Stick in your thumb and pull out... well at the Centre of Arts its a matter of luck, writes Nigel Ryan The Bird, A Formative Element in the Exhibition by Artist Hamdi Abul-Maati: well, if you think the title is a bit of a mouthfull go and see the show. It occupies the best part of the basement of the Centre of Arts, Zamalek: the scale is at least as ambitious as the title, and truth be told, amid all those galleries there are a few passable woodcuts but that's about it. It isn't really enough. The paintings, and there is a whole gallery of them, are an exemplary exercise in the shortcomings of acrylic. Abul-Maati is an artist determined to drive the point home, to which end he not only paints his paintings but also paints the frames. The result is an expanse of plastic based paint, unmodulated, unmixed, and unremittingly hard on the eye. The feeling is of having slipped into a crudely lurid cartoon. There are few compensations in this remarkably self-important exhibit: yes, there are lots of birds, you know they are birds because they have wings and beaks and tails, but despite their number the most dedicated of ornithologists will leave unsatisfied. These symbolic creatures can be of little interest to the twitcher: they can be identified as no particular type -- that kind of generic taxonomy is obviously outside Abul-Maati's ambition. Rather, they are Bird, with a capital B. As a child I developed a way with ducks: first the wing, then carry the line around, a slight curve to the neck, and finish with head and beak. At 10 or 11 -- and I was far from precocious -- I abandoned that kind of schematising. Not so Abul-Maati. That the woodcuts are slightly more credible than the paintings says much about the crudity woodcuts allow, but even here there are just so many Birds that one wants to see sitting atop pyramids. And wavy lines do not 60 or 70 backgrounds make. The Centre of Arts has once again stuck in its thumb and pulled out a prune. The basement of the centre has a marble plaque over the door: it reads Ministry of Culture Centre of Fine Arts. Another stone tablet to ignore. Nathan Dows provides a brief respite in the basement. Two small galleries, given over to small scale sculptures: here at last there is a real bird and as luck would have it: it is a duck. Felspar crystals glint in the surface of the granite and it feels heavy, remarkably heavy. Difficult to imagine this lump of stone taking flight. It is a relief to find an identifiable archetype. There are amphibians, too: a fat toad squats atop its plinth. In the next door gallery things become far less weighty. Still small scale, and clay rather than granite, Dows provides a twist on an old tale. The clay is shaped into bone like structures which are assembled with a seeming artlessness into disturbing skeletal forms. These are curiously animated momento mori: anatomically these bones should not fit together but they do. There are even moments of ecstasy: a couple of skeletons abandon themselves to the dance, and it might be sensuous were it not for the fact that you can almost hear bone grinding against bone. They go about their daily activities and at times there are moments of whimsy: a skeleton windsurfs, and the sail of his surfboard looks as if it might be made of skin. Intimations of mortality are brought to those glossy magazine, lifestyle moments. Wish you were here? Well Dows makes it abundantly clear that you have no choice and he does so with tongue in cheek eloquence. It is reassuring to see so much mileage extracted from bones and stones. On the ground and first floor of the Centre are paintings by Walid Aouni. This is a difficult show: it is patchy, and at times the uneveness of the works is distracting. It would have been better had Aouni not been quite so ambitious with his first exhibition: a more stringent paring down would have been of benefit. Aouni, of course, is best known as the director of the Cairo Opera Modern Dance Troupe, and this exhibition is unashamedly theatrical in its presentation, and also, at times, in content. The old frames Aouni uses, objet trouvé, lend many of the exhibits the aura of stage props which is not a bad thing, given the other-worldy oddity this exhibition evokes. It is an upside down world Aouni presents: a female figure sits atop a four legged animal only it is the rider that is harnessed and the animal that holds the reins. A puppeteer bites the hand of his glove puppet, and blood pours from beneath the puppet's skirt. There is even a crucifixion, with Christ nailed backwards on the cross. There are some well-trodden themes: the giraffe, that natural oddity so beloved of Dali, the most theatrical of painters, makes an appearance. There are several unpleasant couplings, with sinister, sexless figures making far from subtle overtures to the more readily identifiable human forms. A half human figure struts, naked except for a jester's hat and with feathers stuck up its anus, laying eggs. The smaller drawings, many framed in old photographic mounts, are at their best when they are simplest. The antecedents then become apparent: they are illustrative in the way Jean Cocteau's drawings are illustrative. (Whatever happened to those mountains of doodles? They appear now to be restricted to limited editions on expensive paper.) And even the larger works appear to demand a narrative: they are scenes, and they are stagey. Imagine Denton Welch's drawings without the details, without the Gothic revival toast racks and the other knick- knacks and you get close to the disturbing, topsy turvy world Aouni presents. There is too much in this show, and not all of it is good. But what is good is far better than the painting in the basement, and infinitely more disturbing. It is a creditable showing from the most talented stage designer working in Egypt. It is well worth a visit. For full details of opening times see Listings
