How Art d'Egypte is putting Egyptian art back on the international map

Its free exhibition at the Pyramids of Giza, Forever Is Now, is returning for its third year

Orb: Under the Same Sun by Spanish artist SpY for Art d'Egypte's Forever Is Now exhibition in 2022. Nada El Sawy / The National

Emirati artist Zeinab Al Hashemi with her artwork 'Camoulflage 1.618: the Unfinished Obelisk'. Nada El Sawy / The National

The Spirit of Hathor by British-American sculptor Natalie Clark. Nada El Sawy / The National

Art d'Egypte founder Nadine Abdel Ghaffar with French artist JR at interactive photo booth Inside Out Giza. Nada El Sawy / The National

Egyptian Therese Antoine with her sculpture Pantheons of Deities. Nada El Sawy / The National

Italian artist Emilio Ferro's Portal of Light. Photo: Roberto Conte

Mohammad Al Faraj with artwork Guardians of the Wind. Nada El Sawy / The National

Egyptian artist Ahmed Karaly's A Pyramid in Other Vocabularies. Nada El Sawy / The National

Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou's installation Dreams in Giza. Nada El Sawy / The National

Syrian-born Sweden-raised Jwan Yosef with his installation Vital Sands. Nada El Sawy / The National

French-Tunisian artist El Seed with artwork Secrets of Time. Nada El Sawy / The National

Forever Is Now, the exhibition of major artworks held at the Pyramids of Giza, is returning for a third year for its biggest edition yet.

Launched by the curator and entrepreneur Nadine Abdel Ghaffar through her company Art d'Egypte, the exhibition has become a runaway success. Celebrities and notable figures such as Michael Bloomberg, Angelina Jolie, Pharrell Williams and the director Darren Aronofsky have made the pilgrimage, which offers visitors the chance not only to see contemporary art but the 4500-year-old Unesco World Heritage site of the pyramids itself and the streets of downtown Cairo.

“Soft power is such a strong tool and such a fast tool,” Abdel Ghaffar tells The National. “Just last year, we had more than 700,000 visitors to the exhibition. People from all walks of life, people that have nothing to do with art, they come and experience the work. People fly in from everywhere. We also always have our public opening prior to the private opening – because we put the public first.”

This year’s edition will be the largest yet, with works by 14 artists including Azza Al Qubaisi from the UAE, JR from France, Mohamed Banawy from Egypt and Rashed Al Shashai from Saudi Arabia. The show is organised around the idea of play, although the exhibition does not have an officially named curator.

Art d'Egypte founder Nadine Abdel Ghaffar is on a mission to democratise art. Photo: Art d'Egypte

Art d’Egypte was launched in 2021 by Abdel Ghaffar, who grew up in a French-Egyptian family in Alexandria. She was introduced to culture from an early age.

Her mother was an archeologist and she describes going to digs as a child with Jean-Yves Empereur, the famous French excavator who discovered the sunken treasures of Alexandria.

“I would go to excavation sites as if they were playgrounds,” she says.

Egypt's cultural heritage has also been crucial for its artists. Modern Egyptian art in particular was influenced by the legacy of the Pharaohs, whether in the motifs of artists such as Adam Henein or the idea of art’s public utility.

The Aswan International Sculpture Symposium has been running since 1988 – with a lower international profile – and prominent cultural figures, such as the late Egyptian-born Jeddah mayor Mohammed Said Farsi, have been outspoken about public art. But recent political troubles have weakened contemporary art in the country, and it has become increasingly underrepresented internationally.

For Abdel Ghaffar, who worked as a consultant specialising in modern art for major auction houses and collectors, the decline of Egypt’s contemporary artistic profile nagged at her.

“I was saying, 'OK, art goes to the world but why doesn't the world come here and see that the artwork in its context, and not in the typical white cube?'” she asks.

Staging works at the pyramids allows artists to reconnect with Egypt's past, as well as the extraordinary opportunity to develop works in concert with timeless geometric pyramids, themselves icons of human ingenuity and resolve.

The photographer and street artist JR, for example, last year built a photography studio in the proportions of the Giza pyramids. Visitors could enter to take and print portraits of themselves to display at the site – a DIY encapsulation of his own practice, which involves fly-posting his large-scale works throughout cities in non-gallery spaces.

An installation entitled Greetings From Giza by French artist and photographer Jean Rene, better known as JR, at the ancient Giza necropolis in 2021. Photo: Art d'Egypte

Emirati artist Zeinab Al Hashemi showed a half-completed obelisk, referencing another typical ancient Egyptian form, clad in the fur of camels.

Setting art among the pyramids also has the advantage of democratising art viewership because what is more visible than a massive tourist site?

“I wanted people to witness art in a certain historical context, and to be as inclusive as possible,” says Abdel Ghaffar.

“By going to public spaces, like at the pyramids or in historic Cairo, is very important because it is not intimidating to anyone. You do not need to be a certain art collector or to be an art lover, or to dress in a certain way or to be from a certain social class.

"Anyone on the streets that wants to come into any of our exhibitions is free to go in. There is no tickets, there’s nothing, just an entrance fee to the pyramids. We load ourselves with expenses to keep the artwork open to the public for at least a period of three weeks.”

An installation by Tunisian artist El Seed, dubbed Secrets of Time. AFP

Setting the event up in Egypt has not been straightforward, and funding has been a challenge. The organisation is a private initiative, working with the support of the Egyptian government. Although multiple sources have stated that it receives little financial assistance.

Unlike the open-air exhibition Desert X AlUla held at the archeological site of AlUla in Saudi Arabia, which occupies a similar ethos to Forever Is Now, and shares artists such as Al Hashemi and Al Shashai, there has been little money for hosting visitors or press.

Information about the first and second editions mostly spread virally on social media, showing the power of the images of the contemporary works set against the pyramids. And many artists have privately said that they are asked to bear the costs of shipment and import taxes, making the event is cost-prohibitive for many would-be exhibitors.

Abdel Ghaffar appears undaunted by these challenges, working instead to cement and even grow the event further.

This year she launched an exhibition that runs alongside Future Is Now, housed in the Salah al-Din Citadel, dating from the 12th century. In collaboration with Athr Gallery of Saudi Arabia, the exhibition looks at art and design’s capacity to serve as a repository of memory, with works by Dia Al Azzawi, Ayman Baalbaki, Sliman Mansour, Abdul Qader Al Rais, among others.

Visitors walk by British-American artist Natalie Clark’s installation dubbed Spirit of Hathor. AFP

Abdel Ghaffar also recently launched the consultancy Culturvator to expand her cultural offerings further. Via Culturvator, she worked with Dior to stage their 2022 fashion show at the Giza pyramids. And she is in talks about expanding Culturvator’s events to other ancient sites, such as ruins in Greece, and to expand beyond art into design, performance, music and other cultural forms.

“My vision is that you cannot segregate the creative sector,” she says. “You cannot say 'this is visual arts, and it's completely segregated and separated from design, from cinema, from opera'. No, you can’t!

"JR does film; we worked on Dior with an artist. I'm a true believer and Culturvator was born out of this need: to bring the creative sector together.”

Art D'Egypte's Forever Is Now 03 is at the Pyramids of Giza from October 25 to November 18