Artellewa brings a new perspective full of colors, funny shapes to Ard El Lewa district
Flying pink chicken or naked baked women? In either case, Malak Helmy didn t fail to grab our attention in the witty and eccentric way she garnished this beautiful and eccentric glass cube gallery.
The JICPB Cube Gallery is an international collaboration between five independent art spaces in five different countries.
The Cube Gallery features France, Japan, Scotland, Denmark and Egypt who joined the group in May 2007 thanks to Mohamed Abdallah, an artist who met with the Cube s founder, Klavs Weiss, while taking an art program in Spain with him. The Cube wants to provide an opportunity to show new and exciting developments in the contemporary practice of artists from different countries, and to raise awareness of modern art in culturally deprived locations throughout the world.
Three different artists from each country are presenting their works. Last month, it was Houreya El Sayed. In June it was Malak Helmy and next month s Egyptian artist is now being selected. The artists works will tour in an exchange program with the other collaborating countries for 15 months, three months per country. This offers great exposure for young Egyptian artists, at the same time, enabling them to participate in the global network and a forum for artistic dialogue.
The artists were instructed to create an experimental piece using a glass cube measuring 80cm, placed on a 100cm platform. Last week Malak Helmy transformed this glass cube into a vitrine at a confectionery. The hovering pink, brown and black Gateaux Soiree embodies the perverse perfection of display, the etiquette of a world of delights and flavors coolly composed into bite-sized, beautiful cakes and chocolates to tempt the viewer from a distance.
The confectioner s display is unblemished, pure beauty formed in rigid order – they require small mouths, small nibbles and a napkin to be eaten properly. With obsessive etiquette they preserve themselves as samplers of delights and mask their potential to become what they would themselves consider to be grotesque – from the way they are eaten, to the consequences that follow – that may destroy their feigned composure.
Helmy noticed that the kids found it quite alluring but funny. Women giggled a lot and found the gateaux aspect a little embarrassing I think.
Helmy is a multi-talented AUC art graduate. Although her work is mainly composed of paintings, her main interest is in seeing people interact with her art and for her art to live among them. That is why The Cube Gallery project perfectly fits with her vision.
Helmy is known for her huge black and white tableaux at Zamalek’s Nile-front Sequoia restaurant, where she would translate her spontaneous thoughts into attractive sketched layers of calligraphy “Kalam Milaza. She previously showcased her work in Townhouse and Falaky galleries and in Bangladesh where she displayed project called Film Hindi, a series of fictional stories of herself and her close friends shown through Egyptian and Bangladeshi film posters.
What astonished me is how Helmy subtly succeeded in integrating two different worlds in perfect harmony. The theme she chose paradoxically emphasizes the contrast between the sophisticated world of perfection and meticulousness she depicts in her work with the simple world of Ard El Lewa residents, though that wasn t really her intention.
On the one hand there s a frank sensuality emanating from the artist s work where the ambiguous gateaux are candidly displayed and are waiting to be devoured. On the other hand a glass case serves as a reminder that one can look but not touch – an Egyptian cliché, hence the title of the instillation Gateaux Soiree.
