Aziz Art July 2017
History of art(west and middle east)- contemporary art
History of art(west and middle east)- contemporary art
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AZIZ<br />
ART<br />
<strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Reza<br />
Aramesh<br />
Kenneth<br />
Armitage<br />
RIDIKKULUZ<br />
Ahmed<br />
Morsi<br />
Competition<br />
Festival<br />
Alberto Giacometti
1-Alberto Giacometti<br />
8-Festival<br />
9-RIDIKKULUZ<br />
15-Kenneth Armitage<br />
17-Reza Aramesh<br />
20-Competition<br />
21-Ahmed Morsi<br />
Director: <strong>Aziz</strong> Anzabi<br />
Editor : Nafiseh Yaghou<br />
Translator : Asra Yagho<br />
Research: Zohreh Naz<br />
http://www.aziz_anzabi.com
Alberto Giacometti<br />
1
Alberto Giacometti<br />
10 October 1901 – 11 January<br />
1966<br />
was a Swiss sculptor, painter,<br />
draughtsman and printmaker. He<br />
was born in the canton<br />
Graubünden's southerly alpine<br />
valley Val Bregaglia, as the eldest<br />
of four children to Giovanni<br />
Giacometti, a well-known post-<br />
Impressionist painter.<br />
Coming from an artistic<br />
background, he was interested in<br />
art from an early age.<br />
Early life<br />
Giacometti was born<br />
in Borgonovo, now part of the<br />
Switzerland municipality of<br />
Bregaglia, near the Italian border.<br />
He was a descendant of Protestant<br />
refugees escaping the inquisition.<br />
Alberto attended the Geneva<br />
School of Fine <strong>Art</strong>s. His brothers<br />
Diego (1902–85) and Bruno (1907–<br />
2012) would go on to become<br />
artists as well. Additionally,<br />
Zaccaria<br />
Giacometti, later professor of<br />
constitutional law and chancellor<br />
of the University of Zurich grew up<br />
together with them, having been<br />
orphaned at the age of 12 in 1905.<br />
In 1922 he moved to Paris to study<br />
under the sculptor Antoine<br />
Bourdelle, an associate of Rodin. It<br />
was there that Giacometti<br />
experimented with cubism and<br />
surrealism and came to be<br />
regarded as one of the leading<br />
surrealist sculptors. Among his<br />
associates were Miró, Max Ernst,<br />
Picasso, Bror Hjorth and Balthus.<br />
Between 1936 and 1940,<br />
Giacometti concentrated his<br />
sculpting on the human head,<br />
focusing on the sitter's gaze. He<br />
preferred models he was close to,<br />
his sister and the artist Isabel<br />
Rawsthorne (then known as Isabel<br />
Delmer). This was followed by a<br />
phase in which his statues of Isabel<br />
became stretched out; her limbs<br />
elongated. Obsessed with creating<br />
his sculptures exactly as he<br />
envisioned through his unique view<br />
of reality, he often carved until they<br />
were as thin as nails and reduced to<br />
the size of a pack of cigarettes,<br />
much to his consternation. A friend<br />
of his once said that if Giacometti<br />
decided to sculpt you, "he would<br />
make your head look like the blade<br />
of a knife
After his marriage to Annette Arm<br />
in 1946 his tiny sculptures became<br />
larger, but the larger they grew,<br />
the thinner they became.<br />
Giacometti said that the final<br />
result represented the sensation<br />
he felt when he looked at a<br />
woman.<br />
His paintings underwent a parallel<br />
procedure. The figures appear<br />
isolated and severely attenuated,<br />
as the result of continuous<br />
reworking. Subjects were<br />
frequently revisited: one of his<br />
favorite models was his younger<br />
brother Diego Giacometti. A third<br />
brother, Bruno Giacometti, was a<br />
noted architect.<br />
Later years<br />
In 1958 Giacometti was asked to<br />
create a monumental sculpture<br />
for the Chase Manhattan Bank<br />
building in New York, which was<br />
beginning construction. Although<br />
he had for many years "harbored<br />
an ambition to create work for a<br />
public square",he "had never set<br />
foot in New York, and knew<br />
nothing about life in a rapidly<br />
evolving metropolis. Nor had he<br />
ever laid eyes on an actual<br />
skyscraper", according to his<br />
biographer James Lord.<br />
Giacometti's work on the project<br />
resulted in the four figures of<br />
standing women—his largest<br />
sculptures—entitled Grande femme<br />
debout I through IV (1960). The<br />
commission was never completed,<br />
however, because Giacometti was<br />
unsatisfied by the relationship<br />
between the sculpture and the site,<br />
and abandoned the project.<br />
In 1962, Giacometti was awarded<br />
the grand prize for sculpture at the<br />
Venice Biennale, and the award<br />
brought with it worldwide fame.<br />
Even when he had achieved<br />
popularity and his work was in<br />
demand, he still reworked models,<br />
often destroying them or setting<br />
them aside to be returned to years<br />
later. The prints produced by<br />
Giacometti are often overlooked<br />
but the catalogue raisonné,<br />
Giacometti – The Complete<br />
Graphics and 15 Drawings by<br />
Herbert Lust (Tudor 1970),<br />
comments on their impact and<br />
gives details of the number of<br />
copies of each print. Some of his<br />
most important images were in<br />
editions of only 30 and many were<br />
described as rare in 1970.
