Alex Dika Seggerman
Synopsis:
This presentation discusses the rise of the Egyptian modern fine arts movement in the early 20th century through a close look at a sculpture by Egypt’s most renowned modern sculptor, Mahmoud Mukhtar (1891‒1934). Entitled “Khamasin,” the work depicts a woman walking into a sand storm (khamasin), her headscarf and robe billowing behind her. It also brings together nationalist Egyptian symbols as well as European avant-garde sculptural styles and techniques.
Closed Captions:
To view this presentation in Arabic or English, click the 
button on the video’s navigation bar.
.اضغط على زر في أسفل الفيديو لتشغيل الترجمة العربية للنص
Arabic translation by Sarah O. Abou-Zied.
Worksheet:
A worksheet for this video is available here.
.اضغط هنا لاستخدام ورقة العمل لهذا العرض
Also visit the Khamseen Worksheets page here.
References:
Abū Ghāzī, Badr al-Dīn. Al-Maththāl Mukhtār. Cairo: al-Dār al-Qawmīyah lil-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr, 1964. 
Abū Ghāzī, Badr al-Dīn, and Gabriel Boctor. Mouktar, ou le reveil de l’Égypte. Cairo: Impr. de H. Urwand, 1949.
Baron, Beth. Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Colla, Elliott. Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
Seggerman, Alex Dika. Modernism on the Nile: Art in Egypt between the Islamic and the Contemporary. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019.
Citation:
Alex Dika Seggerman, “Mahmoud Mukhtar’s Khamasin: Sculpture in Modern Egypt,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 28 August 2020.
Alex Dika Seggerman is Associate Professor of Islamic Art History in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of Modernism on the Nile: Art in Egypt between the Islamic and the Contemporary (UNC Press, 2019) and co-editor of Making Modernity in the Islamic Mediterranean (Indiana University Press, 2022).