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= Khaled Hafez =

Khaled Hafez (born Khaled Yehia Hafez Donia in Cairo, Egypt on 5 August 1963) is an Egyptian/French visual artist and educator. Hafez practice spans the mediums of painting, film / video, photography, installation and interdisciplinary approaches. He is a Fulbright Fellow and Rockefeller Fellow.

Early life and early career itinerary
Hafez was born in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis to Yehia Hafez Donia and Wahiba Kamel, both physicians, which had an influence on his later education. His father served a long career in the Egyptian Armed Forces and retired as Brigadier after serving in five military Middle East conflicts, with special assignments in Syria, Yemen and Algeria in the late fifties and early sixties. His mother retired as a Professor of Internal Medicine, after in turn having served part of her career in the army, in special assignments in the sixties and seventies. The military background of his parents, especially that of his father’s itinerary, is continuously referred to in Hafez’s video works*, as well as in four large scale installations**.

Hafez went to primary and secondary education at St. Georges College, an Irish Catholic missionary school in Cairo, which enabled him to speak English and some French at an early age. Hafez studied medicine and followed the evening classes of the Cairo Fine Arts School (a.k.a. the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University) in the early eighties. In those evening classes, Hafez studied painting with Egyptian painters Hamed Nada and later with Zakaria el Zeiny. After attaining a medical degree in 1987 and M.Sc. as a medical specialist in 1992, as well as two specialization diplomas ensued from Rene Descartes University (AFSA) and Paris South University (DU) in Paris, France in 1994, he gave up medical practice for a career in the arts. In 2009 he obtained an MFA in new media and digital arts from Transart Institute (New York, USA) and Danube University Krems (Austria).

Work
For over three decades, Hafez core research focused on the exploration of the complex nature of identity; for his painting practice, the identity he scrutinizes is a one that is a composite of African, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Arab, Islamic, with ancient Egyptian and Judeo-Christian traces. In his video/film, photography and other interdisciplinary image-based works, Hafez explains ''“I am interested in movement, an element that was indispensable in ancient Egyptian painting, where all painted elements were in motion, as opposed to Egyptian sculpture that always caught the protagonists in a “pose”, nearly always static. I use a lot of symbols and codes from all ancient cultures, and from the universal heritage of the world. In a contemporary culture dominated by a century of film and animation, the similarity between the ancient and the current contemporary forms of the kinetic is intriguing to me, and a focal aspect of my research. In my painting.”''

Painting
Hafez started as a figurative painter during the years when he studied at the evening classes at the Fine Arts school, with some inclination to neo-figuration, though a complete abstract painting practice marked his second and third solo exhibitions, entitled A Tale of Two Leos and Prisoner of Freedom (1989 and 1990 respectively).

Hafez moved to Paris in 1992, where he lived for three consecutive years; in Paris he became interested the larger than life photography used in street advertising and outdoor billboard signage, which to him was an urban landscape “different in structure and visuals” from where he came from. After his return to Cairo in 995, Hafez’s painting practice saw a complete shift to neo-figuration in 1996, where imagery was extracted from magazine advertising, manipulated and reassembled within mixed media painting, a style that developed into his personal style of painting in the following two decades. Hafez describes his use of figures from manipulated consumer goods advertising imagery and transforming those into ancient deities as “attempt to break the barrier between East and West, between past and present, and between everything sacred and profane”. In the projects Visions from a Rusty Memory” (1998) and “Faster than the City” (2000), both projects of medium sized to large mixed media canvases, he explored through visual irony and in juxtaposition notions of fiction and reality, legend, the hero as icon, space as a field where fiction and reality played, time and timelessness, memory as a universal recording device and a bank for codes and symbols, and color as an identifier.

Hafez says about this period “''During the early months of 1992, I had to lock up my studio in Cairo to start, a-never-to-be-forgotten three years in Paris. Three years later, (and 9 group exhibitions), I had to prepare to lock up the mini studio where I worked for some time, a room in a shared apartment where I actually lived in one crowded Paris street. I had to dismantle canvases from stretchers, unframed works on paper, tailor carton boxes to take as many works as possible, and send all my work during three years on a boat to Alexandria with all my luggage and personal affairs. The works did not enjoy any advantage of the artwork treatment I enjoy today; protective packaging, art insurance, delicate handling, etc…After having modestly boxed all my work, and after having sent everything, including my painting materials, I had to “look for and do something else” during the few weeks left till my departure to cairo. This “something else” actually came out as a project of printed images and photomontages that perfectly describes an Egyptian living in Paris. Paris, as a pattern for occidental cosmopolitan cities, is --like other similar cities-- dominated by a genre of image culture; street and metro billboards, fully illustrated journals, colorful magazines, printed media saturated by pictures. A dweller in Paris does not need a text to understand a given message. Big numerous pictures deliver the message and short texts only elaborate. The image is the hero, the subject, the content and the latest news''”.

