Artwashing at the Pyramids

In 2011, while we were busy with the question “Where’s Egypt going?”, a local residents’ association in Versailles was preoccupied with an equally existential question: how to get rid of the hideous steel structures that had appeared in front of the Palace of Versailles, which, when seen from a distance, resembled “a pile of kindling left behind by a careless gardener?”

The association filed an urgent lawsuit to remove the sculptures, part of an exhibition by the French artist Bernar Venet, claiming they disfigured the historical site and endangered the public. But the towering French judiciary rejected the petition, and the works remained in place until the exhibition ended.

The show cost around 2 million euros, covered by the artist and his business partners. Venet said the exhibition personally cost him 1.5 million euros; of course, he made back multiples of that amount. Immediately after the exhibition, he announced the sale of two of the sculptures and reported receiving offers from China, the United States and Dubai.

Following the show, Venet carried on with his artistic career as he had begun it more than 50 years before: recycling ideas drawn from post-World War II brutalist architecture and 1960s abstraction to present, with funding from government bodies, mostly colossal sculptures, predominantly steel, preoccupied with the flat mathematical relations of ratio and proportion, order and chaos, with all meaning banished. The objective is to churn out works that claim to eliminate the poetic and the subjective in favor of mathematical abstraction.

Yet the real skill of Venet and his like—the dinosaurs of contemporary art, born from the womb of the Cold War, when the CIA was the official patron of abstract expressionism and conceptual art—is their capacity to transform the kindling abandoned by a careless gardener into international spectacles staged across palaces, public squares and historic sites, attended by political and business elites and art collectors. These patrons certainly do not want art that tackles genocide, the war on migrants, or any of the themes that featured, for instance, at the last Venice Biennale. They want an art distinguished by its exorbitant price tag, or by a pedigree like, “First exhibited in front of the Palace of Versailles.”

In recognition of his long service to these patrons, Venet received the 2022 Artist of the Year award from an American outfit called the American Friends of Museums in Israel, which supports eight Israeli institutions and collaborates with honored artists to produce limited editions sold to fund its operations and Israel’s art scene. He also maintains ties with Gallery Har-El in Jaffa, which retails pieces priced upwards of 15,000 euros.

Safe, secure and asset-stripped

And then, finally, this year Venet was offered the opportunity to cap his career with the greatest honor any artist could dream of: displaying his sculptures in the shadow of the eternal Pyramids of Giza. The invitation came from Art D’Égypte for the sixth edition of its “Forever Is Now” exhibition, staged under the patronage of the ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Tourism and Antiquities, alongside the Egyptian Tourism Authority.

But because Venet had been honored in Israel, and because he also supports it, Egyptian artists objected to his invitation, announced their withdrawal from shows and projects with Art D’Égypte, and demanded that it withdraw its invitation to the French artist. 

Art D’Égypte put out a  statement affirming several points, the most important of which, as far as I’m concerned, was “that Egypt was and will remain the land of safety and security,” and that the organization “fully respects the sensitivity of the current moment and is dealing responsibly with the remarks raised, and is therefore conducting a comprehensive review of all relevant information and circumstances, in coordination with the concerned authorities.”

The statement never clarified which concerned authorities it was coordinating with, but hours later, they released a follow-up statement announcing “the suspension of Venet’s participation” and “the renewal of their firm stance toward ‘the cause’ and their commitment to humanitarian values and principles.” The statement did not specify whether it meant the Ukrainian cause or the Kashmiri one.

A rare success for a popular campaign

The wave of artist withdrawals and gallery statements forcing Art D’Égypte to revise its position marks a rare victory for an artist-led mobilization, arguably the first of its kind since the battle to oust Muslim Brotherhood Culture Minister Alaa Abdel Aziz in 2013. For a few brief hours, a tremor ran through the ossified, paralyzed body of the Egyptian art movement, stirring in me a sharp pang of nostalgia for an era that now seems alien and remote.

