Art et Liberté. Rupture, Guerre, et Surréalisme en Égypte (1938-1948) | Exhibition catalogue

Description

Founded on December 22, 1938 upon the publication of their manifesto Long Live Degenerate Art, the Art and Liberty Group provided a young generation of artists, intellectuals and political activists, with a heterogeneous platform for cultural
and political reform. The group members played an active role within a complex international and fluid network of surrealist writers and artists. At the dawn of the Second World War and during Egypt's colonial rule by the British Empire, the Art and Liberty Group was globally engaged in its defiance of Fascism, Nationalism and Colonialism.
Through their new definition of Surrealism, the group sought to achieve a contemporary literary and pictorial language that was as much globally engaged as it was rooted in local artistic and political concerns. Five years in preparation, curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath of Art Reoriented have consolidated the findings of their extensive primary research and hundreds
of field interviews conducted in Egypt and worldwide. They have selected around 125 paintings, works on paper, and photographs dating from the late 1920s until the early 1950s along with an extensive body of around 150 archival documents, historical photographs, film footage, and primary manuscripts that have never been exhibited before.
The traced artworks are carefully drawn from almost 50 public and private collections coming from Egypt and a dozen other countries. In reuniting these artworks and documents for the first time, this historic exhibition and its accompanying catalogue chart a precise chronology and offer an all-encompassing presentation of the Art and Liberty Group.