Installation
Hafez’s early installations (1989-1999) incorporated sculptural elements were linked to solo presentations; his first installation Cosmic Melody (1989) constituted an integral part to his painting solo presentation A Tale of Two Leos at Nile Gallery II (currently known as Palace of the Arts), Cairo, where an assemblage sculptural piece lay on one third of the space tying the four corners of the gallery ceiling in thick industrial maritime ropes; the viewers had to exert an effort to manage the footwork choreography and watch the large scale paintings. The ropes tying the room corresponded to geometrical lines within the painted surfaces.

Prisoner of Freedom (1990) –an installation also linked to a painting project using the same title presented at the principal space of the Cairo Atelier, –a none-for-profit space that exists in Cairo since the early thirties of the twentieth century– had a room partially ceiled from entry by ropes, separating the viewer from a real human skeleton, and few lines of graffiti written on the front wall.

1n 1999 hafez installed a solo presentation with two stand-alone installations at the Guezira Art Center, one of the public spaces in Cairo, Halfway Home and The Electronic Gods, none of them linked to any painting project. Both works explored juxtapositions of the sacred versus the consumable profane, and the validity of the linear perception of time in its relation to space. In 2006 Hafez started creating installations that would serve as stand-alone works as well as part of video installations; his reason for that as he says is that “I always strive for witty solutions, and witty conversations; I come from a high context culture where a word may mean two or more things, a gest may mean one or three things, I find it witty and handy; so I create installations that can work alone or as part of another work, and even in my painting practice: diptychs can be linked and each side of the work can work alone”.

This “discipline” –as he addresses this part of the practice– entails a certain amount of design prior to execution. His first video installation work Revolution, commissioned by the 1st Singapore Biennale, comprised a 4-minute 44 seconds video –collected a year later by MuHKa, Antwerp, Belgium--, and a three-piece bronze sculptural installation entitled Contaminated Belief exhibited in museum-like glass cabinets –both video and sculptural installation collected in 2010 by the Bamako Museum of Art, Mali. The video installation was critical of the three promises of the 1952 coup d’etat that transformed Egypt from monarchy to a republic, namely social equality, liberty and unity. The split screen single channel video shows the same actor playing with a gun to represent subjugation, a cleaver (called “satour” in Arabic) to represent threat and terror and a hammer to represent neo economic slavery; each instrument represent a broken promise: the social equality of the gun, the pseudo liberty of the free transcontinental multinational economy, and the cleaver as a cut-throat tool of radical terrorism. More recent installations include The Memory Box, a versatile piece that can work as a stand-alone sculptural work as well as part of a the 5-minute 55 seconds video installation On Noise, Sound & Silence: The Venice Water Composite (2013), conceived for the Maldives Pavilion of the 55th Venice Biennale. The work incorporate bronze casts of real objects that played a part in shaping the artist’s growing memory as a child, like his father’s camera when he served in military intelligence in Syria (1958-1960) and Yemen (1960-1964), and a bronze cast for his Rolex watch replica when he served in special assignment in Algeria (1966-1967). The video installation Mirror Sonata in Six Movements, created for the 56th Venice Biennale official collateral event In the eye of the Thunderstorm, curated by Martina Corgnati and commissioned by Omar Donia, was composed of a room, where the three front walls received animated synchronized screens that completed each other, while the viewer would stand in the middle surrounded by the simulated temple. The animation was based on one of Hafez older (2010) large-scale (750x200cm) canvases: Tomb Sonata in Three Military Movements, where all elements on the painted surface were animated horizontally, as well as vertically to simulate perspective. The animation was created by co-worker artist Ahmed El Shaer and the music score was created by composer Mohamed Saleh of the then Cairo Symphony Orchestra, both regular contributors and coworkers in Hafez video works.

