Natasha Sleeping, Cairo
Provenance : The Third Line, Dubai. Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Exhibited : London, Rose Issa Projects, Al Qahira: Images of Cairo, 2010 (another edition exhibited). Paris, Institut du Monde Arabe, Le Corps découvert, 2012 (another edition exhibited).
Literature : J. Rouart (ed.), Youssef Nabil, Paris 2013 (another edition partly illustrated, p. 35).
Notes : The cinematic fantasy of Youssef Nabil's Natasha Sleeping is the result of a fascinating photographic process. Though he began his artistic journey intimidated by the overwhelming pace of the New York art scene, ten years after living in the East Village he found himself sending in his first photographic proposal. Arriving from Egypt in 1983 armed with a unique sense of perspective, he confronted the cultural paradox posed by New York's Western ideals and went on to produce photographs which harmonise the aesthetic freedom of the West with the rich visual language of the East. However, Nabil's photographs do far more than satisfy the Western craving for an Eastern fantasy. The sense of nostalgia that is laced into Nabil's photographs stem from his childhood memories of Egypt. The glamour, fashion and old-world charm of early Egyptian cinema informed a great deal of his childhood. 'Fascinated by actors being immortalized through art,' (O. Zaya, Youssef Nabil, I Won't Let You Die, Ostfildern 2008, p. 9), Nabil orchestrates both timeless beauty and photographic drama through each one of his visual representations. Natasha Sleeping is a unique image in Nabil's photographic oeuvre. Though a sense of intimacy is precedent to the photographer, this is one of the few works where we do not engage with the sitter. Eschewing the confrontational element of this work, he explores an alternative dynamic between audience and actor. Natasha's effortless pose across the image reflects a sense of powerful female freedom. Today, as one of Egypt's and the Middle East's most esteemed contemporary photographers, Youssef Nabil's ability to bridge the cultural gap by exploring the human form in a far more provocative fashion is unparalleled.
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