Inspired by Gustave Flaubert and Maxime du Camp’s journey through Egypt in 1849, artist Fouad Elkoury captures anÌýessence of romanticism and nostalgia in his series, Suite Egyptienne. Flaubert and du Camp were commissioned by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce and the Académie des Instructions in Paris to report on ‘the Orient’.ÌýCentral to Flaubert’s writing and aÌýsymbol of hisÌýromance with the East was his encounter with the famed courtesan from Esna, Kuchuk Hanem.ÌýConsidered by Elkoury the subject of some of Flaubert’s most beautiful pages, she returns in his Suite Egyptienne – on show in its entirety at , Dubai, from 13 April.
Suite Egyptienne is an account of Elkoury’s own, photographic travels through Egypt in the late 1980s. FollowingÌýin theÌýfootsteps of Flaubert and Du Camp, the artist journeyed acrossÌýthe Nile valley nearly 150 years later. Whilst in pursuit of their 19th centuryÌývoyage, Elkoury, accompanied by his then wife Nada, observed and documented an subconscious overlap of narratives. In his photography, Nada becomes the protagonist in Elkoury’s depiction of Egypt, transforming the 150-year-old Orientalist narrative into a personal fiction. TheÌýseries evokes a sense of nostalgia for the era of Flaubert’s romanticism, whilst also making us reminisce the Egypt of 1989.
Living and workingÌýbetween Paris and Beirut, Elkoury has been at the forefront of photographic practices in Lebanon and the wider Middle East for decades. On Love and War, a series of journal entries spanning the duration of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in August 2006 was shown in Lebanon’s first National Pavilion in the Venice Biennale of 2007. The Third Line now provides audiences with an opportunity to discover rarely exhibited and never before seen images in theÌýSuite Egyptienne –ÌýÌýan intimate series of 80 photos thatÌýshowsÌýthe ephemeral and layered qualities of history.
Fouad Elkoury, Suite Egyptienne, 13 April – 16 May, The Third Line, Dubai.
For more, visitÌý.
For the latest news in contemporary art and culture, follow us onÌý,ÌýÌý²¹²Ô»å.
Credits
1.ÌýFouad Elkoury, Kuchuk Hanem, 1990, Ink-jet print on Baryta paper, 72 x 90 cm. Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai.