Performance
Khaled Hafez wrote and performed only one single performance in his career: Dwelling The Rest of History, which was part of an interdisciplinary project designed for and commissioned by Manifest 8 which took part in 2010 in Murcia and Cartagena, Spain. Hafez posed as an ex-prisoner offering a guided tour in the prison of San Anton, Cartagena. For 30 minutes, Hafez recounted fictitious stories of the prison and its prisoners, which were all scripted and had nothing to do with reality. At the end of the tour, Hafez explained that everything he said about the prison were not true, as all historical documents of this notorious institution have been purposefully destroyed in the eighties. For that performance, Hafez dressed in cliché-comic book striated shirt and barefoot, took the audience in a guided tour through the cells and corridors of the San Anton prison, recounting a scripted false history of the prison. Embedded within the true historical facts, there are fabricated stories that compensates for the total lack of historical documents in any archives.

Photography
Of all the media that Hafez uses to explore subject matter, his photography is almost always realistic and shows total refrain from conceptual approaches. With works shot in color, then transformed in black and white, cropped and presented in almost-always square format and printed on archival paper in small dimensions. Hafez explains ''“my first camera was a polaroid land camera 2000 offered to me by my father when I was 14, then upgraded to the 3000 model, also in plastic, one year later. I became addictive to the square format. I did not take photography any seriously except in the last two decades. I guess Paris and its outdoor photography-based advertising still influences me since the nineties. Photography is a brilliant medium: you can use it to document, freeze a moment in time, tell a story or just create a gorgeous composition for a function or another. Such sublime versatility of a medium is compelling. Indeed it has its specificity: it became too democratic, and anyone can create a photograph; this is excellent too. I am visually trained for photojournalism and street candid photography; this is what attracts me, and this is what engages me. Yes, for this noble medium, I refrain from conceptually approaching it, for fear of killing the joy of assimilating an accessible and comprehensible artwork by too much concept or loading the simple medium with fake messages that demolishes the straightforwardness of the image. A photographic image is perfect as it is, conceptualize it then you assassinate it.”''

Video / Film
2015     - Mirror Sonata in Six Movements (for 12 hands)

           90 seconds, video animation based on the painting “Tomb Sonata in Three Military Movements;, 750x200cm, 2010.

           Created for the 56th Venice Biennale official collatera exhibition In the Eye of the thunderstorm, Commissioner Omar Donia, Curator Martina Corgnati.

2013    - On Noise, Sound & Silence: Sounds of the Kavkaz 2013

            9 minutes, single channel digital,

Commissioned by ALANICA 6 & Vladikavkaz Museum of Art, Russia

- On Noise, Sound & Silence: Water Composite 2013

5 minutes 55 seconds, three-channel digital video, 55th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2013

2011     - 11.02-2011: the video diaries

5 minutes 55 seconds, 3-channel digital

Commissioned by the 8th Mercosur Biennale

Single channel adaptation: 11th Havana Biennale 2012

- On Noise, Sound & Silence: Sounds of the Port 2011

2 minutes 58 seconds, single channel digital

2010     - Dwelling

11 minutes, single channel digital

Commissioned by Manifesta 8, curated by CPS

2009     - The A77A Project (On Presidents & Superheroes)

3minutes, 2D and 3D animation, video, sound score, single channel digital

2008     - The third Vision around 1:00 pm

7 minutes, 4-channel digital, DV, stock images and stock footage, DV

2007     - Visions of a Contaminated Memory

           5 minutes 45 seconds, 3-channel digital, DV, stock footage, DV

           Comissioned by the Sharjah Biennale

           - Fruit Salad Mess with Collateral Surgical Precision

1 minute 30 seconds, single-channel digital, manipulated web images, original sound          score

2006     - Revolution

4 minutes, split screen single-channel Hi-Def

Comissioned by the 1st Singapore Biennale

Prizewinner Bamako Photobiennale 2012

2005     - The Red Crown

30 minutes, documentary, Egyptian Natioanl Film Center, digital beta

- Idlers’ Clip

3 minutes, single-channel, Mini-DV

2003     - Idlers' Logic

24 minutes Experimental with three actors, Mini-DV

Prizewinner Dakar Biennae Dak’Art 2004

- Obsesive Compulsive Neurosis

4 minutes, single-channel, Mini-DV

2001     - Visions of a Cheeseburger Memory

11 min, Super VHS and Mini-DV, stock footage

Books
Hafez has to date two experimental published books combining drawing and prose in the Arabic language, and one academic book about image-based art practices authored in English, all three books published in 2010, though none of them was authored that year. His two Arabic language oeuvres are published with Sharkiat, and are entitled Safahat Min Mothakerat Atel (Pages from the Diary of an Idler) and Atel Berbat Onok Wa Sa’at Sadr Thahabeya (Idler with a neck-tie and a Golden Breast-watch). His English language academic book is Egyptian Hyperreal Pop: The Rise of Hybrid Vernacular, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing (October 8, 2012), ISBN-10: 3659254142, ISBN-13: 978-3659254147

