public art

COFFEE HOUSE CAIRO

Oscar Cueto

17/07 – 14/08/2020

Venue: 12-14 contemporary, Schleifmühlgasse 12-14, 1040 Vienna

Oscar Cueto, “Coffee House”, 2020 © the artist

“Coffee House Cairo” is a participatory installation by Oscar Cueto that was originally inspired by the paintings of the Austrian artist Ludwig Deutsch. However, the aesthetics of this coffee house in public space contradicts the image of the East, which the West and the mentioned painter systematically reproduce. The “Coffee House Cairo” offers free coffee, a space for recreation and reading during the opening hours of the gallery 12-14. The graffiti pictures that adorn the “Coffee House Cairo” are works by important Egyptian graffiti artists.

The installation is the result of a research on graffiti of the Spring Revolution in Cairo, which Cueto started as part of the Visual Artist Exchange Program Vienna-Cairoorganized by philomena + and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Cairo. 

A series of talks, film screening and workshops will take place at the “Coffee House Cairo” during the time the installation is on display. Graffiti artworks by Bahia Shehab, Bassem Yousri, Hend Kheera and El Teneen.

artists

OSCAR CUETO (MX/AT)

Oscar Cueto’s work elaborates exercises of writing narratives and reflects on the mechanisms that construct the notion of historicity, knowledge, memory and subject as identity. Such themes are often developed as fictions or in recent work as participative installations. In 2019, Oscar Cueto created the Public Art installation “The Right to Be Lazy” for philomena+. Starting from a famous 19th century Austrian painting by Ludwig Deutsch which depicts a traditional Cairene coffee house, Oscar Cueto developed for Cairo a real life environment that merges elements of Arabic and Austrian coffee house culture. The project explores cultural relations between Vienna and Cairo and dealt in particular with the history and significance of the coffee house as a meeting place for artists, civilians, civil servants, pacifists, and believers. At the same time, it served as a platform for Oscar Cueto’s recent research work on artistic resistance, here in particular on graffiti art.

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