I remember, for instance, first discovering the term conceptual art thanks to an exhibition mounted by the Ministry of Culture at the Aisha Fahmy Palace in 2002 titled “Palestine: 54 Years of Occupation.” I still remember the installation by artist and October War hero Dr. Ahmed Nawar: land irrigated by red pipes beneath whirring fans symbolizing Israeli Apache helicopters—drones had not yet appeared. I remember also the works of the artist Ahmed Bassiouni, who would later be martyred on the Friday of Rage during the January 25 Revolution.

I remember an art scene and a movement not dominated by contractors and “painters and decorators,” but shaped by Egyptian artists from diverse currents, some working within the Ministry of Culture, some through independent non-profit spaces or commercial galleries, and others within universities and academic institutions. Their differences were the engine of competition and of a debate open to the street and to the Egyptian imagination. More importantly, they fostered a sense of dignity, a clear awareness of modern Egyptian art’s standing, and an appreciation of the creative history of Egypt’s artists and their role in struggles for freedom.

I still remember initiatives and projects funded on pennies, and exhibitions mounted on rooftops or in historic palaces, spaces open to everyone free of charge, without class filtration. That was before a crackdown that forced independent and nonprofit cultural spaces to shut down. Simultaneously, the asset-stripping of the Ministry of Culture began, causing its regular calendar of events and exhibitions to wither away as private commercial outfits took over the curation of cultural and artistic events.

A behemoth of a company

Eventually, we settled the question, “Where’s Egypt going?” and off we went to a place where there is no room for the institutions that played a vital role in shaping Egypt’s artistic climate since the late 1990s. In their place stand private companies like Art D’Égypte, staging exhibitions out in the desert by the Pyramids, where attending and engaging requires, on top of transit costs, buying an admission ticket to the site.

Last year’s edition even featured VIP packages organized by Art D’Égypte with exclusive tickets and private guided tours. It occasionally mounts one-night exhibitions with invitation-only access inside state museums, spaces ostensibly public and open to all, except, of course, when Art D’Égypte requires them to accumulate private capital and advance its corporate interests.

All this was achieved in just 10 years. Art D’Égypte was born a behemoth in 2016, swallowing the art scene whole and restructuring it through capital and elite networks unmatched by any competitor in the field. 

Art D’Égypte is neither a nonprofit arts collective nor an independent cultural initiative; it is a commercial company. I know of no other company in Egyptian history that had the Egyptian Museum opened after hours to host a private party in its first year in 2017, and was then granted the chance to exploit the Pyramids area commercially all these years.

The founder and managing director of Art D’Égypte is Nadine Abdel Ghaffar. Her father, Mamdouh Abdel Ghaffar, was an Alexandria contractor during the era of demolition and redevelopment captured in the classic 1988 television drama The White Flag by writer Osama Anwar Okasha and director Mohamed Fadel. Her brother Omar is an executive at the Emirati real estate giant ALDAR. Last June, the two siblings, each on behalf of their own company, signed a cooperation agreement to fund artistic initiatives that Art D’Égypte will launch to support, develop and represent Egyptian art on the world stage.

Along the same lines, Nadine Abdel Ghaffar signed a cooperation protocol with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to represent and promote Egyptian art abroad—a portfolio that, incidentally, belongs to the Ministry of Culture, left without a minister since July. Yet rather than attending to the vacant cabinet seat, His Excellency the Prime Minister spent last August issuing an official statement celebrating Abdel Ghaffar and her private commercial company, formally announcing that the Giza Plateau would host “Forever Is Now” in November.

The Cabinet’s official Facebook page described the exhibition as “the first and largest contemporary art exhibition of its kind ever held at this site, transforming an archaeological landmark into a living platform for global cultural exchange.” My personal favorite is when the statement turns to art criticism: “The participating women artists engage with themes of continuity, spatial order, and cultural memory, questioning what it means to build something that outlasts the hand that built it.”

In over 15 years of covering the arts and culture beat, I have never managed to decode that brand of artspeak. Nor have I ever seen the Egyptian Cabinet interrupt its August recess to issue an official “congratulatory” statement for an art exhibition scheduled for November.

