Samir Rafi’s Cairo Years invites a deeper examination into the “Rafi’sm” school of art, thereby recognizing Rafi as the pioneer he truly was. As we take a closer look at the works produced between 1941 and 1954 presented in this exhibition for the first time in over six decades, we come to understand how Rafi’s pioneering work advanced, if not masterminded Egyptian Surrealism, and influenced various movements and artists thereafter, making Rafi an essential part of the re-envisioning of Arab art history.
Intriguing, Samir Rafi was a highly individual artist, who seems to have never admitted that the grass was not greener after all on the other side. Driven by his blind ambitions to impact the world, he sacrificed homeland, wife, children, friends, and colleagues, when he decided to migrate and spent the last decades of his life, in seclusion in Paris. Only Sami (1931-2019), his younger brother and the architect behind the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, remained his lifetime pen friend and confidant. Distant from the region for over half a century, Rafi paid a hefty price as he did not receive the attention bestowed upon his more famous “brethren” of the Contemporary Art Group, Abdel Hadi el-Gazzar and Hamed Nada in particular as they continue to be the hottest subjects for museum exhibits and auction sales. By the time of his death, Rafi belonged neither in Egypt nor in France, and his ability (or rather inability) to overcome obstacles became the subject of his work which explains the more somber, enigmatic, highly sexual and darker side. Neither celebrated in the Arab world, nor recognized as he had expected in Europe, his legacy began to be revived when all his belongings, scattered in his two-bed room apartment in Paris, were returned to Cairo by the Ministry of Culture following his death in 2004. Only then did Rafi begin to “taste” the appreciation he truly deserves in his homeland, as well as in the so-coveted Western world, and become the subject of many controversies. His legacy, persona and oeuvre are now being scrutinized. Many stories are told, triggered by family feud, unpublished letters that are being discovered in which he attacked key players and revealed a different history to the events, as well as press articles, to which he responded, or others left unanswered since they were published after his death.
Lying somewhere between a tale of hope and the tragedy of hope, Samir Rafi’s life and work were also the subject of three Arabic-language books. The title of Samir Gharieb’s book is a resonating description. Titled The Impossible Migration: From Darb al-Labbana to Paris (Cairo: 1999), Gharieb’s book is primarily based on letters by Samir Rafi written between 1986-88 to his brother Sami, and on interviews the author held with Rafi in Paris in 1997. Likewise, the two books by Abdelrazek Okasha, published in 2007 and 2012, are based on interviews the author held with Samir Rafi in Paris. Interviewed at a time when Rafi was past his seventies, some of the accounts certainly lack in objectivity and demonstrate a rather bitter persona who views himself as a constant victim, and judges the other artists as imitators to his unique style. This is further demonstrated in handwritten letters dated August to November 2000 acquired by ArtTalks from the archive of the late art critic Mokhtar al-Attar. By then, many of the key protagonists, who participated in or shaped Rafi’s life one way or another, had passed away and could no longer respond to the accusations or confirm the veracity of Rafi’s account of events. This forces us to take the stories published with a grain of salt since many are one-sided. To add to the complexity, Rafi’s exceptionally prolific production, divided in two periods (Egypt until 1954 and post-Egypt), is scattered around the world and exceeds thousands of paintings using different media, (lost) objects and sculptures, drawings, collage, sketchbooks and tapestries. Despite the dispersion of his oeuvre and the immense confusion in historical facts, this exhibition is both a tribute to Rafi’s Cairo Years, and an attempt to divulge some truth. This, until we complete the first English-language monograph dedicated to the artist as we aim to call for a deeper examination into folk surrealism to seal Rafi into the historical art cannon. In one of the letters Rafi addressed to al-Attar, Rafi agreed to publish his biography as he wanted ‘to correct history’ and remedy the historical oblivion of his legacy. In the letter, he admitted that ‘the whole responsibility falls upon [himself], as [he] had chosen silence.’ Samir Rafi’s Cairo Years aims to break that silence.
