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New Artist Representation – Mamdouh Ammar

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Mamdouh Ammar (1928 – 2012)
New Artist Representation by ArtTalks

ArtTalks is proud to announce that the gallery now represents the estate of the late artist Mamdouh Ammar.

Born in 1928, Mamdouh Ammar graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1952 – the year of the 23 July Revolution and during a time when the Contemporary Art Group were in the process of creating a spectacular Egyptian Folk Realism movement. A two-year apprenticeship in the studio of Turkish watercolor master Hedayet between 1945-1947; a close student-teacher relationship with Beppi Martin and Hussein Bicar; and further studies in the studio of André Lhote in Paris then at the Arts Academy in Rome enabled Ammar to build a multi-faceted narrative in which expressionism, symbolism and surrealism blend.

With a career extending over a period of six decades, Ammar investigated three main themes: magic, war and women. In his search for the essence of humanity, he narrated the story of a society immersed in popular myths, Sufism and folk practices and depicted the height of rejection of war as a solution to any conflict. By the end of his life, Ammar seems to have found the answer to a better life in the generative power that emerges out of the company of one’s own self, in silence.

At first socially minded, later isolated in peace, the prolific artist never ceased to pay tribute to women and convey the importance of freedom.

Mamdouh Ammar’s work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art (Cairo), Port Said Museum and the Denshawai Museum (Menoufia).

Moataz Nasr to Represent Egypt at the Venice Biennale 2017

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ArtTalks is thrilled to announce the selection of Moataz Nasr to represent Egypt at the 57th edition of the prestigious
La Biennale di Venezia International Art Exhibition to be held between 13 May and 26 November 2017.

The Egyptian Ministry of Culture and the Egyptian High Supreme Council for the Arts have announced on November
7, 2016 that Moataz Nasr has been selected to represent Egypt at the Egyptian Pavilion in the Giardini. Egypt, since
it established its pavilion in 1938, remains one of the only non-European nations to have a national pavilion in the
Giardini, which currently houses the Central Pavilion and 29 permanent national pavilions.

In line with his practice to reach an ideal of humanity and in an uncanny nod to recent global events, Moataz Nasr’s
exhibition is titled This Too Shall Pass and will evolve around symbolism that incorporates layers of social comment.
Nasr is one of the most significant multi-media artists of his generation. He employs painting, sculpture, and
photography, video and public art in order to create installations, which connect past and present, the spiritual and
the worldly and his homeland, Egypt and the universal.

Parallel to his work in the studio, Moataz Nasr maintains a social practice, through his Cairo-based nonprofit space,
Darb 1718, which gives access to an independent platform for education and culture through multi-disciplinary
programs since 2008. His commitment to formal intervention and social activism anchors Nasr’s contribution to
culture at large, exemplifying his belief that, artists in the 21st century can reinvent the world we live in.

Moataz Nasr was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1961. He lives and works in Cairo. After studying Economics, Nasr
took a studio in Old Cairo and soon gained local recognition marked by numerous prizes before breaking into the
international art scene in 2011, notably winning the Grand Prix at the 8th International Cairo Biennale and in 2002
winning the Biennale Prize of Dakar Biennale, Senegal. Moataz Nasr recently participated in Senses of Time: Video
and Film-Based Works of Africa at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (2016) and took part in the
Dakar Biennale (2016). Across the years, he participated in the La Otra Biennale de Arte di Bogota (2013), the
Çanakkale Biennale (2012), the Thessaloniki Biennale (2011), the Lubumbashi Biennale (2010),
the Canary Biennale (2008), the Yokohama Triennale (2005), the Sao Paolo Biennale (2004), the Seoul Biennale
(2004) and the Venice Biennale (2003).

Established in 1895, the Venice Biennale has for over a century been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions
in the world. Today, the Biennale has an attendance of over 370,000 visitors at the Art Exhibition, which takes place
every odd years. In 1995, Egypt won the Golden Lion (Leone d’Oro) for Best Pavilion with Akram El Magdoub,
Hamdi Attia and Medhat Shafik, as exhibiting artists.

Launch of MHWLN

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A panel discussion around gallery practices in Egypt, with Mohammed Talaat (Gallery Misr), Aleya Hamza (Gypsum) and Fatenn Mostafa (ArtTalks), took place as a launch platform for MHWLN (pronounced Mohawellun, deriving from the 1930’s avant-garde Egyptian group Les Essayistes). Founded by Clare Davies, Ahmed Naji and Ahmed Shawky, MHWLN is a working group devoted to researching and reflecting on the history of contemporary art in Egypt.