In his later years Giacometti's<br />
works were shown in a number<br />
of large exhibitions throughout<br />
Europe. Riding a wave of<br />
international popularity, and<br />
despite his declining health, he<br />
travelled to the United States in<br />
1965 for an exhibition of his<br />
works at the Museum of Modern<br />
<strong>Art</strong> in New York. As his last work<br />
he prepared the text for the book<br />
Paris sans fin, a sequence of 150<br />
lithographs containing memories<br />
of all the places where he had<br />
lived.<br />
<strong>Art</strong>istic analysis<br />
Regarding Giacometti's sculptural<br />
technique and according to the<br />
Metropolitan Museum of <strong>Art</strong>: "The<br />
rough, eroded, heavily worked<br />
surfaces of Three Men Walking ,<br />
1949, typify his technique.<br />
Reduced, as they are, to their very<br />
core, these figures evoke lone<br />
trees in winter that have lost their<br />
foliage. Within this style,<br />
Giacometti would rarely deviate<br />
from the three themes that<br />
preoccupied him—the walking<br />
man; the standing, nude woman;<br />
and the bust—or all three,<br />
combined in various groupings."<br />
In a letter to Pierre Matisse,<br />
Giacometti wrote: "Figures were<br />
never a compact mass but like a<br />
transparent construction".In the<br />
letter, Giacometti writes about how<br />
he looked back at the realist,<br />
classical busts of his youth with<br />
nostalgia, and tells the story of the<br />
existential crisis which precipitated<br />
the style he became known for.<br />
"I the wish to make compositions<br />
with figures. For this I had to make<br />
(quickly I thought; in passing), one<br />
or two studies from nature, just<br />
enough to understand the<br />
construction of a head, of a whole<br />
figure, and in 1935 I took a model.<br />
This study should take, I thought,<br />
two weeks and then I could realize<br />
my compositions...I worked with<br />
the model all day from 1935 to<br />
1940...Nothing was as I imagined. A<br />
head, became for me an object<br />
completely unknown and without<br />
dimensions."
