STAR

Details

Youssef Nabil (Egyptian, b. 1972)
STAR
each signed, dated and located 'New York 2007' (on the reverse)
hand coloured gelatin silver prints
each 2¾ x 15¾in.(27 x 40cm.); overall 42½ x 15¾in. (108 x 40cm.)
Executed in New York in 2007, this work is number five from an edition of seven (4)

Literature

Saeb Eigner, Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran, London, 2010, p. 103.

Octavio Zaya, Youssef Nabil, Ghada Amer, Faten Hamama and Shirin Neshat, YOUSSEF NABIL: I won't let you die, Ostfildern, 2008 (illustrated in colour p. 220-223).

Special notice

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Lot Essay

These stills from a televised concert of Umm Kulthum exaggerate the performer's ritualistic, almost prayer-like gestures. They are accompanied by words- 'I die', 'I live forever', 'Don't forget me', 'Amen'- that are themselves a comment on the singer's extraordinary status as a diva. This status has survived well beyond her death, inspiring such contemporary artists as Nabil, who was barely three years old when she died.
Part comic strip, part religious icon, the images are bothe satirical and sublime. Nabil came across them in the middle of the night while watching television in New York, an act of serendipity that he has described almost in terms of a revelation. Despite the spontaneity of this discovery, STAR has been carefully manufactured, with Nabil hand-painting the prints so as to give them an almost dream-like intensity.
(Saeb Eigner, Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran, London, 2010, p.103.)

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