Wael Shawky

A sales bonanza in Basel Switzerland has left everyone agog at the normally invisible strength of the modern and contemporary art market outside the a

The organizers for the Yokohama Triennale have released the final list of artists included in the upcoming 2017 edition...

The organizers for the Yokohama Triennale announced a first group of participating artists that will be included in the upcoming 2017 edition

This January, Apollo features an exclusive interview with Egyptian video artist Wael Shawky, as well as essays on Lockwood Kipling, Ghent’s Museum of Fine Arts, and the challenges ahead for New York’s museums. Sir Angus Grossart tells Susan Moore about his dedication to Scottish art and, on the eve of her UK retrospective, Lubaina Himid speaks to Imelda Barnard. Plus: a preview of BRAFA art fair, the Pompidou in Brussels, Matthew Sperling on Peter Doig and Derek Walcott, and Peter Parker on Paul Nash. Preview the issue below.

Craggy peaks of stone, desolate plains, parched and rasping arctic coasts—still caught perhaps in some distant geologic era—provide a home to stray beasts of all kinds: the spindly heads of snakes rise like pinnacles from the summits of crumbling towers. The sagging legs of pachyderms prop up arcades redolent of Byzantium. The hooked beaks of hawks frown from the prows of merchant vessels. Prehistoric herbivores with dorsal crests like minarets spring from the ground, breaking its crust as if they had just awoken from centuries of hibernation. The salt spume curls into the outline of a feather, of a scale. Stone turns to visage, snout, and sneer.

Wael Shawky, who has achieved global recognition for his epic video productions, is currently showing at three different galleries across northern Italy. Taken together, the shows at Castello di Rivoli, Fondazione Merz and the Lisson Gallery Milan present something of a mid-career retrospective, displaying the artist’s surreal and meticulously researched re-imaginings of Upper Egyptian storytelling and the history of the Crusades. Given that Shawky’s Cabaret Crusades, his more renowned film trilogy, portrays the Crusades as a monstrous danse macabre between Arab and European cultures, Italy avails itself as an appropriate setting. One imagines the aberrant marionettes that populate the Crusades films as they march through the Alps and foothills outside Milan and Turin, a brigade of murderous toys on its way to commit atrocity in the Holy Land.

“It’s pronounced Wa-el,” Wael Shawky explained patiently as he was introduced to one of many guests lining up to greet him in Turin earlier this month. The artist was very much present at the openings of two exhibitions, launched to coincide with Artissima Art Fair, where he also gave a talk about his work. Just a week later, he unveiled a solo exhibition on a more modest scale at the Lisson Gallery, Milan, presenting drawings produced during the making of his two film trilogies—on view concurrently at new installations at the Castello di Rivoli and the Fondazione Merz, Turin.

In this video, Wael Shawky discusses the process behind his Cabaret Crusade film trilogy, and his approach to countering established European narratives on the events that marked this period in history.

Ed Atkins, Carol Rama, Wael Shawky, and more: this week's must see shows and events.

Anicka Yi Wins Hugo Boss Prize: Last night at the Guggenheim, the museum's director, Richard Armstrong, and the CEO of Hugo Boss, Mark Langer, announced that Anicka Yi has won the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize.

The artist Anicka Yi has been awarded the Hugo Boss Prize 2016.

The Egyptian artist Wael Shawky (born 1971) uses his filming of puppet theater to tell the story of the Crusades.

10 Exhibitions Opening This Week

Wael Shawky’s “Cabaret Crusades” have graced various events and institutions in the past years, from the 2012 documenta 13 in Kassel to the Egyptian artist’s first solo show at MoMA PS1 last year.

The world’s largest collection of modern and contemporary Arab art, visits Spain for the first time.

Fondazione Merz is pleased to present at Auditorium Kunsthaus Zurich at 11 am an exclusive first edit screening of Wael Shawky’s new film trilogy Al Araba Al Madfuna III.

The photographer from the New York Times, zooming in on the Plexiglas enclosure housing Addie Wagenknecht’s drone-painting studio by the entrance to the Seattle Art Fair, had a problem: Wagenknecht was temporarily absent.

“Put yourself in a curator’s shoes,” the Frieze New York Art Fair asks in a sticker-festooned pamphlet for kids, “what artwork would you display if you could curate your own booth?”

MoMA PS1 presents Wael Shawky’s video trilogy, Cabaret Crusades, which comprises The Horror Show Files (2010), The Path to Cairo (2012), and The Secrets of the Karbala (2015).

10 Opening Exhibitions to Watch

Istanbul Modern is presenting a group exhibition titled “Neighbors -- Contemporary Narratives from Turkey and Beyond” as part of its 10th year celebrations, delving into contemporary art practices in Turkey and its surrounding regions.

It has not been an easy crawl back from the generally derided Berlin Biennale for the KW Institute for Contemporary Art.

History is an increasingly common subject in contemporary art, though for the most part artists usually explore events that are marginal, local

FC Barcelona Foundation, Reach OutTo Asia (ROTA) and UNICEF launched the ‘1 in 11’ campaign to extend educational opportunities to marginalized children in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal, with the goal of expanding to more countries.

“In the presence of the violent reality of war,” wrote Wallace Stevens in 1942, “consciousness takes the place of the imagination.”

Artistic director Massimiliano Gioni and the curatorial staff of the New Museum have organized an extraordinary exhibition to mull over. Its title was

New Yorkers are accustomed to publicly admitting our provincialism while privately upholding the belief that we live at the center of it all.

History is an increasingly common subject in contemporary art, though for the most part artists usually explore events that are marginal, local

Delfina Entrecanales now supports the largest residency programme in London—and isn’t afraid to show artists some tough love.

Istanbul Modern is presenting a group exhibition titled “Neighbors -- Contemporary Narratives from Turkey and Beyond” as part of its 10th year celebrations, delving into contemporary art practices in Turkey and its surrounding regions.