ART-PREVIEW:Wael Shawky-Al Araba Al Madfuna III
Living and working in Alexandria, Wael Shawky has received international acclaim for his work as an artist and filmmaker, exploring transitional events in society, politics, culture and religion in the history of the Arab world. Shawky’s estrangement of narratives through the use of puppets, child actors and television-show formats emphasize the power that historical and mythical narratives hold over the way we think about ourselves and the world.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Archive
Fondazione Merz present at Auditorium Kunsthaus Zurich an exclusive first edit screening of Wael Shawky’s new film in the trilogy “Al Araba Al Madfuna III” as part of Manifesta 11 and Zurich Contemporary Art Weekend. “Al Araba Al Madfuna III” was filmed in the temples of Seti the First and Osirion in the archeological city of Abydos in Upper Egypt, nowadays the village of Al Araba Al Madfuna. This last part of the trilogy is inspired by Mohamed Mostagab’s short story “Sunflower” and by the artist’s journey in 2014 in the region, where he met local people looking to find secrets of their ancestors. Observing people digging trying to make tunnels underground to reach the kings’ treasures, the artist explores the relationship between the metaphysical and the real, told in the writing of Mostagab and experienced in daily life of the people in Al Araba Al Madfuna. Shawky’s film “Al Araba Al Madfuna II“, re-tells Egyptian novelist Mohamed Mustagab’s parables, “Horsemen Adore Perfume” and “The Offering”. By using children with their speech dubbed by adult voices, to enact the stories, Shawky leaves an open-ended interpretation to the work. Wael Shawky explains: “Mustagab is interested in narrating tales mainly from villages from upper Egypt. He mixes religion and life to create stories that seem believable, but you know are mythical. His language establishes a link between metaphysics and physics”. The film “Al Araba Al Madfuna” restages the story of a local shaman in Al Araba Al Madfuna that tells the anecdote of a man entering the assembly room of the borough of the vilage, carrying a lantern and revealing a secret that is to be found under the carpet in the center of the room. In the film, the children surround the carpet and act out the story, In this work, history, memory and myth collide and placed in a binary relationship in which memory can be seen as a less legitimate means of establishing the past, or conversely, history can be seen, as the destroyer of a more authentic, existentially rich, living memory. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the artist and Abdellah Karroum, curator of Shawky’s upcoming solo exhibition at Fondazione Merz, Turin in November 2016
Info: Auditorium at Kunsthaus Zurich, Hirschengraben 8, Zurich, Date: 11/6/15, Time: 11:00, www.fondazionemerz.org