To Delaware, land of no taxes

Before Abdel Ghaffar busied herself with “Egyptian” art, she ran Veradeco, a commercial enterprise specializing in interior decoration, mural painting, and general plaster and paint work. Then, in 2016, she suddenly launched Art D’Égypte, and overnight the gates of state palaces, museums, and, of course, the Pyramids swung wide open.

In 2023, she founded Culturvator in the UAE as a cultural consultancy firm, placing Art D’Égypte under its corporate umbrella. The decisive leap came on March 2, with the establishment of an entity by the same name in the state of Delaware, where corporations pay no state income tax. US operations are assisted by Egyptian-American academic and artist Reham Refaat Elsadany.

According to its official website, the American entity is registered as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the US Internal Revenue Code, with employer identification number 41-4957392. This federal tax designation enables the foundation to collect charitable “donations” that donors can deduct from their taxable income, while exempting the organization from state corporate taxes with eligibility for federal exemptions under US nonprofit law.

Meaning, say, that if you were an American millionaire or an international antiquities expert commanding hundreds of thousands of dollars on the lecture circuit, you could donate part of your income to this foundation and write it off against your taxes. Do I need to say more?

The Delaware foundation’s advisory board features former Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass; former Ambassador Nasser Kamel, secretary-general of the Union for the Mediterranean; Maha Abouelenein, founder of Digital & Savvy; Yasser El Naggar, chairman of Heidelberg Materials Egypt; Deborah Lehr, chief executive of Basilinna; UN Women official Mohammad Naciri; Nora Alkholi El Zorba; and Abeer Shoukry Al Otaiba, wife of UAE Ambassador to Washington Yousef Al Otaiba, the primary architect of the Abraham Accords.

What we are looking at, then, is a tax-exempt American entity, funded by an Emirati real estate conglomerate, monopolizing the right to exhibit art in front of the Pyramids under the banner of sponsoring Egyptian art and artists.

Smiling faces on an apartheid wall

Early on, the brilliant critic Mariam Elnozahy noticed the artistic and political agenda running through Nadine Abdel Ghaffar’s interlocking apparatus, observing in Mada Masr: “There is an element of artwashing in Art D’Égypte’s work, where the artwork on display is arguably not important, and is interchangeable—an empty signifier, a visual addendum. An example of this interchangeability is a recent plagiarism incident wherein a key curatorial text written by Gypsum Gallery and published on its website was copied verbatim and republished by Art D’Égypte in the context of another artwork for one of the exhibitions in Cairo International Art District, ‘Tangled Structures.’”

The artists Art D’Égypte promotes share a commitment to churning out rootless works scrubbed of political or cultural urgency, reducing complex contexts to static, recycled motifs. Art and artists alike are reduced to decorative accessories within an elite system of corporate patronage, with a deliberate focus on burnishing khawaga artists cast out of progressive contemporary circles and united only by platitudes about “peace,” Israel, and Zionism.

Venet’s case is hardly the first; across six iterations, the Forever Is Now festival has routinely showcased figures with active ties to Israeli cultural institutions or projects inside Israel. Most notable is sculptor Carole A. Feuerman, who participated in the 2023 edition—the very year she held a joint exhibition with Alex Katz at Tel Aviv’s Zemack Contemporary Art gallery. But my personal favorite remains the French artist JR, whom the festival hosted three separate times, even while certain editions featured only one Egyptian artist.

JR’s best-known work is a 2007 project, where he pasted giant portraits of Palestinians and Israelis working in the same trades directly onto the apartheid wall. It fits squarely within the tradition of the clueless, oblivious European “khawaga” who descends upon our countries, concludes that everyone looks the same, and serves up an installation completely stripped of historical and political reality. It presents the Palestinian and the Israeli as equal parties separated by mutual hatred and misunderstanding, rather than a people subjected to settler colonialism by another people who built an apartheid state. In the hands of these counterfeit practitioners, a system of colonization, settlement, and genocidal erasure is repackaged as a psychological and social dilemma solved by getting both sides to smile together for the camera. Then, true to the craft of any house painter or “chiseler,” he turns that artistic drivel into decoration and accessories for the apartheid wall.

