Pack of Cards
As we all know, my dears, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni is also a celebrated painter. In fact, Hosni's 26th exhibition was inaugurated at the Akhenaton Gallery in the Zamalek Arts Complex this week. The crowd was sophisticated, a virtual who's-who of artists, thinkers, politicians and media figures, including People's Assembly Foreign Relations Committee head Mustafa El-Feki, Al- Ahram columnist Anis Mansour, veteran TV presenter Sanaa Mansour, vernacular poet Abdel- Rahman El-Abnoudi, head of the General Organisation of Cultural Palaces Anas El-Fiqi, actresses Lebleba and Poussy, actor Khaled El-Nabawi, First Under- Secretary for Foreign Relations at the Ministry of Culture Cherif El- Choubashi, Cairo Opera House Director Samir Farag, and Al- Hanager Arts Centre Director Hoda Wasfi.
The exhibition, running through 18 March, showcases 22 acrylic on canvas abstract paintings done by Hosni over the past year or so. Some of the larger 2x2 metre paintings feature amazing colour arrangements and intriguing patterns. Apparently, the show was originally scheduled to open at the National Geographic Society in the US, but Hosni chose Cairo as the venue instead for political reasons. According to famous Italian art critic Giovanni Carandente, "Farouk Hosni is one of the most refined and interesting abstract painters [in] the Arab [world]. His paintings originate [in a major way] from the research [he has done on] European and American painters of the second half of the 20th century, but [also] preserve a lot of the culture of his origins: the desert expanses of the Nile's two banks, the green water of the river, the dazzling gold of the everlasting sand. Farouk paints because he takes delight in doing it: his painting therefore is instinctive as well as intellectual."
Here's an event that's not to be missed -- an English public lecture at the American University in Cairo (AUC) scheduled for 17 March at Ewart Hall. The speaker -- none other than the renowned culture critic and professor of comparative literature at New York's Columbia University Edward Said, whose brilliant analysis appears regularly on the Weekly's Opinion pages. The title of the talk is "Memory, Inequality and Power: Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights".
On 28 February, the Second Annual Race For The Cure was held at the Cairo American College's track in Maadi. The 5km walk/run aims to promote awareness and fundraise for the Breast Cancer Foundation Of Egypt -- the first NGO formed to serve that purpose. The event took place from 7am to 12 noon, and included the sale of souvenir T-shirts, and 50 per cent off of a mammogram exam at Cairo Scan.
Among those who attended were US Ambassador to Egypt David Welch and his family, members of the board of trustees of BCFE, including Mohamed Shaalan (the organisation's chairman), Lori Goodwin (vice chairman), Faiza Abdel- Khaliq (treasurer), Laura Faille (event coordinator), and Lois Crooks, one of the organisation's members. George McCormik, a physician at the American Embassy, was also there. The event's sponsors were Cairo Scan, Coca Cola, the Egyptian American Bank, Enjoy Juice, Fino Bakery, Garaya, Kimo Market, and World Of Art.
I have been told by my dear friend and colleague Nader Habib that his aunt Salwa Habib, deputy chief editor of Al- Ahram, recently celebrated the engagement of her nephew, engineer Ihab Sami, to the beautiful Myrian Samir, on a sunny Thursday morning at Saint Morqos Church in Heliopolis. Joy was in the air both at the morning ceremony, and the afternoon party that followed, where many of Ihab and Myrian's friends danced away to the music of the DJ.
For the fourth successive year, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) in AUC organised "Women's Day Celebrations" on 3 March. EOAA director Iman El-Qaffass said the aim of the celebration was to award a number of Egyptian women and, for the first time men, for their contribution to the development of the country's women. The office awarded a number of distinguished ladies such as former Environment Minister Nadia Makram Ebeid, head of the Legal Committee at the National Council of Women Fawziya Abdel-Sattar, the first female judge to be appointed to the Supreme Constitutional Court Tahani El-Gebaly, head of the Women's General Secretariat of the National Democratic Party Mo'mena Kamel, the first female to be appointed dean of the Faculty of Medicine Madiha Khattab, professor of Islamic Philosophy at Al-Azhar University Amna Nosseir and head of the Satellite Sector in Egyptian TV Dorreiya Sharafeddin. Male recipients included professor of Behavioural Sciences at Alexandria University Adel Abu-Zahra, professor of Islamic Philosophy at Cairo University Abdel- Moneim Bayoumi and Qaliubiya Governor Adli Hussein.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 6 - 12 March 2003 (Issue No. 628)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/628/pe1.htm