POSTED BY TIMMY MOWAFI:

My usual visits to art galleries are a pure act of fakery. An attempt to convince both myself and others that I am cultured and understand the world from several paradigms (people who visit art galleries use the word ‘paradigm’ as and when possible, it rarely need make contextual sense).

Let’s face it, this conversation sounds pretty cool on BBM:

“Yoo watsup man, we’re heading to Amici! Let’s get wasted!”

“I apologise dear friend, for tonight I am visiting an art exhibition in downtown (Not Interested BBM Face)”

This time was a bit different though. Because this time I knew a little something about the pieces I was going to see…

A lot of us have heard about the renowned ‘not so underground any more’ graffiti artist Banksy. He’s so underground that’s he now mainstream. So mainstream in fact, that it’s taboo to admit you like him, lest people assume he’s the only artist you’ve ever heard of, which in all fairness is probably the case. Sort of the same situation as with those pseudo-artsy intellectual types that say A Clockwork Orange is their favourite film. Or the movie Exit Through the Gift Shop which follows Banksy, following a less renowned graffiti artist called Mr.Brainwash. Inspired by this sudden worldwide interest in street art, slews of Egyptian ‘street-artists’ emerged, using the medium to vent their frustrations at the state of a post January 25th Egypt. You may have seen that infamous Sad Panda character slumping its (his?) way through the streets, bridges and alleys of Cairo, or the pop-art figures  imprinted upon our sullen streets by an artist who uses the pseudonym Keizer.

The people behind The Townhouse Gallery promptly jumped on this bandwagon of interest and got these street artists – among others – to exhibit their talents indoors. Ironic right? Well that was the question they posed – “If you take graffiti off a street wall and put it inside a confined space, is it still graffiti?”

The answer to this turned out to be both hilarious and awesome…

I was excited if not a tad apprehensive to see what would be on show. This country takes any westernized ideal way too far. Egyptians drink too much, and we don’t know how to drink (think downing bottles of Blue Label at a nightclub), we have way too much sex and we don’t know how to have sex (well I know how to have sex; I’m just giving a generic example). We even take the quest for democracy too far (think camels with swordsman riding into Tahrir).

I feared at this exhibition the artists would also be taking Graffiti too far, just like Mr.Brainwash in the movie. (If you haven’t seen it, Mr.Brainwash basically turns out to be a fake character invented by Banksy to reflect the current zeitgeist in street art, simply manufacturing meaning into his pieces to get some fame and money without any substance).

I can’t remember the names of the actual artists on show at the Townhouse and I’m too lazy to research it, but two pieces stood out for me (which I’ll get to in a bit).  But first a little contextual trip down memory lane…

I remember being six years-old and looking wide-eyed upon an Yves Klein painting consisting of a plain blue square on a plain white background. It was hanging in the middle of the Tate Modern and I was told the piece costs about 6 trillion million gzillion pounds or whatever toddler currency I was working on back then. Whilst all my classmates stood there hollering “I could do that!” and “That’s ruubbbish,” I stood there – even as a little kid thinking – “genius”. Because you know what? Forget the MEANING behind the blue square, the fact that this Yves fellow could get a blue square hung up in the middle of the Tate is brilliant, a big fuck you to the art world. When I saw these two pieces splattered and plastered on to the walls of the Townhouse Gallery I got the same feeling. They were two big fuck yous to the art world and what the mainstream does to it.

The curator of the exhibition – Soraya Morayef – told me afterwards that these two specific artists had only come to her the night before the event to make sure they had absolute freedom. The first piece in question by the Sad Panda was basically a bunch of white paint splattered on to his section of the wall with scribbled writing on top of it. The words translated into something like ‘Street art is for the street… This is not a street.’ This probably took him about five seconds, a cigarette and a smirk to create. BTW: The guy is still completely anonymous and I kind of hope he’s an actual panda. That would be particularly cool.

Singer/songwriter Shady Ahmed stands by Sad Panda's graffiti and strums intensely

The second piece was a replica of the pristine looking Townhouse Gallery logo on a white background which was changed to TOWNWHORES GALLERY.

By Graffiti artist Adham Bakry

‘This is not Graffiti’ at The Town House Gallery is running till the 30^th September. If you’re not cultured enough to actually go, you can check out all the pictures from the event on www.cairozoom.com.

On the first floor they are also showcasing an interesting concept where the public are invited to come along and draw or graffiti whatever they’d like on the walls. Turn left as you go in and you will be able to see where the interesting question is posed..:

“Are we allowed to draw penises?”

Genius.

‘Graffitti Lab: Moments’ is open to the public until 2^nd October

POSTED BY TIMMY MOWAFI