"Narrative Summit" Releases 2025 Recommendations to Cement Egypt's Position as a Global Tourism Destination    Egypt, S.Arabia step up trade ties through coordination council talks    Egypt reviews progress on $200m World Bank-funded waste management hub    Egypt urges Israel to accept Gaza deal amid intensifying fighting    Egypt, ADIB explore strategic partnership in digital healthcare, investment    SCZONE, Tokyo Metropolitan Government sign MoU on green hydrogen cooperation    Egypt welcomes international efforts for peace in Ukraine    Al-Sisi, Macron reaffirm strategic partnership, coordinate on Gaza crisis    Contact Reports Strong 1H-2025 on Financing, Insurance Gains    Egypt, India's BDR Group in talks to establish biologics, cancer drug facility    AUC graduates first cohort of film industry business certificate    Egyptian pound down vs. US dollar at Monday's close – CBE    Egypt's FM, Palestinian PM visit Rafah crossing to review Gaza aid    Egypt prepares unified stance ahead of COP30 in Brazil    Egypt recovers collection of ancient artefacts from Netherlands    Egypt harvests 315,000 cubic metres of rainwater in Sinai as part of flash flood protection measures    Egypt, Namibia explore closer pharmaceutical cooperation    Fitch Ratings: ASEAN Islamic finance set to surpass $1t by 2026-end    Renowned Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim dies at 88    Egyptian, Ugandan Presidents open business forum to boost trade    Al-Sisi says any party thinking Egypt will neglect water rights is 'completely mistaken'    Egypt's Sisi warns against unilateral Nile measures, reaffirms Egypt's water security stance    Egypt's Sisi, Uganda's Museveni discuss boosting ties    Egypt, Huawei explore healthcare digital transformation cooperation    Egypt's Sisi, Sudan's Idris discuss strategic ties, stability    Egypt to inaugurate Grand Egyptian Museum on 1 November    Greco-Roman rock-cut tombs unearthed in Egypt's Aswan    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Fluxus in Giza: Rana ElNemr and explorations of process
Published in Daily News Egypt on 07 - 03 - 2012

“I see long streams, which are heavy, strong, dark and constant … I find them abstract, and rather incomprehensible, flowing recklessly most of the times. I call them ‘currents.' And I see finer streams. They are shorter in length and momentary in nature, but they come in greater numbers and they carry music, warmth and color.
“I find myself collecting evidence of their existence.
“Through the patterns of paths and paces, both tangible and ethereal, the light streams interrupt the heavy currents, diverting them, forcing them into alternative courses or a change of pace; or they simply mark locations that offer pause and a comfort zone.”
This is the artist's statement of Rana ElNemr, whose exhibition “Giza Threads” is currently showing at Townhouse Gallery.
ElNemr's new show might cause a bit of confusion. Certainly, most art connoisseurs did not expect to be confronting this kind of philosophical word dance. And, most probably, the idea of ‘streams' and ‘currents' will not click with readers of this statement, remaining amorphous metaphors in the personal lexicon of the artist; an eternal, kooky mystery.
But ElNemr's work is stronger than this. The series of anti-art photographs — compositions that fail to adhere to traditional rules about space, focus and subject matter — are rooted in a serious attempt to follow some unusual rules that the artist sets for herself.
Talking to Daily News Egypt, ElNemr visualized the photographic process.
“I am in Giza, I feel that I'm pushed by flows that are strong, and I'm stopped by interruptions. They are like interventions of these flows that have happened. The pictures are attempts at interrupting. I don't know what causes them.”
These interruptions lead to images that are both as lovely and as bare as real life. The photographs that are the results of such interventions, or as she calls them, “shadows of the feeling [of the intervention], or something else, something more than the shadow,” are clearly a candid, frank record of her traversings of Giza, recorded in the most unaffected way.
But this kind of image-making involves a very particular process, affecting both the subject matter of the photographs and their manifestation on paper. The results of this process are rooted in two elements: in ElNemr's emotional appreciation of the world around her, and in the performance-based Fluxus movement of the 60s, where artists like Cage and Kaprow decided to re-conceptualize art and aesthetics as reflections of moments and happenings (Like Cage's 4'33,” 3 movements of silence).
Walking around the gallery, the images can appear a bit disjointed. One shows a glass pyramid up close, another, an unmarked wall that has had the graffiti white-washed off of it in distinct place. Another, two men are watched from above as they greet each other, it looks as though they may have been kissing. The similarity between these images is the clear methodology that ElNemr adopts in taking the images, a conflusion of her own personal foibles and an ideological framework to hang them on.
She says: “There are certain factors for me while I take pictures.” Two, specifically. “The first is the amount of feeling intervention has caused for me, the second is how highly the intervention relates to me and the amount of possibility of the moment depicted in the intervention.”
ElNemr attempts to quantify and qualify her emotional responses to stimuli with rules that guide her artistic practice, something reminiscent of the Fluxus movement.
The influence of Fluxus is further evidenced by the style of the pictures themselves, where the medium of photography regresses to its earliest origins. Most of the bells and whistles of modern photographs are consciously stripped from the image-making process. It takes a few seconds to register what the focus of the photograph is — what the singular detail was that captivated ElNemr.
Images are not zoomed into, or all that composed. By the lack of manicuring, ElNemr emphasizes that the importance of the images are not actually themselves, but the moment, or glimpse of a feeling, that she tries to record. What the viewer is left with is subtlety that seems to illustrate in a whisper, rather than a shout, the singularly beautiful moments so often missed by the inattentive observer.
One image shows an average scene in Cairo: brown, worn out concrete high-density apartment blocks in twilight. The light is an opaque periwinkle, smudging away the details of the neighborhood into shades of brown. The dusty street stands empty save for a few abandoned tuk-tuks and their drivers; figures in the distance, standing separate and apart from each other.
Imminent darkness dominates the scene, yet the eye is drawn to one building in particular. In the building across from the viewer, a series of glowing lights catch your attention. These bald, rainbow-colored light bulbs on each of the balconies altogether light up the building like a grim Christmas tree. With the second building standing perpendicular to this, we see two of these glowing grids of color. Nevertheless, the image of lights emanating from the darkness is enigmatic.
This is the magic of ElNemr's work. Her grace and warmth invites the viewer to take part in the curiosity and optimism that inspires it. And having the luxury of this perspective leaves the viewer feeling refreshed. These almost Soviet-era-looking buildings that we become so used to seeing in Cairo are all of a sudden infused with a new whimsy and imagination, subtle and heavy and beautiful, like the rest of this old City.
Townhouse Gallery: 10 El Nabarawy St., Downtown, Cairo. Tel: (02) 2576 8086. “Giza Threads” closes on March 21.


Clic here to read the story from its source.