Beyond the orientations of the Art D’Égypte institution, Abdel Ghaffar is friends with Israeli media and art figures. She invites them to Egypt and personally conducts guided tours—excursions on which the tourist police, of course, conveniently neglect to enforce Law No. 121 of 1983, which prohibits practicing tour guiding without a license. Among her most prominent clients is the Israeli tourism influencer Sheila Baron, who posted a selfie with Nadine at the Pyramids captioned in Hebrew: “Friends since the age of 17. Nothing beats the CISV movement; I advise you to log on and register your kids right now.”

The movement Baron refers to is CISV International, an organization founded in the United States, that purports to foster peace among youth through camp programs—essentially summer brainwashing camps aimed at instilling peace and suchlike drivel in children from an early age, of which Abdel Ghaffar and Baron remain exemplary alumni.

Modest but great expectations

Art D’Égypte withdrew its invitation to the flat, feeling-averse artist, but the statements it issued never once mentioned the word “Palestine,” nor did they state the institution’s position on the genocide, unlike European cultural bodies that declared unambiguous stances. This cosmetic climbdown signals zero change in institutional policy, nor will this tempest affect its cozy ties with state bodies that unlock palaces, museums, and the Pyramids on demand.

Even if the books are laid bare and the faces shuffled, the essential reality remains: Art D’Égypte is merely an operating arm of an American company incorporated in Delaware, alongside other cultural outfits registered in the same state.

It is part of a global circuit designed to manage contemporary art and its relations with luxury real estate developments, money laundering, reputation-washing, the sanitizing of human rights violations, and all manner of chiseling and paint jobs.

But we have proved capable of collective action, even if only with the voice of the powerless. After all, Abdel Ghaffar’s withdrawal of her invitation to a Zionist artist marks a temporary recovery of the Egyptian art movement’s capacity for collective pushback.

Egypt’s visual arts community has an organizational infrastructure that was once formidable and vibrant, spanning the Fine Arts Lovers Association, the historic Atelier du Caire, and the Syndicate of Plastic Artists, which issued an extremely well-judged statement during this crisis. There is a real opening to harness this momentum and reclaim collective agency. Because if the present political and cultural moment forces us to operate under a Zionist-Emirati and global capitalist system, then at the very least we should have an influential voice and the capacity to defend our interests and our Pyramids.

We must look at the Art D’Égypte affair with a broader gaze than compromised photo ops with Zionists; we are facing an institutional crisis of artistic corruption without precedent in modern Egypt. For six iterations, state agencies and domestic companies poured millions into Abdel Ghaffar’s coffers so she could dredge up forgotten figures from the sleaziest bars of Europe and Tel Aviv, display their work before the Pyramids, and let them cash in by the millions. And all while a tourist policeman searches tourists and forces them to pay fees on the spot if he catches them carrying a DSLR camera, treating it as unlicensed commercial profiteering. Where did the profits generated by these Zionist artists go after they cashed in on free international promotion at the foot of the Pyramids?

Did they flow to the American Friends of Museums in Israel, or straight into a tax-exempt bank account in Delaware?

In all the millennia of the towering Pyramids, I know of no artist granted the run of the plateau three times other than the flat French street artist JR, while the number of Egyptian artists afforded that honor can be counted on one hand. Why? How did the Syndicate of Plastic Artists and the wider cultural establishment swallow this disgrace, normalizing an absurd arrangement that systematically locked out Egyptian artists?

Finally, the most urgent question for the Esteemed Office of the Prime Minister: Why is no other independent gallery or artistic collective permitted to curate exhibitions at the Pyramids? Why this exclusive concession for Abdel Ghaffar’s American company? And if the Cabinet, according to its official statement, finds Art D’Égypte so remarkably clever that it directs sovereign ministries like Foreign Affairs to sign bilateral protocols with Ms. Nadine, why not simply appoint her minister of culture? Assuming, of course, that she meets the statutory criteria and that state security files verify her integrity. 

Perhaps we are merely a pack of class-envious cynics, and all these galas, partnerships, and photo ops with Israelis and Zionists are purely personal relationships, born of pure affection, camaraderie, and an unquenchable thirst for peace.