(Photo courtesy: Cameron Schmitz, 2005)

"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."


Marilu Knode
Assistant Director,
Head of Research, Future Art Research,
Arizona State University,
Tempe