Youssef Nabil (b.1972, Egypt)
Nabil began his photography career in 1992 by staging tableaux in which his friends acted out melodramas recalling film stills from the golden age of Egyptian cinema. Later in the 1990s, while working as a photographers' assistant in prominent studios in New York and Paris, he began photographing artists and friends, producing both formal portraits as well as placing his subjects in the realms of dreams and sleep, on the edge of consciousness and far from their public personas. On his return to Egypt in 1999 he further developed his unique approach to hand painted photography, with portraits of writers, singers and film stars of the Arab world. In recent years, especially since settling in Paris and New York, he has started producing self-portraits that reflect his dislocated life away from Egypt. In these liminal scenes he lingers between worldly realities and serene dreams, loneliness and fame, tinged with sex and death.
Nabil's distinctive technique of hand-coloring silver gelatin photographs removes the blemishes of reality and recalls the heyday of Egyptian film. Nabil disrupts prevalent notions of color photography and painting, as well as assumptions about the type of aesthetics associated with art and those identified with popular culture. His particular medium evokes a sense of longing and nostalgia and allows his photographs to flicker between our time and another era.
Nabil's work has been presented on numerous solo and group exhibitions at venues including the British Museum, London; Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle; Museum of Photography; Thessaloniki, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art; Doha, Nathalie Obadia Gallery, Paris; Galeria Leme, São Paulo; FotoFest Houston, Texas; Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah; Kunstmuseum, Bonn; The Third Line Gallery, Dubai; Galerist, Istanbul; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla; Aperture Foundation, New York and La Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.
Nabil was born in 1972 in Cairo and currently lives and works in New York.
artworks in collection
Khaled Hafez
—b.1963, Egypt
1 WorkKhaled Hafez
Wael Shawky
—b.1971, Egypt
1 WorkWael Shawky
Azra Aghighi Bakhshayeshi
—b.1968, Iran
2 WorksAzra Aghighi Bakhshayeshi
Shahriar Ahmadi
—b.1979, Iran
3 WorksShahriar Ahmadi
Halim Al Karim
—b.1963, Iraq
1 WorkHalim Al Karim
Aziz & Cucher
—Established 1992, USA
1 WorkAziz & Cucher
Ilit Azoulay
—b.1972, Israel
1 WorkIlit Azoulay
Anat Betzer
—b.1965, Israel
1 WorkAnat Betzer
Oren Eliav
—b.1975, Israel
6 WorksOren Eliav
Stelios Faitakis
—b.1976, Greece
2 WorksStelios Faitakis
Khaled Hafez
—b.1963, Egypt
1 WorkKhaled Hafez
Shay Id Alony
—b.1979, Israel
1 WorkShay Id Alony
Sigalit Landau
—b.1969, Israel
8 WorksSigalit Landau
Ohad Meromi
—b.1967, Israel
1 WorkOhad Meromi
Farhad Moshiri
—b. 1963, Iran
1 WorkFarhad Moshiri
Uri Nir
—b.1976, Israel
2 WorksUri Nir
Michal Rovner
—b.1957, Israel
3 WorksMichal Rovner
Yehudit Sasportas
—b.1969, Israel
3 WorksYehudit Sasportas
Wael Shawky
—b.1971, Egypt
1 WorkWael Shawky
Eliezer Sonnenschein
—b.1967, Israel
2 WorksEliezer Sonnenschein
Sadegh Tirafkan
—b.1965, Iraq
3 WorksSadegh Tirafkan
Bita Vakili
—b.1973, Iran
1 WorkBita Vakili
Amon Yariv
—b.1975, Israel
3 WorksAmon Yariv
Nevet Yitzhak
—b.1975, Israel
1 WorkNevet Yitzhak
Maya Zack
—b.1976, Israel
4 WorksMaya Zack