Since Giacometti achieved<br />
exquisite realism with facility<br />
when he was executing busts in<br />
his early adolescence,<br />
Giacometti's<br />
difficulty in re-approaching the<br />
figure as an adult is generally<br />
understood as a sign of existential<br />
struggle for meaning, rather than<br />
as a technical deficit.<br />
Giacometti was a key player<br />
in the Surrealist art movement,<br />
but his work resists easy<br />
categorization. Some describe it<br />
as formalist, others argue it is<br />
expressionist or otherwise having<br />
to do with what Deleuze calls<br />
"blocs of sensation"<br />
(as in Deleuze's analysis of Francis<br />
Bacon). Even after his<br />
excommunication from the<br />
Surrealist group, while the<br />
intention of his sculpting was<br />
usually imitation, the end<br />
products were an expression of<br />
his emotional response to the<br />
subject. He attempted to create<br />
renditions of his models the way<br />
he saw them, and the way he<br />
thought they ought to be seen. He<br />
once<br />
said that he was sculpting not the<br />
human figure but<br />
that is cast".<br />
Scholar William Barrett in Irrational<br />
Man: A Study in Existential<br />
Philosophy (1962), argues that the<br />
attenuated forms of Giacometti's<br />
figures reflect the view of 20th<br />
century modernism and<br />
existentialism that modern life is<br />
increasingly empty and devoid of<br />
meaning. "All the sculptures of<br />
today, like those of the past, will<br />
end one day in pieces...So it is<br />
important to fashion ones work<br />
carefully in its smallest recess and<br />
charge every particle of matter with<br />
life."<br />
A 2011-2012 exhibition at the<br />
Pinacothèque de Paris focussed on<br />
showing how Giacometti was<br />
inspired by Etruscan art.<br />
Exhibitions<br />
Giacometti's work has been the<br />
subject of numerous solo<br />
exhibitions including Pera Museum,<br />
Istanbul (2015) Pushkin Museum,<br />
Moscow (2008); “The Studio of<br />
Alberto Giacometti: Collection of<br />
the Fondation Alberto et Annette<br />
Giacometti”, Centre Pompidou,<br />
Paris (2007–2008); Kunsthal<br />
Rotterdam (2008); Fondation<br />
Beyeler, Basel (2009),
Buenos Aires (2012); Kunsthalle Hamburg (2013), and the High<br />
Museum of <strong>Art</strong>, Atlanta (1970).<br />
The National Portrait Gallery, London's first solo exhibition of<br />
Giacometti's work, Pure Presence opened to five star reviews on 13<br />
October 2015 (to January 10, 2016, in honour of the fiftieth anniversary<br />
of the artist's death)
8
9
RIDIKKULUZ is a Jordanian New Yorker promoting his Middle Eastern<br />
subculture in a surrealistic context infused with an urban influence. His<br />
uncle started the Rowaq al Balqa foundation and gave him an artistic<br />
premise early on; he furthered his studies in Paris and Florence.<br />
RIDIKKULUZ is on a mission to bridge the Arab and western world<br />
through art. A little nostalgia, trying to bring back the times where<br />
woman could let there hair down in the Middle East during the sixties<br />
and Arabic music is always playing and the flowers were brighter.<br />
What's so astonishing is that this type of vintage feel also works so well<br />
in the states because America is going through a "throwback" phase as<br />
well. Everyone is paying homage to old stars and bohemian feels. I'm<br />
bringing something that every walk of life can appreciate and make a<br />
bond over.<br />
RIDIKKULUZ has since then been featured in Al-Maha magazine, Nadi<br />
Orthodox Magazine, and recently featured in the Daily 49er. He<br />
currently works with BIZG87 New York, Riverside Gallery New York,<br />
Potato Mike Gallery in New York/Paris, Rowaq Al Balqa Gallery in<br />
Jordan/Florence, and <strong>Art</strong>MeJo in Jordan/Lebanon.<br />
1-I noticed much of your artwork is Well art is nothing but revealing a<br />
made with paint, is paint your truth of some sort. Through my<br />
favored choice when it comes to work I reveal the most honest form<br />
creating your pieces?<br />
of me and in turn the audience can<br />
Yes, paint is my favored<br />
find a truth about themselves. You<br />
medium. In reality, anything that can see that my strokes and<br />
makes a mark will suffice. technique is just as hyperactive,<br />
I like to use Moroccan pigments spontaneous, pessimistic, intense<br />
and mix it with linseed oil for the and emotional as I am.<br />
most vibrant colors.<br />
2- How is your personality reflected<br />
in your work?
