Vendredi 22 Avril 2016 11:11:10 par Nour Alahiane-lechevalier dans Expositions

The Third Line is pleased to present Magnetic Bodies: Imaging the Urban, Huda Lutfi's second solo show in Dubai. The exhibition, which includes photo-collage, sculpture, installation and video works, is part of an on-going exploration which cross-examines the urban sprawl of Cairo through the lens of Huda as an artist and an historian. New works are presented alongside seminal pieces to delineate the teeming, spilling multitudes that comprise the chaotic fabric of the city. The layered visuals, marked with elements such as plastic mannequins juxtaposed against blue skies and archaeological cross-sections of the megalopolis, create surreal landscapes—suspending the idiosyncrasies and impossibilities of urbanity in unchartered space and time.

© Huda Lutfi

The use of the doll iconography began early in Huda's career with her Found in Cairo (2006) and "Arayess" series (2006), which explored the effects of globalization on the production of local cultural objects and traditions. Since then, she has employed the figure of the doll repeatedly to explore the objectification and imposed modes of identity construction of the body. In the newer works, Huda explores the rich mannequin culture of Cairo and ties it to the personal and public politics that colonize a constantly evolving cityscape. Using photography as a medium of documentation, she creates bodily re-combinations through bricolage and photomontage techniques. Following 2011, Huda has incorporated more of her own photography into her collage works; inspired by the events in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the need to document became more urgent. Ever since then, Huda has employed the photographic medium to generate repeated copies of the mass-produced mannequins—an uncanny doubling that lends her work a surreal historicism.