The day after President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi took office, the festive atmosphere did not quite carry over from Cairo to Alexandria — where the 26th visual-arts Biennale for Mediterranean Countries (ABMC), an event that had been suspended since 2009, was opening on 10 June. Not one poster or banner could be seen in the city, which was buzzing with holidaymakers and, like a runaway bride, seemed unconcerned with the main event. At the press conference held a day before the opening, artist Salah Al-Meligui, the head of the Fine Arts Sector and the Biennale's president, said that, as the second oldest biennale in the world after the Venice, the Biennale has a special place in the hearts of Egyptian and Mediterranean artists and intellectuals. First inaugurated by late President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1955, he said, the biennale has always afforded an enchanting atmosphere that generated fruitful dialogue among Mediterranean artists. “We were keen on holding this round under such critical circumstances, and with very limited resources, just to maintain Egypt's right to hold it in future,” El Meligui told reporters. Held at the Fine Arts Museum in Moharam Bek, the opening was followed by a visit to the other main venue, the Alexandria Atelier. The Will to Change was the title of the main, two-day symposium, which opened the next day. Only 18 artists participated in the event, a significantly smaller number than ususal. The represented 13 countries: Serbia, Slovenia, Malta, Bosnia, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria and Egypt. The absence of France, a regular participant since the first round, raised many questions; French critics at the symposium didn't know the reason. The guest of honour of this round is the pioneering Egyptian artist Hamed Oweis (1919-2011), best known for his portrayal of peasants and the working class, especially during the revolutionary years of 1952-1967. A special room is dedicated to a rare collection of his paintings. For his part Olu Ougibe, the President of the Jury, described the Biennale as “a good effort and an attempt to improve on an already significant cultural event”— except that the response from Mediterranean countries was not as enthusiastic as he had hoped it would be, partly because of the scale of the event. He was particularly interested in works that focused on faith, identity, gender and revolution because, he said, they reflect what is happening in their artists' countries — Libya and Syria as well as Egypt — in a convincing way. “In the end I am pleased to see that even under very difficult circumstances, such an event is recovering,” Ougibe said. “Every Biennale is a mix of good and bad art works, and I can say that there are many good and engaging art works in this round. Compared to other international Biennales, this is a very small regional one, but I believe it will get better. The lack of resources is the most strikingly thing here. The cost of the last round of the Brazil Biennale in 2012, for example, was up to US$ 12 million. It is how the country manages to attract the donors, and encourage local businessmen to invest in cultural development. It is not easy to attract entrepreneurs, but the most effective way is to convince them that cultural events could bring good business. It is also about advertisement, marketing programmes and products. International participants will definitely contribute to the economic revival of the city. It is not just about entertainment,” Ougibe added. “Another shortcoming is that young artists in Alexandria are not fully engaged in the Biennale, but I hope this will be change in the next round, because younger people have a different vision and background…” The paintings exhibited in the two-floor museum varied in material and style as well as theme. One amazing work, in mixed media, is Mai Refky's triptych featuring the same round figure that seems to be falling from up above. Movement and colour are the heroes, with each painting revealing a different position of the figure and consequently a different perspective. Refky, a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University, in 1998, says she was nominated to the Biennale following her contribution to an event entitled Transient Chronicles, of which her Biennale work was the continuation. Equally strikingly was Kamal Al-Feqy's sculpture installation. The piece — one of the three works that shared the Biennale's second — features a group of coloured human figures hanging from the ceiling by thin, invisible threads with another group scattered on the ground beneath, at the foot of a huge white mannish figure. Born in 1984, El Feqi has mastered dramatic figure sculpture in polyester, producing clay-like, melancholy human likenesses. Arwa Abuon from Libya participates with two huge photographs featuring a young bare-headed woman in black looking in the mirror, only to find her reflection looking back at her in hijab — and vice versa. Tammam Azzam, born in Syria in 1980 and now living in Dubai, offers three mixed media paintings that use digital media to depict war, with a soldier's cap doubling as a map of the world for example. Ruchan Sahinoglu from Turkey exhibits a four-paneled painting of withered flowers on postcards. Carrying a romantic air, the work looks like a message of sympathy to a dying loved one. Hamza Bounoua from Algeria shows three large paintings reflecting Berber, Islamic and African heritage: calligraphy, geometry and shading work together to produce subtle graphics. It was the well-known Egyptian artist Hoda Lutfi who won the Biennale's first prize for her video work, however. Lutfi is best known for dealing with the politics of the body, showing how prescribed gender roles impose restrictions on the human frame. A special room was dedicated set aside for her two video works, screened simultaneously. The first is entitled Bayadat, referring to the heavy boots of army soldiers, which feature a constant forward movement of the boots while the soldiers hold their caps in their hands. The second is called Cairo Resonance, and features torn down old buildings and their entrances from above: high windows, old pictures hanging on cracking walls, chairs upside down and files thrown on the ground. Taken together, the videos capture a sense of revolution and the need for change. But do they merit first prize? The Will to Change symposium, headed by Mohammed Rafeek, revolved around the idea of revolution: how cultural change leads to economic and political transformation. While many papers failed to figure out the connection between social development and revolutionary changes in the visual arts, a few made interesting points. Writer Mohammed Al-Makhzangy, for example, focused on the regeneration of cells in the human body, which automatically renew themselves every five-15 years. Exceptions include skin cells, which regenerate every 15 days. Every 10 years, the skeleton is totally renewed. “This innate renewal happens in a creative way. It is the rule of the living cells, a cycle of life and death. This is the law of life,” Al-Makhzangy explained. Similarly, he said, Paul Klee provided an example of such self-regenration when he took an artistic path other than the academic, legitimate one of his time. “His visits to Tunisia in 1914, and to Egypt in 1928, were testimony to his keenness on exploring new fields to renew his artistic experience.” In another interesting lecture, composer Rageh Dawoud drew a line between electronic music, as one of the symptoms of modernity in the 20th century, and the phenomena of underground music bands, explaining that electronic music thus became one of the tools of modern revolutions. The art of the advertisement, he said, took fascinating directions after the development of electronic music, which was the only musical school that appeared independently rather than as a response to the emergence of a visual art school. In her lecture, Claudine Dussollier, a French critic, said she was optimistic about the cultural scene in Egypt and Tunisia, as young artists have already started to take over the streets. She gave the example of artist Mufida Fadila, who held street performances in Tunisia, combining different forms, and Studio Emadeddin in Cairo, which encourages young artists from Egypt and the neighbouring countries to actively participate in revolutionising the movement. Cartoonist and Alexandria University professor of interior design Hassan Fedawy quoted Baudelaire as saying that the art of caricature is the main pillar of modernity. Fedawy stressed the fact that the deterioration in the cultural scene during the Mubarak era was directly reflected on the art of caricature as we saw caricaturists who became established only because they supported the regime. “It was then that caricature turned into a mere text and the caricaturist its illustrator,” he said with a sarcastic smile.