3-Furthermore, has your Middle<br />
Eastern background/ancestry<br />
played a major role in influencing<br />
your artwork?<br />
The instruments almost sound like<br />
they’re crying. I try to give my<br />
pieces (the inanimate object here)<br />
the same effect.<br />
It has played a huge role. I think<br />
the best way to navigate the<br />
journey to the “self” is to turn<br />
back time and analyse every little<br />
piece of you that has made you,<br />
you. Ethnic background is<br />
something we take for granted but<br />
is embedded in us. How you react<br />
when you feel heart broken, the<br />
way you cross your legs when you<br />
sit to simply raise a cup of tea to<br />
your lips. All this is important. I’m<br />
trying to expose this through my<br />
work some how. Just how my<br />
culture is ingrained in me it is also<br />
engrained in my artwork. All the<br />
figures and faces all seem to have<br />
that same aquiline nose, the<br />
dramatic Arabic eyes, lips that<br />
yearn to be kissed. Apart of me<br />
also wants to give Arab’s<br />
something to show for besides the<br />
reputation we have on the news.<br />
The Middle Eastern music that I<br />
paint to also plays a huge part.<br />
Songs that go on for hours on end<br />
with instruments we are<br />
unfamiliar with move the soul.<br />
4-Tell me, what kind of exhibits or<br />
art shows have showcased your<br />
work? How does it feel to have<br />
your artwork displayed for all to<br />
see?<br />
I’ve showed in many exhibits<br />
varying from joined exhibits here in<br />
NYC to different features abroad in<br />
Europe and the Middle East. It’s<br />
honestly most shocking to see<br />
people’s reactions. At most times<br />
they are intrigued and left asking a<br />
lot of questions. Even though I am<br />
sometimes left unsatisfied, they<br />
quench for more. Whether its<br />
confusion over the androgyny of<br />
the figures or feeling some time of<br />
sombre emotion, they’re left<br />
wanting to interrogate me as if I<br />
have some explaining to do.<br />
5-You've described yourself as a<br />
"Jordanian New Yorker promoting<br />
societal subcultures" with his<br />
paintbrush — what do you mean by<br />
societal subcultures exactly? And<br />
how does your artwork help get<br />
this work done?
Society is made up of a culture<br />
and within that culture is different<br />
subcultures. You take what<br />
you are, dissect it and study it.<br />
Gender, Race, Sexuality, Ethnicity,<br />
State, borough, community,<br />
political views. Subcultures are the<br />
most important thing right now in<br />
2016. We’ve come to a point<br />
where we are making cos-play of<br />
our lives. “shit black people say”,<br />
that Dominican guy playing loud<br />
music from his bodega, the stinky<br />
Arab at the airport. Being a New<br />
Yorker plays a huge role in this<br />
study. Living in the most diverse<br />
and populated city in the world<br />
can give you so much exposure.<br />
You’ll really start to feel<br />
the weight of the world.<br />
You have to make it laughable,<br />
through humor people can take<br />
their truth and be less offended.<br />
Just two days ago,<br />
I painted 5 ladies sipping out<br />
of the same cup. They’re gossiping,<br />
get it haha?!<br />
6-Do you feel the nationwide<br />
community of artists have<br />
welcomed you with open arms?<br />
Have you ever received any kind of<br />
social exclusion from this<br />
community?<br />
A lot of these artists are so talented<br />
and some of the nicest people. On<br />
the other hand the ones curating it<br />
are not necessarily. Middle eastern<br />
art is the most traumatic and<br />
intense work I’ve ever seen. This<br />
might be biased, but maybe the<br />
best. You don’t see enough Middle<br />
Eastern art in galleries. In my<br />
opinion the American taste in art is<br />
horrible. In Europe they ate my art<br />
up. Just two days ago I saw a blob<br />
of slime selling for $50,000. “da<br />
fuck”. Also places like Pier 1 imports<br />
and home goods have brainwashed<br />
the American people to think a nice<br />
art piece for their home should cost<br />
no more than 50 bucks. Ha, you can<br />
buy one of my prints.<br />
7-Tell me a few of your aspirations<br />
in life — where do you hope your<br />
artwork might take you someday?<br />
I hope to come to terms with<br />
myself, completely. I hope to find<br />
that child society made me lock in a<br />
cellar long ago (dramatic lol). I<br />
don’t think we become anything. I<br />
think we’re already formed but we<br />
add layers to ourselves like an<br />
onion and then spend most of our<br />
late adult years peeling those layers<br />
off. That’s what I am doing with my<br />
work as time goes on.
