Khaled
Hafez |
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Critical Texts |
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In
his paintings Egyptian artist Khaled Hafez pastes contemporary commercial
imagery on a painterly stage to heighten the quarrel of abstraction versus
figuration. This fight continues to be a deeply problematic topic within
Islam, where imagery is largely prohibited in the visual arts. Hafez uses
figures such as Batman or Catwoman to evoke the ancient gods of Egypt
and Greece, demonstrating the persistence of certain cultural archetypes
through today. Specifically, Hafez ruminates on the position of painting
within Pharonic culture--with its serial imagery, “superhero”
figures and clear moral narratives--as a precursor to today’s comics.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were “film strips” reporting
the tales of the nation’s aristocracy. Similarly, today’s
commercials (of bathing beauties and muscle men) are our version of the
healthy rulers of tomorrow. |
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