Exhibitions

 * 57th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2017 (National Pavilion Grenada),
 * 56th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2015
 * 3rd Mardin Biennale, Turkey, 2015
 * 6th Moscow Biennale, Russia, 2015
 * 1st Trio Biennale, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, 2015
 * 1st Bienal del Sur, Caracas, Venezuela, 2015
 * FotoFest 2014: International Photography Biennale, 2014
 * The Art of Life: Between Tradition & Change, Uppsala Museum of Art, Sweden, 2014
 * Tradition-Reversal, State Museum of Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2013
 * The Shadows Took Shape, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA, 2013
 * Tussen Verhulling en Moderniteit, Cultuurcentrum Brugge, Belgium, 2013
 * Reimagining Egypt, Saffron Walden Museum, Essex, UK, 2013
 * 25 Years of Arab Creativity, National Museum of Art, Manama, Bahrain, 2013
 * Grounded: Back to Square 1, Lopez Museum, Manila, Philippines, 2013
 * 55th Venice Biennale, Italy 2013
 * 11th Havana Biennale, Cuba, 2012
 * Khaled Hafez, Video Art Program, Windows Upon the World, Hiroshima MOCA, Japan, 2012
 * Lowave Rising Images, Cinema du Reel Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France, 2012
 * 9th Bamako Photo Biennale, Mali, 2011
 * 8th Mercosul Biennale, Brasil, 2011
 * Reframing Reality, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark, 2011
 * East from 4°24': COLLECTIE XXVII, MuHKA Museum of Art, Antwerp, Belgium, 2011
 * Miragem / Mirage: Contemporary Art in the Islamic World, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paolo, Brazil, 2011
 * Windows Upon Oceans, State Museum of contemporary art, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2011
 * Miragem / Mirage: Contemporary Art in the Islamic World, Museo Nacional do Conjunto Cultural da Republica, Brasilia, Brazil, 2011
 * 12th Cairo Biennale, Egypt, 2010
 * Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain, 2010
 * Tarjama/Translation, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Icatha, New York, USA 2010
 * The Presidents: Remix, Blancpain Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland, 2010
 * 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece, 2009
 * Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom
 * 3rd Guangzhou Triennale, China, 2008
 * Cairoscape: Images, Imagination and Imaginary of a Contemporary Mega City, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin, Germany, 2008
 * Neighbors in Dialogue, Collegium Artisticum, Skenderija Centre Sarajevo, Bosnia, 2008
 * Collectiepresentatie XXI, MuHKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium, 2008
 * 7th Sharjah Biennale, UAE, 2007
 * Contact Zone, Bamako Museum of Art, Bamako, Mali, 2007
 * The Present Out of the Past Millennia, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, 2007
 * This Day, Video program, Tate Modern, London, UK, 2007
 * Without Title, MuHKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium
 * 1st Singapore Biennale, 2006
 * Images of the Middle East, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2006
 * Mediterranean Encounters, Horcynus Orca Foundation, Messina, Italy, 2005
 * 6th & 7th Dakar Biennale, Senegal, 2004 & 2006

Film Festivals

 * 2nd Arctic Moving Image & Film Festival – AMIFF 2017
 * 41st Rotterdam International Film Festival, 2012
 * 15th International Short Film Festival Winterthur, Switzerland, 2011
 * CPH : DOX / Copenhagen Film Festival, Denmark, 2011
 * 17th African Film Festival, New Museum, New York, USA, 2010
 * 8th Ismailia International Film Festival, Egypt, 2004

Nominations Include
2015     - Jameel Art Prize (long list)

2012    - The 4th Prix Pictet Photography Prize (long list)

2011     - The Sovereign African Art Prize (Photography Shortlist)

Awards

 * Fulbright Fellowship, (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, PA), USA, 2005
 * Rockefeller Bellagio Fellowship, Italy, 2009
 * Francophonie Prize, 6th Dakar Biennale, Senegal, 2004
 * Foundation Blachere Video Prize, 9th Bamako Photo Biennale, Mali, 2011