I am peeling away the layers that<br />
aren’t me. If I had it my way I<br />
would paint the whole city until<br />
my body collapses. But there is<br />
rules put in place regulating<br />
creatives, what<br />
does that say about<br />
us as a society?<br />
8-I've noticed some Arab<br />
calligraphy in your artwork, would<br />
you consider your work to be<br />
contemporary Middle Eastern art?<br />
Yes, I would consider it<br />
contemporary middle eastern art<br />
but not because of the calligraphy…<br />
but because I did it… and I am<br />
Middle Eastern … and my art work 9- Is ridikkuluz your pseudonym?<br />
is me and I am my art work. Yes it is. Funny. I got it from Harry<br />
Potter and then twisted the letters<br />
to make it look more appealing. In<br />
the book the spell is used to make a<br />
joke out of what you fear the most.<br />
Maybe I fear myself?<br />
10-Tell me about the kind of praise<br />
or criticism your work has received.<br />
Well it usually varies. Not<br />
necessarily positive or negative but<br />
more questioning. “Why can’t I tell<br />
the gender?” “Why is it sad?” … I<br />
like that it makes people want to<br />
stare. Most critiques and reviews<br />
are on my site: ridikkuluz.com
11-Are you Jordanian or Jordanian-<br />
American?<br />
Jordanian American<br />
12-What would you say makes<br />
your art distinct from other<br />
Middle Eastern and American<br />
contemporary works involving<br />
paint?<br />
It's a mixture of both. That's the<br />
difference. I take the techniques<br />
they teach kids at art school in the<br />
states with the vibrations,<br />
humming and haphazard bells you<br />
hear when looking at middle<br />
eastern art... it's just too intense ..<br />
vibrates like a mmhmmm sound ..<br />
not to sound cocky but I don't feel<br />
that vibration when I look at other<br />
pieces of work.. maybe it's<br />
because it's mine haha<br />
13-You mentioned that you<br />
consider contemporary Middle<br />
Eastern art to be "traumatic and<br />
intense." How so?<br />
The years of oppression shows<br />
through. Its the pulling and tugging<br />
between a world that's brought up<br />
by Islamic influences but wants to<br />
be westernized so bad. It's the girl<br />
that pulls off her hijab when her<br />
family isn't looking. You see that in<br />
all various forms of middle eastern<br />
art. Bridging the gaps between<br />
something that wants to be but<br />
can't.<br />
14-Would you say the majority of<br />
your pieces are paintings of<br />
people? If so, who are these<br />
people? Family? Celebrities?<br />
Friends?<br />
Yes. The Arabic people hold their<br />
musicians dear to their hearts.<br />
Singers such as oum khalthoum,<br />
Abdel haleem, fairouz etc can be<br />
compared to the American Nina<br />
Symone, Frank Sinatra etc. These<br />
people are icons to the Middle<br />
Eastern population. I also like to<br />
draw people with interesting<br />
character faces. A cleft chin. A gap<br />
in the teeth. Frog looking eyes. An<br />
oversized nose. What isn't beautiful<br />
to society is beautiful to me.
Kenneth Armitage 15
William Kenneth Armitage<br />
CBE 18 <strong>July</strong> 1916 – 22 January<br />
2002<br />
was a British sculptor known for<br />
his semi-abstract bronzes.<br />
Biography<br />
Armitage studied at the Leeds<br />
College of <strong>Art</strong> and the Slade<br />
School of Fine <strong>Art</strong> in London<br />
before joining the British Army in<br />
1939. Armitage became head<br />
of the sculpture department at<br />
the Bath Academy of <strong>Art</strong> in 1946,<br />
a year after completing his<br />
military service, and served for a<br />
decade. In 1952, he held his first<br />
one-man show in London.<br />
In 1953, he became<br />
Great Britain's first university<br />
artist in residence, at the<br />
University of Leeds (to 1956). In<br />
1958, he won best international<br />
sculpture under age 45 at the<br />
Venice Biennale. Armitage was<br />
made CBE in 1969 and was<br />
elected to the Royal Academy in<br />
1994.<br />
Work<br />
Armitage's striking mature style<br />
was evident as early as 1952. Most<br />
of his works are recognizably<br />
human, but are sometimes joined<br />
with the forms of animals or<br />
furniture. Many displayed quirky<br />
humor. Armitage was also<br />
interested in ancient Egyptian and<br />
Cycladic art and his works have an<br />
archaic flavour. He was featured in<br />
the 1964 documentary film "5<br />
British Sculptors (Work and Talk)"<br />
by American filmmaker Warren<br />
Forma.<br />
Exhibition<br />
1960: Kenneth Armitage - Lynn<br />
Chadwick, Kestner-Gesellschaft,<br />
Hannover, Germany<br />
1963: Kenneth Armitage - Galerie<br />
Charles Lienhard, Zurich,<br />
Switzerland<br />
During the 1960s and beyond,<br />
Armitage adapted to the styles of<br />
the times, sometimes incorporating<br />
plastic or spray paint.
