Moataz Nasr

Moataz Nasr is a versatile artist who employs painting, sculpture, photography and video in order to create installations which allow the viewer a great freedom to explore.  His work borrows deeply from his native Egypt. He endeavours to describe a universal phenomenon which impacts people all over the world, wherever they come from: the spread of such afflictions as solitude, impotence against the changes which are rushing ahead, to an acute feeling of abandonment.  Moataz Nasr, by an elegant and poetic approach really takes up the position as an observer of the far-reaching transformations which are affecting the contemporary world, and his numerous references to traditional culture only serve to underline these issues.

Moataz Nasr was born in Alexandria in 1961 and currently lives in Cairo.  Having followed an unusual path, Nasr has established himself as one of the most important Egyptian artists of his generation, winning numerous awards, such as the Grand Prize in 2001 at the eighth Cairo Biennial, the prize at the Dakar 2002 Biennial and the Grand Prize at the Sharjah Biennial in 2004.  He has taken part in many other international events such as the Venice Biennale in 2003, in Seoul in 2004 and in the same year at Sao Paolo.   Within group exhibitions, his work has been shown all over the world, notably at the Pompidou Centre, in Paris in 2005, at the Hayward Gallery in London in 2005, at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2006, and at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2008.  An important solo exhibition is devoted to him in June 2011 at the Château de Blandy in France under the direction of Simon Njami. 
In November 2008, Moataz Nasr created Darb 1718, a cultural centre based in Cairo’s old town which aims to widely promote contemporary art in Egypt.