Untitled (Cairo)
2010
Iron, paint, marble, artificial leather.
Installation dimensions variable
Made on-site and coinciding with the Arab Spring uprising, the work reflects the tension of the time. It features replicated pairs of café tables and chairs sourced from Maison Groppi, a renowned Cairo tea shop founded by Swiss Giacomo Groppi in 1891. The tables and chairs are interconnected by welded iron bars, rendering them immobile and creating a blockage. The work is placed in a long corridor intended to connect different galleries within Cairo's Palace of Arts. However, the deliberate spacing between the tables and chairs prevents communication, contradicting the corridor's intended function.
Untitled (Cairo) is part of a group of works that raise questions about the body, distance and proximity, tension and the yearning for communication and explicitly use standard furniture elements as raw material. These include Strength (2013), High Five (2015) and Idle (2017).
With support from the Federal Office of Culture.
Switzerland's official contribution to the 12th Cairo International Art Biennale, 2010. Photo: Studio Luca Frei