Reza Aramesh<br />
17
Reza Aramesh<br />
I was born on an early December<br />
morning, in the south-west of<br />
Iran, at a time when everything<br />
was covered with snow.<br />
According to my mother, it was<br />
the easiest labour she has ever<br />
had! I was her fourth child. By the<br />
time the midwife arrived I was<br />
already out. Filled with joy, my<br />
grandmother screamed as she<br />
rushed to open the door with the<br />
news that I was a boy. Assuming<br />
that yet another baby girl was<br />
to be born into the family, they<br />
were not looking forward to my<br />
mother's labour.<br />
I grew up in a very small town,<br />
surrounded by amazing<br />
mountains that were almost<br />
always covered with snow, even<br />
in the midst of the heat of the<br />
summer. Every time I would try to<br />
imagine a way of leaving the town<br />
as fast as possible, my mind would<br />
shut down: I felt that there was no<br />
escape.<br />
I used to spend the summer with<br />
my grandparents, where my bed<br />
was usually prepared in the garden.<br />
This was the perfect place for<br />
dreaming. I would stare at the stars<br />
for hours, feeling that I could<br />
almost touch them. Often, I would<br />
imagine a world so different, miles<br />
away - somewhere new, unfamiliar<br />
and yet very, very exciting.<br />
That childhood refuge in my<br />
grandparent's garden didn't last<br />
very long. The war between Iran<br />
and Iraq was declared and instead<br />
of staring at the stars, my eyes<br />
began to follow the dark smoke<br />
that the warplanes left behind.<br />
In the mid-1980s, I managed to<br />
leave Iran: my aim was to emigrate<br />
to the USA. I was so excited<br />
throughout the journey. At the<br />
same time I was filled with fear: will<br />
I be allowed to enter the country? I<br />
was looking forward to seeing all<br />
those fantastic tall buildings in<br />
close-up. I had even decided I<br />
would not live anywhere below a<br />
25th-floor apartment in New York.
After a few hours into the journey<br />
the plane had to stop in London<br />
and all the passengers were asked<br />
to disembark. I remember that<br />
from the air London looked grey<br />
and full of small houses and<br />
chimneys. I was so relieved that<br />
London was not my final<br />
destination. A couple of hours<br />
later, however, I was told at the<br />
immigration desk that I was not<br />
going to be allowed to enter the<br />
USA because of the political<br />
situation between Iran and<br />
America. I was also told that I<br />
could remain in Britain on a<br />
temporary visa. Later, they said, I<br />
could try to obtain a US visa.<br />
My dream of the giant buildings<br />
and of an energetic city crowded<br />
with vibrant people soon<br />
collapsed. I settled for a tiny room<br />
in a semi-detached house in Surrey,<br />
with an old woman and her grownup<br />
son. She insisted that I call her<br />
"mum". She didn't know how much<br />
I had been through just to escape<br />
home! Of course, I could not<br />
explain any of that to her - at the<br />
time, the only thing I could say in<br />
English was "Hello, my name is<br />
Reza". I was 15.<br />
My favourite place<br />
It's difficult to choose my favourite<br />
place in London - there are so<br />
many. But I think it is the City at<br />
lunchtime - I find it full of energy<br />
and vitality. There is a sense of lack<br />
of time, almost everyone seems to<br />
be running out of time. Also,<br />
people mostly look unhappy and, in<br />
a very sadistic way, I like that - it<br />
makes me feel comfortable with<br />
the choice I've made!<br />
References<br />
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/oct/19/imagineartaf<br />
ter.art18
20
Ahmed Morsi<br />
21
Ahmed Morsi<br />
was born in Alexandria, Egypt in<br />
