Lot 581: f - Khaled Hafez , Egyptian B. 1963 Farouk as Anubis silk screen, acrylic, oil, ink, and collage on canvas laid down on board

signed and dated 2002 on the reverse silk screen, acrylic, oil, ink, and collage on canvas laid down on board

measurements note 122 by 203cm.; 48 by 80in.

At first glance Khaled Hafez's works appear to be amusing vignettes of pop culture, the model, the actress, the super-hero, the political figure. On closer inspection however, the works take on a more cerebral dimension. One of the most challenging issues that Hafez addresses in his work is that of the sacred versus the secular. The ancient and spiritual path versus the post-modern. By combining the figural aesthetic of the ancient Egyptians, with the ideal of the present day (whether that ideal be the model or the fictitious super-hero) Hafez questions our global culture's ideal. In a world where fashion, food and concepts of beauty are being homogenised by a marketing machine, our ideals are drawing more in line with each another. Hafez takes something essentially Egyptian, something culturally specific, and juxtaposes it with something poptastically Hollywood. In this case however, Hafez playfully elevates King Farouk as a symbol of the ideal modern man. Though he may not share the same physique as Batman or Anubis, he represents to Hafez a meeting of east and west. The artist sees the deposed king as an icon of modern Egyptian history, someone to whom contemporary society can aspire to, a powerful figure who reconciles East and West. Hafez's fascination with globalisation is echoed in the recurrent pictures of war. These applied newspaper cuttings represent the media of today which is unified by a shared imagery, news bulletins of both East and West utilise the same violent images. Hafez again draws a parallel between the past and present in the serried ranks of shadow figures with tied hands. These figures were inspired by the tomb drawings of the twelfth Egyptian dynasty, where propagandist imagery displaying prisoners of war feature. Here he equates the propaganda of ancient Egypt, with the propaganda of the modern world.