City by the River - Cairo
In this series of drawings devoted to the city of Cairo, the artist laments the squandering of riches historically represented by the Nile River. She depicts impoverished residents pillaging ancient artifacts and other treasures from the mud of the riverbanks. These images refer to the "Eighteen Days" in which protests erupted in Tahrir Square—minutes from the Nile—against the police-state, leading to the removal of then-President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Drawing parallels between the fate of the country’s material heritage and its human potential, the series unfolds as a sequence of snapshots. Protestors appear as faceless crowds, while individuals aligned with the police and military forces that coordinated attacks on the Square resemble grotesques in a manner that recalls the bitingly satirical figures of James Ensor. A crocodile recurs twice: summoning an ancient god of the dead who—indifferent to human suffering—thrives against the backdrop of ransacked museums and murdered youth in the Square.
Artwork Details
- Title: City by the River - Cairo
- Artist: Anna Boghiguian (Egyptian, born Cairo 1946)
- Date: 2013–14
- Medium: Graphite, encaustic, gouache and colored pencil on khadi paper, in eleven sheets
- Dimensions: a, c, d, f, g, h, i, j, k: 12 3/8 × 8 1/4 in. (31.5 × 21 cm)
b: 12 3/8 × 15 3/4 in. (31.5 × 40 cm) - Classification: Works on Paper
- Credit Line: Purchase, Roy R. and Marie S. Neuberger Foundation Inc. Gift, 2024
- Object Number: 2024.101a–k
- Rights and Reproduction: Courtesy the artist
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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Anna Boghiguian
2013–14
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1951
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