1930. In 1954, he graduated from<br />
the University<br />
of Alexandria,Faculty of <strong>Art</strong>s with<br />
a major in English Literature.<br />
During the years 1952-53, he<br />
studied art in the studio of the<br />
Italian master Antonio Becci,<br />
whose former students included<br />
Seif Wanly, in Alexandria. Early on,<br />
Ahmed Morsi was initiated into<br />
Alexandria’s literary society<br />
as well as the city’s very own<br />
rising group of artists. By his early<br />
twenties, he was participating in<br />
group shows with Egypt’s most<br />
notable modern artists,<br />
including A Al Gazzar, H El<br />
Telmisani, I Massouda, F Kamel,<br />
H Nada and M Moussa. In 1949,<br />
he started writing poetry and<br />
developed this talent in parallel<br />
with his painting – publishing his<br />
first Diwan, “Songs of the<br />
Temples / Steps in Darkness”<br />
at the age of 19.<br />
Career<br />
Morsi moved to Baghdad, Iraq in<br />
1955, where he taught English to<br />
supplement his two-year stay. This<br />
was a time of a<br />
cultural renaissance in Iraq, when<br />
Baghdad was a center for the<br />
literati, the artists and the<br />
intellectuals. It was in Baghdad that<br />
he developed a friendship and a<br />
working relationship with several<br />
Iraqi writers and painters, among<br />
them Abdel Wahab Al Bayati, Fuad<br />
Al Takarli and Ardash Kakavian; and<br />
these relationships continued to<br />
produce noteworthy creative<br />
cooperation as well as lifelong<br />
friendships throughout the coming<br />
decades.<br />
Returning to Egypt, he moved to<br />
Cairo in 1957. In these years,<br />
Ahmed Morsi was the first Egyptian<br />
to work alongside Egypt’s<br />
acclaimed playwrights, Alfred<br />
Farag, Abdel Rahman Al Sharkawi,<br />
designing stage sets and costumes<br />
for The National Theater at the<br />
original, Khedieval, Cairo Opera<br />
House – art forms that had until<br />
then previously been relegated only<br />
to Italian designers. He also<br />
partnered with Abdel Hadi Al<br />
Algazzar and co-designed stage sets<br />
for an American play at the Cairo<br />
Opera House. Other projects with<br />
Al Gazzar included a book of<br />
Morsi’s poetry alongside Al Gazzar’s<br />
drawings.
The book was never published due<br />
to Al Gazzar’s untimely passing,<br />
however the poetry/drawings live<br />
on. In 1968, he co-founded the<br />
avant-garde magazine<br />
“Gallery ‘68” with<br />
Edwar Al Kharrat,<br />
Ibrahim Mansour, Gamil Atteya,<br />
Sayed Hegab and others. This<br />
publication immediately became<br />
Egypt’s most reputable source as<br />
the voice of the new modernism.<br />
With these years began the<br />
<strong>Art</strong>ist’s journey into the world of<br />
criticism, publishing critiques on<br />
both art and literature, both of<br />
which remaining intimate<br />
domains. He wrote two items for<br />
Grand Larousse Encyclopedia<br />
(1975); “<strong>Art</strong> in Egypt” and<br />
“<strong>Art</strong> in Iraq”. Again the pioneer,<br />
Ahmed Morsi introduced a new<br />
creative vehicle to the art public in<br />
Egypt with his 1995 show: “The<br />
<strong>Art</strong>ist’s Book”. Following his<br />
exhibition, a new Biennial, The<br />
<strong>Art</strong>ist’s Book, was created in<br />
Alexandria.<br />
In 1974, Ahmed Morsi moved to<br />
New York City, where he continues<br />
to paint, write and critique from his<br />
Manhattan home.In 1976, like<br />
many artists residing in the NYC<br />
area, he took up the art of<br />
lithography at The New School and<br />
added yet another dimension to his<br />
creative tools and in the last 20<br />
years, the <strong>Art</strong>ist embraced<br />
photography – the last art form to<br />
be included in Ahmed Morsi’s<br />
extensive palette.
http://www.aziz_anzabi.com