The Easel & Camera Gallery's outdoor group exhibition “Out Loud”, which opened on the golf grounds of the Hilton Dreamland Hotel just outside Cairo on 16 October, challenges the idea of sculptures as fixed and mute objects, allowing 150 pieces by 25 artists representing different generations and school to raise their voices, as it were. According to artist Weam Al Masry, the gallery's cofounder, the title reflects the outdoor setting and the artists' strong visual identities, to be appreciated in relation to the rolling green. It includes work by veterans like the late Adam Henein, Ahmed Abdel-Wahhab, Abdel-Aziz Saab, El Sayed Abdou Selim, Khaled Zaki and Hisham Abdel Moeti as well as younger artists such as Marwa Youssef and Mona Heikal, the youngest of all, and two non-Egyptians: Ali Noori from Iraq and Bassam Kyrillos from Lebanon. A sizable portion of the exhibition – animal, avian and human figures – are in harmony with the surroundings while others, such as Shaimaa Darwish's ceramic dolls and Sayed Waked's glass sculptures, feel somewhat out of place. Large 2 x 3 m paintings by Kyrillos, Mohamed Abul-Naga and others had to be removed when the weather turned. Henein contributes two bronze masterpieces from 1965: The Goat (85 x 57 x 21 cm), and Thirst (137 x 31 x 39 cm), the latter featuring a young man drinking out of a jar. Like the human figure, the goat is looking up, its delicately carved neck – like the man's, which doubles as a water tube – connecting its small body to the sky. Both figures have prominent genitals. Noori contributes “Disturbance”, a granite collection made in a record six months and first exhibited at the Prince Taz Gallery in 2018, in which tortured nudes – often missing parts – display a dialogue between rough and smooth, glossy and dull, which works even better in natural sunlight. Reflecting solitude, distress and loss, the figures convey a sense of motion despite their static positions. One figure (75 x 85 x 50 cm) has no arms or head, but communicates a strong sense of motion through its elegantly stretched legs. ## “Making a statute is like drawing a portrait,” Noori told me. “The sculptor should be witty and know when to stop. These 13 pieces reflect the impact of political and economic unrest in the Arab world on Arabs in general. Such disturbances had made me lonelier than ever before. The political crisis in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen is immensely complicated and allows for new interpretations.” Influenced by the Russian school of sculpture, Noori says that, like Picasso and Matisse, he is deeply influenced by ancient Egyptian sculpture. He regards an exhibition as the space in which to address an audience. “All my concepts are derived from my own personal experiences; family, women, and emigration.” A 1988 graduate of Baghdad's Faculty of Fine Arts, Noori used to be an athlete as well as an artist, and his knowledge of bodily movements helps him express them in the toughest medium known to the art. Because of war and occupation Noori has moved in and out of Iraq constantly since the 1990s, but his style – distinguished by solid blocks – has remained unchanged. When the artist decided to settle in Egypt in 2007, he was thrilled to be able to make his sculptures in granite, which is unavailable in Iraq. His previous exhibitions in Egypt include “Immigration and Stability” at the Hanager Gallery, which featured 15 large pieces in large sizes, including a human figure with footsteps engraved into it. For his part Khaled Zaki contributes an installation consisting of three fiberglass pieces (125 x 150 x 80 cm each) depicting three Sufi men. Entitled The Lost Treasure, this was first shown at the seventh International Peking Biennale in 2017. In golden hats and white cloaks, the three figures hold something mysterious in their purely white hands, which could be a box, a book, or anything valuable. Also recalling ancient Egyptian sculptures, the white figures are carved in solid blocks with only slight differences between them. Smooth curves reflect light and shadow perfectly. The piece is one among many on Sufism, which Zaki started exhibiting in Venice in 2013. ## Six tiny, semi-demolished brown- and black-streaked white buildings in aluminium by Kyrillos (30 x 10 x 8 cm each) reflect the seemingly never-ending civil strife in Lebanon. Kirollos is well known for playing conceptual games in both paintings and sculptures. His recent take on the Statue of Liberty, for example, mocks the notion of liberty by presenting the statue as a hollowed-out brick construction. Damaged buildings – also representing the breakdown of values – populate his paintings as well. The older sculptor El Sayed Abdou Selim participates with peaceful bronze pieces – a cat crawling, a horse with an arched back – which chime with the setting. Born in 1952, Selim is famous for working with different materials, including copper and bronze. A prolific artist, he also teaches at art faculties across the country. Unlike most Egyptian artists, he chose to stay away from city life, living in the small Delta village of Ibshan, and so his work reflects a rural spirit and (as in his 140 x 50 x 31 cm masterpiece The Stuntman, featuring a man playing tricks with hoops) street performance. ## Also powerful are Marwa Youssef's three sculptures featuring idealised bulls in different positions. A 1999 graduate of Cairo's Faculty of Fine Arts and a student of the late Abdel-Hady Al-Weshahy who grew up in a family of butchers, Youssef often explores her early memories of slaughter. Guided by ancient Egyptian depictions of the animal, she has focused on the form of the bull, which she sees as a symbol of power and resistance: “I like the huge dimensions of the bull, especially its neck muscles, and its facial expressions. But it is human rebellion, resistance and anger, that my work depicts.” Youssef's bronze bulls are relatively small (34 x 23 x 17 cm), though like the calves of her childhood they are in constant motion. Mona Heikal shows a similarly sized if quiter bull, along with a bird, while in an enormous piece called Boldness (240 x 120 x 140 cm), Mostafa Hosni displays a fierce fighting bull in scrap iron. According to Easel & Camera Gallery founding director Walid El Masry, “Out Loud Part II” will take place early next year. The exhibition is open until the end of November. *A version of this article appears in print in the 12 November, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
