Lot 129: YOUSSEF NABIL (EGYPTIAN, B. 1972) You Never Left, III hand coloured gelatin

YOUSSEF NABIL (EGYPTIAN, B. 1972) You Never Left, III hand coloured gelatin silver print 20 7/8 x 30 3/4 in. (53 x 78cm.) Executed in 2010, this work is number two from an edition of fve

EXHIBITED: Paris, Nathalie Obadia, You Never Left, 2011 (another from the edition exhibited).

LITERATURE: R. Issa & M. Krifa (eds.), Arab Photography Now, Berlin 2011 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, p. 185). Y. Nabil, Youssef Nabil, Paris 2013 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, pp. 77-79). T. Shukri, Artists Making Movies: a Middle Eastern Take in Canvas, vol. II, issue 6, November-December 2015 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, p. 116). Youssef Nabil has established himself as one of the most infuential artist photographers of his generation. Growing up in the cinematic Cairo, Youssef was intoxicated with the golden age of its stars. His works draw inspiration from his childhood memories of black and white flms flled with glamour, elegance and melodrama. A fne example of Nabil’s artistic successes appears in the present work entitled You Never Left III, bringing together two of the most illustrious actors of the movie industry: Fanny Ardant, an iconic fgure of French cinema, whose charming facial features and seductive voice have become widely familiar not only to the French public but on an international scale and Tahar Rahim, a French star of Algerian descent, in an eight minute short flm You Never Left from which this flm still is extracted and meticulously hand painted. Behind the glamour and famboyance presented, the flm still chosen carries a heavy metaphor of exile and separation whereby Ardant represents the mother country and Rahim the migrant is ready to leave what is to be deemed his home country. Ardant tries in vain to prevent Rahim from leaving and the photograph brilliantly captures that moment of farewell and of about-to-be broken ties and shattered heart. The flm marks a pivotal point in Nabil’s career and in the cinema at large. It is also essentially a self-portrait relaying his own dificult experience of exile from his beloved Egypt. This cinematographic adieu is seized with these two lost and devastated faces; Rahim’s eyes are closed in an efort not to face the reality he is leaving behind and the hardship of exile, whilst Ardant wears a traditional scarf weeping at the idea of losing one of her own. In some ways Rahim already seems nostalgic and uncertain of what to expect. In his work, Nabil enforces the notion that exile is viewed as a new optimistic beginning for some and as a kind of death for others. For the latter, leaving family, city and country is an emotional obstacle which the artist has highlighted perfectly. The sadness, sufering and intensity of the captured moment is enhanced by the use of vibrant yet nostalgic colours characteristic of Nabil’s oeuvre, using his unique technique of hand-colouring silver gelatin photographs that is reminiscent of the golden age of Egyptian flm bringing about a sense of nostalgia that is in contrast, by re-appropriating a traditional technique within a new artistic context exemplifes the notion of popular culture. It is in the dazzling and captivating world of acting and cinema that the artist fnds his comfort and expresses himself at best knowing that any emotion, character or death put forward is ephemeral and will always be a feeting cinematographic moment, whilst both the spectators and viewers of his beautiful works will be forever moved.

PROVENANCE: Third Line Gallery, Dubai. Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2010