Shady El Noshokaty, Visual artist and assistant professor at the AUC’s Performing and Visual Arts Department is organizing an installation of a young avant-garde artist, Ahmed Basiony at the Egyptian Pavillon Venice Biennale on June 1st 2011. Ahmed Basiony was one of the most important Egyptian contemporary artists. On January 28th, 2011 - Artist, Musician and Professor - Ahmed Basiony was killed with several gunshot wounds inflicted by snipers on the “Friday of Wrath” in Tahrir Square in Cairo. His life ended at 32 years of age, but Basiony immediately became an emblem of hope to millions of Egyptians who were determined to live their life to change from a nation repressed to a nation freed. A man who died for his country; an artist honored for his courage and his love, Basiony had already created a mystique amongst his friends, colleagues, and students who were proud to learn from his life, and even more from the cause he stood for that fateful day. Basiony’s words on his Facebook status, on his last Wednesday and Thursday evenings, showed his full determination to continue the revolution in peace though he had been beaten by the batons of police.

 

 

On the 25th of January 2011, Basiony had decided to go down to Tahrir Square, as an artist of new media and performance arts, dressed with specifically designed outfits. He took with him a digital camera to capture video footage and joined the thousands who had gone down that same day to the streets, to stand for the freedom of Egypt against the old autocratic regime; to propose a peaceful and positive resistance. This was a deliberate resistance against the realities they were born into, lived with for over 30 years, and that were coincident with the age of this artist when he died.  

 

A year prior to the uprisings, Basiony had worked on a project titled “30 Days of Running in the Place”.  It was exhibited outside the Palace of the Arts located across the Nile from Tahrir Square, on the Opera House Grounds. It was a square structure enclosed in transparent plastic sheets.  In this space the artist wore a sensor-fused plastic suit he had designed, that calculated levels of sweat produced and the number of steps taken while jogging everyday for an hour - for 30 days. From the quantitative measurements explored while jogging, the data was then wirelessly transferred on a large screen displaying a grid of colours that evolved with the changes emerging from the function of everyday energy and consumption. The moral of the project was: Thirty days symbolizes thirty years under Mubarak regime; no gains just wasted energy. Thus, he assured the role of young Egyptian artist to articulate the political, economic and social conditions that Egyptian society endured at that time.

 

“There is no better opportunity than to display his last project Thirty Days Running in Place at the greatest artistic event of the year, the Venice Biennial.” Expressed the curator of the exhibition and Ahmed’s long time friend, Shady El Noshokaty, “During my last conversation with him, he appeared to me as someone else. As his voice disappeared, his features had changed in the midst of all the heavy tear-gas bombing that filled the air of Cairo. He showed up, as he always did, with his digital camera, observing and recording every scene occurring near by. Then suddenly I saw him one more time as he mobilized groups, fully shimmering and radiating energy. It was at that moment that a question whispered in my mind; where did we get all that strength? The strength was in the guarantees and ambitions of this glowing, insurgent, artist who was full of thoughts and dreams, and it is through those legendary energies that this simple young man, who struggled every moment of his life to determine a life in this country with dignity, endures in our hearts and minds despite being robbed of it all. But above all, one cannot escape from this love of this country as a homeland.

 

The Venice Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia) has, for over a century, been one of the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world ever, since its foundation in 1895 when the first International Art Exhibition was organized.  It has been at the forefront in the research and promotion of new artistic trends. In Venice, international events in the field of the contemporary arts organized are that are amongst the most important of their kind in the world. The Biennale today has an attendance today of over 370,000 visitors. 

 

In 1938, Egypt was assigned a pavilion. Egypt is the only Arab country that has a permanent pavilion of its own. The Egyptian pavilion was awarded the “Golden Lion” prize for the best pavilion in Venice Biennial in 1995. The jury decision voted unanimously that Egypt to be awarded the best pavilion prize for the participation of highly creative artists, whose exhibited works reflected the continuity of Egyptian art movement from the Sixties to the Nineties.

2011 is a distinct year for Egyptians. Egypt is passing through an era with many significant, momentous and once-in-a-life time events. The 25th of January revolution has changed modern Egyptian history. This year the whole world will be anticipating the Egyptian pavilion with great longing shown by the fact that they mentioned that “Egypt confirmed its participation this year in Biennial” on the home page of the Biennial’s official website (http://www.labiennale.org/en/Home.html). The entire world is expecting to see the impact of such huge reforms in political and social life on Egyptian contemporary art. Those changes were brought about by young intellectuals activists, among which were young Egyptian contemporary artists.

 

Subsequent to the Biennale the AUC press will publish the biography of Ahmed Basiony in the fall of 2012, complementing its other “revolution” publications. The book will publish for the first time the life and the conceptual process of revolutionary Egyptian multimedia, musician and art teacher, Ahmed Basiony, researching and elaborating his thoughts and conceptual Art works. It will reflect his relation to the new movement of contemporary Art practice in Egypt in the last 10 years, especially in the fields of interactive multimedia Art as well as open source Global movements in art and cultures. The book will publish some important articles written by the most important writers and art critics in Egypt and in the Middle East.

 

 

http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2012/ahmed_basiony

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/25/55622/Arts--Culture/Visual-Art/Revolutionary-exhibition-of-Ahmed-Basiouny-A-marty.aspx