Hamdi Attia's exhibition of paintings “Thus Spoke the Hoopoe” is on display at AL MASAR gallery in Zamalek. In 2014, Cyclone Hudhud devastated large areas throughout eastern India and Nepal, tearing through hoopoe nests on India's eastern coast. Birdwatchers around the world grew anxious for the bird's fate in a hurricane that happened to be named after it in Arabic. But the hoopoe ended up surviving these massive challenges of modern times, just like it is believed to have done in the biblical time, during which hoopoes travelled on many missions without food or water, spreading the word of Solomon to the world and gathering gossip and intelligence for him. The Persian poet Attar of Nishapur named hoopoes “the wisest birds in the world” in his epic The Conference of the Birds, highlighting how the hoopoe is the emissary of kings and the king of wonders and expeditions. The bird also appears in the Quran, where it is depicted as a trustworthy, magical reporter of news, which it catches with a skilled eye. “Thus Spoke the Hoopoe” is a body of painting that aims to explore the formula of this continuous myth of magical, insightful, yet critical reporting by a timeless legendary bird. Drawing on but departing from the aesthetics of illustration, it places some distance between visual and textual elements to suggest that which is outside of the frame of the work,” Attia explained. Attia was born and raised in Assiut, Egypt. He currently lives and works between Cairo and Chicago. His work examines the relations between cartography, geography, the body, and power – using video, mapping, painting, and sculpture. In his early career, he represented Egypt at the Venice Biennial, where he received the top pavilion prize with architect Akram Al-Magdoub. His work was also exhibited in several biennials and has been featured in private and group exhibitions in Amman, Doha, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Paris, Rome, Oslo, Bergen, Copenhagen, Basel, Marrakesh and São Paulo. Attia was also commissioned for public works in Egypt, Italy, and the US. 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The exhibition continues through13 January.
