Sherin Guirguis

Passages//Toroq

October 30 - December 5, 2013

The Third Line is pleased to present Sherin Guirguis’ first solo show in the region. Sherin investigates post-colonial themes of political, cultural and social dogma and feminist activism within the framework of the Egyptian diaspora, both in the public and private spheres. Delving deep into the building blocks of culture and identity, specifically from the approach of a diaspora artist, she presents her interpretation of what it means to be defined by the transformative events of the moment.

For Passages//Toroq, Sherin presents works in two parallel series that address concerns of identity formation, highlighted predominantly in the wake of the mercurial Arab Springs. The title of the exhibition refers to both the literary and historical passages that are quoted in the work as well as the social passageways, or toroq, forged by the revolution. Crucial to its people, the revolution defies the political, social and cultural standards that have been imposed by and grown out of colonization. Sherin references historical developments in Egypt in order to have a clearer insight to the present.

Three large-scale kinetic sculptures from the first series are inspired by Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, which maps the cultural evolution/revolution in Egypt and the breakdown and reconstruction of post-colonial Egypt. Fabricated in the shape of traditional Arabic jewelry, and constructed from materials similar to harem mashrabeyas, these decorative pieces and their rocking movements reference a woman's body as she walks down a public street. That they only function when interacted with by a viewer, fluctuating from passive and beautiful to flailing and threatening, the sculptures allude to the role each individual has in contributing towards established sexual mores. Qasr El Shoaq moves slowly and methodically on a single axis, rocking slowly back and forth; Bien El Qasrein twirls, rocks and spins erratically and is the most unpredictable; El Sokareya is completely static and deconstructed. Shifts in cultural and political paradigms are embodied in the objects’ formal language, both decorative and minimal, as well as the performative interactions.

The second series is centered on paintings that explore transitional spaces from historically relevant locations in Egyptian feminism – more specifically the life of Huda Shaarawi, a pioneer Egyptian feminist leader and nationalist, and the birth of the Egyptian Women's Union. By continuing her previous practice of hand cut works on paper, embedded with gold powder and gold leafing, Sherin uses architectural references such as doorways, windows, and arches to convey the significance of the site and the role it plays in establishing a radical ideology. The paintings include a representation of the door to Huda Shaarawi’s house (one of the last functional harems in the country) and the Cairo railway station Bab El-Hadid, where she and her colleague Saiza Nabrawi removed their veils.

As an Arab-American artist, and part of the Egyptian Diaspora for more than two decades, Sherin’s art practice has involved studying important works of Egyptian literature, music, poetry, design and architecture of the past to be able to contribute to this discourse in the present. She has developed a unique style by selecting decorative and ornamental elements from these sources and shaping a critique through associative juxtapositions. By invoking many meanings of Egyptian identities – for example, one man, one woman; one writer, one activist; one work of fiction and one biography – the artist defines the apparent contradictions of cultural identity, and at the same time, points to the similarities of diasporic life that have now become the norm for many Arab artists.

About Sherin Guirguis

Sherin Guirguis (b. Egypt, 1974) received her BA from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1997 and her MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2001. Sherin produces work that investigates the frictions between the contemporary and the traditional. Her work engages both formal and social concerns by juxtaposing the reductive Western language of minimalist aesthetics with that of Middle Eastern ornamentation.

Sherin’s work has been included in the 2010 California Biennial, at the Orange County Museum of Art, CA; Rogue Wave 2013 at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, CA and SouthwestNet, a two-person exhibition, at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ. Solo projects include Qasr El Shouq at LAXART, Los Angeles, CA and Duwamah at Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA. Selected Group exhibitions include Quadruple Consciousness at Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA; Under The Knife at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA; Las Vegas Diaspora at the Las Vegas Art Museum and the Laguna Beach Art Museum; Quickening at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tuscan and The Dreams Stuff is Made Of, ArtFrankfurt, Germany. She has also participated a series of public programs in conjunction with the 11th Cairo Biennale in 2008. In 2012, she was awarded several prestigious grants and fellowships including, the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship, the Artists’ Resources for Completion Grant and the Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation.

Sherin lives and works in Los Angeles, USA.

Raja'a Khalid

Southeast to Armageddon

October 30 - December 5, 2013

The Third Line welcomes back Raja'a Khalid in the Project Space with her exhibit Southeast to Armageddon – a small selection of images from the Middle East chapter of her ongoing 'Minor Histories Archive’ project. With an intention to question the objectivity of certain public documents, this body of work focuses on how the discovery of Middle Eastern oil in the 1930s was depicted in popular Western press at the time, and the American perception of Gulf oil companies in the forties and fifties.

The photographs in Southeast to Armageddon acquire a type of bizarre topical relevance with the artist’s retrospective investigation. They demand an ironic distance from the viewer to force him or her into asking how the term ‘Arabian’ functioned in the American mass consciousness, following the discovery of oil. The publications photographed here were for a very specific, western audience, and they are pedagogical to that end. Seen today, however, they make explicit that which has already been implicit in the relationship between the Middle East and the West, and raise questions about the highly problematic politics of representation at work in the original documents.

The answers, if these photographs can provide them, will be neither clear nor complete. In fact the artist anticipates for Southeast to Armageddon to be troublesome and somewhat jarring. With that she aims to dismantle any myths about the so-called ‘simplicity’ or ‘transparency’ of the photograph or the written word, reaffirming Walter Benjamin’s assertion that all cultural documents are inherently records of ‘barbarism.’

About Raja’a Khalid

Raja’a Khalid (b. 1984, Jeddah) received her MFA in Fine Art from Cornell University in 2013, where she was also the recipient of the Cornell Council for the Arts grant in 2012. Her studio practice is centered on ‘A Minor Histories Archive,’ her never-ending Arcades Project-style collection of found documents in which she explores the contemporary histories of the Middle East and South Asia. She has participated in group shows in New York and Dubai including the White Box Gallery, NY; the Gary Snyder Project Space, NY; the Traffic Gallery, Dubai; and returns for a second time to The Third Line’s Project Space with Southeast to Armageddon.

Raja’a lives and works in Dubai.

About The Third Line

The Third Line is a Dubai based art gallery that represents contemporary Middle Eastern artists locally, regionally and internationally. The Third Line also hosts non-profit, alternative programs to increase interest and dialogue in the region.

The Third Line also publishes books by associated artists from the region. Books published to date include Presence by photographer Lamya Gargash (2008), In Absentia by Tarek Al-Ghoussein (2009), Cosmic Geometry, an extensive monograph on Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Karen Marta (2011), and most recently the self-titled treatise Huda Lutfi about the artist’s Cairo based practice.

Represented artists include: Abbas Akhavan, Ala Ebtekar, Amir H. Fallah, Arwa Abouon, Babak Golkar, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Farhad Moshiri, Fouad Elkoury, Golnaz Fathi, Hassan Hajjaj, Hayv Kahraman, Huda Lutfi, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Laleh Khorramian, Lamya Gargash, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Pouran Jinchi, Rana Begum, Sahand Hesamiyan, Sherin Guirguis, Shirin Aliabadi, Slavs and Tatars, Sophia Al-Maria, Tarek Al-Ghoussein and Youssef Nabil.

Media Contact
Saira Ansari, PR & Media Coordinator
saira@thethirdline.com
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