Egyptian Pavilion:
The Egyptian pavilion contained art from two Egyptian artists and the work was an assortment of sculptures and mosaic installations. The curator and sculptor was Khaled Zaki, and the mosaic artist was Mohamed Banawy. The title and theme of the pavilion was Treasuries of Knowledge.
The Treasuries of Knowledge project is an attempt to establish a link between the continuous cycle of knowledge and the two infinite cycles of the universe: the first, the infinite cycle of nature, and the second, the cycle of the continuous human walk on earth. The meeting points between these two cycles, between Nature and Human, generate new knowledge to be registered, accumulated and conserved. Over time, Man has learned that his life and afterlife are both dependent on his treasuries of knowledge. In this project, a series of mixed media mosaics and sculptures in bronze, steel and granite come to represent these two cycles and the important crossing points between them throughout the different eras of human life, and the continuous trials of Man to reveal the power behind the universe (Zaki, Khaled, “Mosaic at the Venice Biennale,” Solo Mosaico, accessed Dec 2, 2013, http://www.solo-mosaico.org/portfolio/treasuries-of-knowledge/).
Both artists reference Egypt and its art history in a variety of ways. Zaki’s sculptures seem to reference sculptures of antiquity though the posture of the figures and their materials, but they also reference to more modern art and the aniconic artistic tradition of Islamic art through the heavy use of abstraction. Banawy’s mosaics comprised of thousands of clay and stone pieces reference Egypt through material (namely clay) and through their likeness to maps. Altogether the work took on a very serious tone relative to some of the more extravagant and showy pavilions.
Success of the Pavilion:
The relative success of art exhibitions seems to be a fairly slippery thing to really pin down, it is extremely subjective and there are a number of different barometers that all may say different things. If, for example, one was to use web presence as evidence of success, one can easily say that the Egyptian pavilion was a complete failure in the eyes of the general public; its only success being in that it caught the attention of a few mosaic arts websites. On artsy.net the United States pavilion has 95 followers and dozens of images and links to follow, the Egypt pavilion has no followers and no images have been posted. The pavilion is not overtly political, however the decision by the Ministry of Culture to shy away from politics, and to select artists who do not typically address politics, given the current state of unrest could be read as a very political decision. One critic stated that,
The 54th edition’s Egyptian pavilion, which showed a polemical work by the late Egyptian media artist Ahmed Basiony was this year replaced by laughable bronze, steel and granite sculptures by an artist called Khaled Zaki (who curated his own work), as well as Mohamed Banawy (Kholeif, Omar, “On Set at the 55th Venice Biennale: The Encyclopedic Palace,” Ibraaz, accessed December 10, 2013, http://www.ibraaz.org/reviews/42).
The goals of the pavilion do not seem to be political though, but rather to make art that addresses a central theme (namely treasuries of knowledge) in dialogue with the Encyclopedic Palace, while having art that is quintessentially Egyptian. In this regard the pavilion was a tremendous success, the art was in dialogue with the present and the past, with sculpture, mosaic, assemblage, with Egypt and with the global.
Biography of the artists:
Both artists representing Egypt in the 55th biennale were Egyptian. The curator and sculptor in the exhibition, Khaled Zaki, was born in the Suez, Egypt in 1977. He obtained a bachelor’s of business from the faculty of commerce from Cairo University in 1986. He went on to study sculpture under Aida Abdelkarim at al Khomany Museum from 1983-86. From 1988-97 he studied in Pietrasanta Lu, Italy. In the year 2000 he obtained a master’s degree in restoration from the faculty of archaeology. He has shown his work worldwide but most frequently in Egypt. He splits his time between Egypt and Italy. The younger of the two artists, Mohamed Banawy, was born in 1977 in Egypt. He obtained his degree from the faculty of fine arts at Helwan University in Cairo in the year 2000. He is currently an assistant lecturer in the painting department at Helwan University, principally in the mural painting department and has been since his graduation in 2000. He has won several awards for his work and has shown his work internationally, however the bulk of his exhibitions have been in Egypt. The Venice Biennale is by far the most prominent exhibition that both artists have participated in to date.