Samir Rafi’s Cairo Years invites a deeper examination into the “Rafi’sm” school of art, thereby recognizing Rafi as the pioneer he truly was. As we take a closer look at the works produced between 1941 and 1954 presented in this exhibition for the first time in over six decades, we come to understand how Rafi’s […]
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by Fatenn Mostafa-Kanafani In 1911, the 20-year-old Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934) exhibited a small gypsum sculpture titled Ibn al-Balad. It was part of the first exhibition of the first graduating class of the first Egyptian School of Fine Arts [École Égyptienne des Beaux-Arts] in Cairo. Ever since it is said that Mokhtar proudly and rightly claimed […]
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Samir Rafi Uncensored sheds light on a puzzling artist, who seems to have never admitted that the grass is after all not greener on the other side.
Born in the Sakkakini district in Cairo on 15 August 1926, Samir Rafi was a painter, sculptor, arts educator and author. A prolific artist who used different media, (lost) objects, sculptures, drawings, collage, sketchbooks and tapestries, his tragic tale of hope is the subject of this exhibition. With more than fifty works spanning the early 1940s until his death in 2004, it invites a deeper examination into what Rafi dubbed in 1945 ‘an International Egyptian Surrealism movement’ or better yet, the “Rafi’sm” school of art, thereby recognizing Samir Rafi as the pioneer he truly was.
An ambitious individualist from the beginning, Samir Rafi was destined to an impressive career in his homeland. A prodigious trendsetter, he began his career in Egypt in the midst of World War II producing works that were far ahead of his time as a powerful mode of social criticism. His early interpretation of Egyptian ordinary life struggled and triumphed to express the huge oppressions, upheavals, and hard-won freedoms that have epitomized Egypt’s sprawl. In search of the unknown and the depth of human feelings, Rafi broke boundaries with visual innovations that linked Egyptian imagery with the human subconscious, and set out to draw a metaphysical blend of overlapping movements and styles to depict the Egyptian man, to which Rafi added ‘a universal soul.’ It was Rafi’s all-encompassing attempt at Egyptianizing surrealism, in search of a social and collective remedy. By 1945, Rafi had sealed the movement of “Rafi’sm” as a recognizable visual style. In 1946, he co-founded Jama’at al-Fann al-Mo’assir, an artist collective that became to be seen as the most inventive in twentieth century Egypt. This explains why the “Cairo Years” between 1942 and 1954 are generally considered the highpoint of his career, and cemented Rafi as one of Egypt’s most important revelations and artists.
Driven by the hope to achieve international recognition, Rafi however left Egypt at the peak of his career in June 1954. He remained abroad until his death, never returning, albeit for one month during the summer of 1964. Initially sent on a government scholarship to pursue doctorate studies in art history at the Sorbonne University in Paris, the then twenty-eight-year-old ambitious artist gambled when he decided to follow his dream of fame and to remain in Paris, leaving all behind and somehow getting lost along the way. But home in France did not seem fulfilling. In the summer of 1964, Rafi abandoned his career as a rising artist for a second time, ignored his thesis defense, and travelled to Algeria with a group of Algerian political freedom fighters. Rafi became a target and was imprisoned on suspicion of spying for the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The sequence of events between Paris (1954-1964) and Alger (1964-1969), and back (1969-2004) turned into a long and painful tale. As someone who belonged neither in Egypt nor in France, his ability (or rather inability) to overcome obstacles became the subject of his work, which explains the more somber, enigmatic, highly sexual and darker side. As he reconciled different if not opposite aesthetic elements, Rafi eventually created a singular painting school that came to be defined as ‘Totalisme’ [Wholeness] or ‘Insaniya Shamla [Complete Humanism]. The ‘whole’ appears like “still” narratives with a mordant, or rather poignant wit, usually depicted in geometric and exaggeratedly executed brushstrokes. Animals played a significant role in the imaginary world of Samir Rafi. They are either entwined in the bodies of his subjects, or are their (sole) companion. What significance and meanings they carry offers a large space for interpretation. Along the way, Rafi’s themes became markedly more Egyptian, and a close alignment between his on- and off-canvas persona emerged, demonstrating a reclusive man torn between success and struggles, wealth and poverty, health and sickness, family and separation, fame and anonymity, freedom and prison, and eventually, loneliness and death.
Neither celebrated in his homeland, nor recognized as he had expected in Europe during his lifetime, Rafi’s legacy began to be revived when all his belongings in his two-bed room apartment in Paris were repatriated to Cairo following his death in 2004. Only then did Rafi begin to “taste” the appreciation he truly deserves in Egypt and the region, as well as in the so-coveted Western world.