“Alexandria: Past-Futures” at Bozar

Central Image: Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Gordian Knot (2013). Ceramic. 50 x 29 x 28 cm. Exhibition view: Alexandria: Past Futures, BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (30 September 2022–8 January 2023). Source: e-flux.com

The recent exhibition Alexandria: Past Futures at Bozar in Brussels has sparked a conversation concerning the multiple versions of Alexandria, a city characterised by a very particular mythology. The exhibition is a unique attempt to showcase the more realistic narrative versions of the city, with an impressive method of narrating and an astute curation and management of the multiple and different exhibits. Seventeen contemporary artworks and more than two hundred antiquities from and about the port of Alexandria are exhibited in the same space. As implied by the title, Alexandria: Past Futures, the juxtaposition of the exhibits aims to function as a study, a presentation and a reinterpretation of what the word “Alexandria” means today.

'Dynastic' tetradrachm, deified sovereigns, obverse: busts of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II / reverse: busts of Ptolemy I and Berenice I (3rd century BC). Gold. Morlanwelz, Musée royal de Mariemont. Courtesy Musée royal de Mariemont.

The exhibition unravels the narrative thread firstly by focusing on the most iconic “local” figure, Alexander the Great. In the first rooms, many different versions of him appear in casts and coins making reference to the consistency and inconsistency of the depiction of a personality that is above all symbolic. His face is contrasted with those of Julius and Augustus Caesar in 19th-century works, evoking not his identity as a benefactor but as a conqueror. In the same room, the artist Aslı Çavuşoğlu, based on a bust of Alexander from the 2nd century BC and the prophecy of the Gordian Bond, cleverly tries to interpret the modern Macedonia naming dispute between Greece and Bulgaria by breaking the cast in half and thus dividing Alexander into two halves, a symbol of his claim by the two states.

Hrair Sarkissian, Background (2015). C-print. Courtesy © Hrair Sarkissian. Exhibition view: Alexandria: Past Futures, BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (30 September 2022–8 January 2023). Image Source: e-flux.com

In his work “background”, Hrair Sarkissian poses a question on monuments, symbols and archival documentation. He exhibits ancient architectural members photographed as finds submitted to an archive collection, that is, as a document to be studied further, always from the side of history that serves the myth. In the same space, a high-resolution photo of a Roman mosaic is exhibited, which precisely highlights the phenomenon of "construction" and inscribed interpretation in archaeological findings.

In the room with the maps of Alexandria (16th-20th c.), the mythologized Alexandria of antiquity, the Alexandria of the tourists and the Alexandria whose form depends on narrations are presented. Here, the symbol of the lighthouse, a necessary mark to signify the antique image of the city and one of the seven wonders of antiquity, is re-examined through “Gorgon-avt” by Jasmina Metwaly and “Restored Again” by Ellie Ga. The latter, in an attempt to organise a study concerning the architecture of the mythical monument, presents a series of 160 photographs. One of them is a digitalised version of a 16th-century manuscript (folio 17v 2168, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris) that is also physically displayed in the same space, opened at the corresponding page. This curatorial choice by Edwin Nasr and Sarah Rifky intertwines the contemporary with the historical and -skillfully- archaeology with the visual narrative of the city's history. Perhaps this is the only point of convergence of the two narratives in the entire exhibition.

Lighthouse of Alexandria, in Muhammad ibn'Abdal-Rahim Al-Qaysi, Tuhfat al-Albâb, Cadeau offert aux hommes intelligents et choix de merveilles, folio 17v (16th century). Manuscript. Courtesy Department of Manuscripts, mission orientale arabe 2168, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Criticism of the colonial perception of Alexandria as a mythical place, as a meeting place of the arts and culture and, above all, as a city that was Hellenized and "saved" is a central theme of the exhibition. The precious Greek and Roman “stigma” has been defining Egypt, Pakistan and Syria for centuries, places that are "lucky" to "host" Hellenistic and Roman monuments that attract tourism and boost the economy. Alexandria: Past Futures critically responds to the above issues throughout the exhibition, however, two works could be characterized as the most straightforward. The juxtaposition of a 30 BC terracotta figurine depicting Isis nursing her son Horus and an icon of the Madonna Lactans (The Nursing Madonna), which essentially appropriates the pictorial typology of Isis, emphasizes the two-way (and not one-sided) relationship of influence regarding symbols and images.

Jumana Manna’s “Water Arm” also references the colonial perception of Alexandria through criticism of gentrification in areas that attract tourists. By presenting an installation made up of old water and drainage pipes, the artist emphasizes the superficial and hasty modernization of Alexandria and other similar cities, whose infrastructure and living conditions differ significantly for residents and visitors, thus highlighting that money coming from tourism is recycled without ultimately solving any of the practical issues.

Ellie Ga, It Was Restored Again (2013). Slide installation. Courtesy the artist and Bureau, New York. Exhibition view: Alexandria: Past Futures, BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (30 September 2022–8 January 2023). Photo: © Philippe De Gobert.

One such example is the new Library of Alexandria, a colossal project that serves the need to revive the mythical space and not to save the actual space. The exhibition Alexandria: Past Futures openly discusses, for the first time in this format, the question of the reception of the established reality, which is, however, in content nothing more than a series of fictional versions of an entirely modern and not ancient city.

New Library of Alexandria, 2019

In the final room there’s the iconic video-installation entitled, “Isles of the Blessed (Oops!...I forgot Europe)” by Alexandrian artist and researcher Wael Shawky. The importance of this particular work and the reason for its presentation at the end of the exhibition is evident. The work functions as a conclusion to what the entire curatorial proposal deals with, posing the question: are we interested in the paternity of Europe's constitutional myths? If so, the artist is ready to answer that the ancient myth says that Europe, the homonymous princess, comes from today's Lebanon. At the same time, her brother Cadmus is the one who, by taking the alphabet from the Phoenicians and gifting it to the Greeks, enabled them to develop as the cradle of European civilization. With this work, the artist does not really want to claim the probable eastern origin of the religion and language of the Greeks, but to emphasize the fluidity of geographical borders and historical terms, against the dogmatism that promotes the misinterpretation of history, and the consequent determination and fetishization of Egypt by the West.

The exhibition continues its journey at Mucem in Marseille from February 8th to May 8th.

Wael Shawky, Isles of the Blessed (Oops!...I forgot Europe) (2022). Film. Exhibition view: Alexandria: Past Futures, BOZAR – Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (30 September 2022–8 January 2023). Photo: © Philippe De Gobert