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| Hafez Khaled Born in 1963 in Cairo. Lives and works in Egypt. The Art of Dichotomy Good/evil. secular/religious, modern/traditional. These are some of the unfortunate dichotomies which have come to grip much Western political discourse about the Middle East. The political efficacy of these binaries for rendering manageable, what are in fact messy situations, persists, despite the fact that they have been roundly criticized, especially in intellectual and leftist circles. And even though most people in the international art scene also consider themselves part of these circles, sadly one often finds similar binaries of essentialist difference lurking in curatorial discourses on Middle Eastern artists. It is discouraging when artists’ work is understood through the dichotomous lens, and especially when this lens is applied in a way that denigrates contemporary work as traditional or lagging. But it is especially exciting when an artist talks back to the universe of divisions by analyzing their emergence, their different forms, and the work that they do in the world. The artist then becomes an analytical agent examining the circumstances of his production, and thus opens up possibilities for a contrapuntal visual practice that is not forcibly encased in the language of resisting power or challenging stereotypes. For over twenty years, Khaled Hafez has explored the continuous reproduction of dichotomies within and between the popular culture of his native Egypt, of France where he lived for several years, and of the United States -the ultimate consumer society and locus of political power, which seems to thrive on the marketing potential of divisive binaries. Through painting and video, Hafez has concentrated primarily on the construction of certain categories and the overlaps between them: East/West, sacred/commercial, old/new, good/evil, animal/human, male/female, and static/kinetic. His work shows how these dichotomies rest on the international system of commodities which creates both the ideas of (cultural) similarity and difference, as well as affective attachments to certain histories and identities. Hafez explores out how each half of a dichotomy has come to be signified through particular visual forms, figures, or objects. This work suggests that it is the continual replication of these visual signifiers in mass media that creates emotions of love and hate, notions of collective memory, and visions of the future. Dichotomies are attractive, then, because they have become seductive visual commodities. Hafez’s interest in extreme opposites stems from his formative experience growing up in Sadat’s Egypt in the 1970s, witnessing military confrontation (the 1973 war) followed by peace negotiations (Camp David), and the breakdown of Nasser’s socialist state amidst the massive spread of conspicuous consumption and capitalist ideologies. These dramatic changes resulted in a situation where Cairo, as Hafez states, “is the place for opposing/conflicting extremes. Satellite channels offer intact (uncensored) products, versus official channels delivering static culture”. Jessica Winegar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Temple University Department of Anthropology  Download CV |  The third vision: around 1:00 pm, 2008 |
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