At A Gallery: May

BINARY IS A FALSE IDOL BY SETAREH SHAHBAZI GYPSUM GALLERY UNTIL MAY 24

This is the second solo show at the gallery by Berlin-based artist Setareh Shahbazi who utilizes a grey and white grid as the Photoshop background standing for transparencies. It is invisible when images are printed. As a chain of pixels, it is composed of the smallest unit of a digital image and represents the binary system: 0 or 1, true or false, grey or white, east or west, male or female, good or bad. In between there are stories. The stories have layers and colors.

Shahbazi’s new works deconstruct photographs by cutting, peeling, bending and un-layering them in Photoshop until she hits the core of the medium, the background layer, thus setting free an invisible pattern. Through a formal reflection on the medium, the photographic subject breaks off from presentation towards more abstracted twins and duplicates without losing the ghostly trace of its origin. For more information, see the event's Facebook page.

CHRONIC CONTEMPORARY IMAGE COLLECTIVE UNTIL JUNE 4

[caption id="attachment_502597" align="alignnone" width="620"] An image from Uriel Orlow's Unmade Film, a fragmented film about the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, site of a horrific massacre.[/caption]

Chronic is the second chapter of If Not For That Wall, a long term project on different forms of imprisonment. Articulated in fragments, the exhibition, film program, talks and book readings that form part of the six week program question the power of differentiation between the “sane” and the “pathological.” The title Chronic refers to a continuous state that lasts beyond an exceptional moment in time and is complex and severe in nature. Chronic considers emotional states ranging from a diffuse sense of fatigue or sadness to the trauma of people with experience of imprisonment and the history of the struggle to open mental institutions.

Participating is Swiss artist and former artist in residence Uriel Orlow with his work Unmade Film, a fragmented film about the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, which witnessed a terrible massacre in 1948 leading to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from many cities and villages. Chronic will also include works by The Abbasiya Outsiders, Alberto Grifi, Dora Garcia and Mohammad Shawky Hassan. For more information, see the event's Facebook page.

NYMPHOMANIA BY SHAIMA SOBHY GALLERY MISR UNTIL MAY 12

[caption id="attachment_502598" align="alignnone" width="620"] By Shaima Sobhy[/caption]

Since her first solo exhibit in 2011, Shaima Sobhy has made a name for herself as an artist concerned with the tensions and hypocrisies of gender discourse. For more information, see the event's Facebook page.

NAGY SHAKER RETROSPECTIVE GEZIRAH ART CENTER UNTIL MAY 11

Best known for his contributions to Egypt’s puppet theatre, Nagy Shaker, creative designer of El-Leila El-Kebira, Cairo’s iconic marionette musical, experiments with puppets, theatre and scenography without being bound to one art genre. He has dabbled in visual theatre, cinema, paintings and sculpture. This exhibit is a retrospective of his work. For more information, see the event's Facebook page.

Celebrating Sarokhan

[caption id="attachment_502596" align="alignnone" width="620"] By Alexander Sarokhan[/caption]

In April Al Masar Gallery hosted the first solo exhibition ever seen by the late pioneer Armenian artist and cartoonist Alexander Sarokhan. The show highlighted the diversity of Sarokhan’s unique satirical caricatures, which frequently appeared in Egyptian newspapers up until the artist’s death in 1977.

[caption id="attachment_502595" align="alignnone" width="620"] By Alexander Sarokhan[/caption] [caption id="attachment_502594" align="alignnone" width="620"] By Alexander Sarokhan[/caption]