Photo of original performance of 17 and in AUC. (Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Chantal Crousel Gallery)
This year's Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) visual arts programme is dedicated to spotlighting Hassan Khan, one of Egypt's most prominent multidisciplinary contemporary artists. His solo show, which opened Sunday 30 March, occupies four spaces in the Kodak Passageway linking Adly and Abdel-Khaleq Tharwat streets in Downtown Cairo. CLUSTER have custom-renovated the spaces for Khan's exhibition, which is curated by the art and design platform's Beth Stryker.
The flagship exhibition of Khan's works is accompanied by a series of tangential events, dubbed Footnotes to Hassan Khan, taking place throughout April. Described by organisers as "a discursive complement to the first major survey exhibition of Hassan Khan in Egypt," the Footnotes programme includes a seminar, talks, a tour and a concert, co-organised by CLUSTER's Stryker and the AUC Sharjah Art Gallery as part of AUC_LAB, in collaboration with D-CAF. According to the organisers, these related events were designed to contextualise Khan's body of work in a discursive and performative form.
Programme:
1, 5, and 8 April
17 and in AUC Seminar
American University in Cairo, New Cairo Campus
Hassan Khan and Nida Ghouse will conduct a seminar at the American University in Cairo during which the pair will review Khan's projects as a visual artist, musician and writer. The discussion-based seminar will sketch out the trajectory of Khan's oeuvre, but will rely on one project in particular, 17 and in AUC (2003) to structure the three sessions.
For more information, email: [email protected]
4 April, 10pm
Artist's Walkthrough of Exhibition with Hassan Khan
Kodak Passageway, 20 Adly Street, Downtown Cairo
A tour with the artist of the four exhibition spaces at the Kodak Passageway in Downtown Cairo will take place on Friday 4 April. Held in Arabic, the tour will be limited to 25 participants and followed by an informal tea and conversation session with Khan at Groppi, also in downtown Cairo.
Registration is required, and can be done through this page.
9 April, 6-8pm
Artist’s Talk with Hassan Khan
Cairo Atelier, 2 Karim Al-Dawla Street, Downtown, Cairo
An artist's talk will take place at Cairo Atelier, and will be held in Arabic with English translation.
Tuesday, 22 April, 6-8pm
‘The Artist as a Portrait of a Young Man’ Talk by Nida Ghouse
Oriental Hall, American University in Cairo, Tahrir Square Campus
A talk, in English, will be held by Nida Ghouse at the Oriental Hall, AUC Tahrir campus. Drawing on an essay -- commissioned by November Paynter, associate director of research and programmes at SALT Istanbul, and Giovanni Carmine, director of Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen -- for an upcoming monograph on Hassan Khan, the talk will explore the place of self portraiture in Khan's practice.
Saturday, 26 April, 8pm
Taraban: A Concert by Hassan Khan
Falaki Theatre: 24 Falaki Street, Downtown, Cairo
Concluding the Footnote events and coinciding with the exhibition's closing day, a live musical performance inspired by two Youssef El-Manialawi songs dating back to the early 20th century will be given by Hassan Khan at the Falaki Theatre. Working with classical Arabic musicians and singers, Khan deconstructed the melodic patterns in the original songs, now re-articulating the pieces with laptop manipulation, feedbacking mixers, processors, virtual synthesisers, live mics and filters.
Short link: