by international institutions and curated by international non Arab curators; at least 15 of those shows had the word “veil” in their titles, which shows how certain producers deliver their audience cliché and expected products. 

On the second panel entitled “Arabophobia” at Rice University, I personally spoke about my views vis-à-vis this issue of Arabophobia and linked it to “curatorial selection”, drawing the analogy with Charles Darwin’s “natural selection”. I believe that it is us artists who are 50% of this game, some choose to play with the neo-orientalist neo-colonial cliché and “tailor” artwork for such particular and peculiar curatorial projects, and others will not wait for such selection and work to create alternative platforms. Look at the brilliant Saudi model Edge of Arabia created by three young artists below their thirty around 12 years ago: they came from the Abha city south of Saudi Arabia, two Saudi artists, one of whom, Ahmed Matter is a practicing physician and the other, Abdulnasser Gharem is an army officer, and the third artist is their British Norwegian painter friend Stephen Stepleton. The three young men created one of the largest independent art initiatives working today in the world, and they exhibit in museums, biennales, institutes, alternative spaces, galleries and art fairs, and some of their artwork exceeded 500’000 USD in auction houses. They exhibited in three Venice Biennales in the collateral self-financed section. Those did not wait for a European curator to come and discover them or select them. I think this is the model we all need to adopt, and this is the model I adopt today. Three months ago  I created my foundation (The Khaled Hafez Foundation) with the aim of training younger artists to manage their art careers as enterpreneurs; I am working with them a whole management program with twenty one skills that have nothing to do with creative techniques or concepts; it train them to do their own model of Edge of Arabia, the alternative model that may help them avoid “curatorial selections” through skills and merit.

Quelles sont les manifestations artistiques les plus déterminantes (foires, expositions, biennales, etc.)  auxquelles vous avez participé ces trois dernières années ? Expliquez pourquoi elles étaient marquantes pour vous?    

What are the most decisive artistic events (fairs, exhibitions, biennials etc..) that you attended in the last three years? Can you please explain why they were so significant to you?

In 2010 I was in Manifesta 8, which was a great curatorial experience but was definitely the worst exhibition I have ever been too, and my worst exhibition experience in my career. It was one of those bad moments for curators and artists in which everyone contributed to make a bad exhibition. The quality of the projects was of contested standard though all the names were polished five stars artists. I think the three curatorial collectives did an OK performance, but only that. The best show was from the Alexandria-based collective that I was not part of their selection. 

The best exhibition I have ever been in my 25 years career is definitely the 2011 Mercosul Biennale, and it is due to the curatorial team led by the artistic director the great Jose Roca of Columbia. I personally worked with curator Alexia Tala from Chile, and the work with such curatorial team, all from South America, was just an ecstatic pleasure. The five curators worked with 100 projects (complete precise number of 100 projects). There exhibition was installed within 8 piers of Porto Allegre coast, and each pier tackled a curatorial sub-theme; all works of all artists talked to each other and the whole exhibition was phenomenal. The best I have seen and the best I was part of.

Then there was the 2014 FotoFest Biennale, this year focusing on Arab practices, and there were such brilliant names within the neatly assembled show curated by Karin Adrian Von Roques, and on the collateral events front within several institutions and galleries in Houston, Texas. This exhibition demonstrates how adequate/ideal production budget as well as long-duration and careful planning, all contribute to the creation of an ideal exhibition. 

I must say that I also loved the Havana Biennale in 2012, an institution event that managed to sustain quality and sustainability despite the stupidity of the international community. This biennale proves the science of total quality management theory/motto that “quality is free”, as this event works with super limited budget, but the theoretical and pedagogic contributions, essays and publications are probably one of the best in the world. I would always admire Havana Biennale for its uniqueness and quality.

Then there is the 55th Venice Biennale project that co-presented the first participation of the Maldives at the biennale, together with other international art practitioners from 14 different states. This project was unique because of the curatorial concept, again curated by Chamber of Public Secrets that I worked with for Manifesta 8, this time the exhibition was a nice and smooth curatorial experience, where Alfredo Cramerotti expressed himself to the limit and helped me a lot with my assembly. I owe it to his management skills that he managed to come up with this pavilion to meet the standard of Venice Biennale.

In between biennales, there were a few museum shows that I immensely enjoyed working with the curators to produce the shows and to explore concepts of the project, from which the beautiful and elegant 2014 four-artist-show “The Art of life” at the Uppsala Konstmuseum, Sweden, curated by Asa Thornlund, an artist herself; and the 2012 “Liberation: A Process Review” at Havremagasinet, Boden, Sweden. Then there is “The Shadows Took Shape, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, USA, curated by Naima J. Keith and Zoe Whitley. 

One unique experience is in 2013 when I worked with community archeologist Dr. Gemma Tully, PhD to concretize a dream project we both had when we worked together in part for her dissertation, which is to produce an exhibition with artists from the ancient archaeological past, the present –that was myself– and the future –and those were selected talented children from the Saffron Walden, Essex, UK, Museum community. Gemma Tully did a brilliant assemblage with real small antiquity pieces, each done by one artist/artisan throughout 300’000 years, two of my paintings and two of my drawings, and 8 paintings and several objects by talented Saffron Walden children that the curator worked with for 12 weeks. The final project was exhibited at a small gallery that carried a natural history-like atmosphere, and this was a unique project not ever performed before to our knowledge.