“Home”

2019— 09 (10)
Houston, TX

It’s been a couple months since my move to Houston, and so far, I quite like it.

This marks my fourth city since moving to the United States, barely living in any one city for more than two years. It’s not ideal; you don’t plant any roots and you hardly make any friends. You make acquaintences, but not really the kind of lifelong friends you stay connected to no matter what. It has however allowed me to experience different sides of America, and if there’s anything I know about myself it’s that chances are I’ll probably explore that through an art project of some kind.

A guy I met the other day asked me “Where do you call home?” and I didn’t have a real answer for him. It’s a pretty straightforward question, but I’m honestly not sure anymore.

To quote the great Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, “Home is not where you were born. Home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”

Ganzeer.com

2019— 08 (31)

And the new website is live!

I’ve never been a fan of the website-as-brochure model, and find myself far more attracted to the website-as-archive. It’s what I sought to do with this one, despite having lost big swaths of my data on more than one occassion.

Still, a lot of my work is on here. Not nearly everything, but a lot nontheless.

The website was built using Cargo in case you’re curious.

Street Art Lecture & Workshop

2019 — 06 (6-9)
Cedar Rapids, IA
National Czech & Slovak Museum

June 6—Lecture: Concept Pop, Or Invisible Elephants And The Flies That Bug Them

June 7-8, 2019—Workshop: Crash Course in Street-Art and Protest Art

Residency

2019— 05 (12-18)
Cambridge, MA
Allston Art Lab + Harvard’s American Repertory Theater

Spent 6 days in Cambridge (May 12-18) painting three 9’x4’ canvases for the lobby of the Loeb Drama Center where We Live in Cairo is playing. It would typically take me at least 6 days to paint just one canvas that size, but to be fair these canvases were intentionally left incomplete. Their purpose, rather than act as finished paintings, was to evoke the same feeling as the walls of Cairo in the turbulent times of 2011-2014 for audience members to write on and add to. During those years, the walls of Cairo were explosive and alive, screaming with a million different conflicting voices that reacted to one another, ever-changing, ever-evolving. And that is exactly what needed to be brought to Cambridge for We Live in Cairo. To pull it off, I had to occupy the position of different people, use a wide array of media and techniques, alter painting styles and drawing styles; make the canvases look like they were painted by dozens of different hands.

Audience members are invited to write and draw on the canvases with paint markers during the run of the play (May 14 - June 23). Afterwards, the canvases are to be returned to me for completion, but not before they are first exhibited at the Allston Art Lab (in October) where the first phase of painting took place.

Appearance for March 2019

2019— 05 (12-18)

NEW YORK, NY

> March 6-10, 2019

Plan B Popup / David Zwirner Gallery

(Look for the Mark Hachem Gallery booth)
Wednesday, March 6: 9am – 5pm
Thursday-Saturday, March 7 – 10 : 10am – 6pm
[Free]

> March 9-10, 2019

Booklyn Artists’ Book Fair
at the New York City Book & Ephemera Fair
(Look for the Booklyn booth)
Saturday, March 9: 8am – 4pm
Sunday, March 10: 9am – 3pm
Sheraton Central Park / Times Square, 811 7th Avenue, New York, NY, 10019
[Ticketed]

WASHINGTON, D.C.

> March 15, 2019

The Kennedy Center, 2700 F St., NW, Washington, D.C. 2056
Panel discussion with director Ahmed El-Attar, actor/producer Khaled Abol Naga, author Ahmed Naji (recipient of the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award), myself, and activist Nancy Okail (director of the Tahrir Institute of Middle East Policy) following the play: THE LAST SUPPER, directed by Ahmed El-Attar.
Play starts 7:30pm
Discussion at 8:30pm
[Ticketed]

> March 16, 2019

The Gonda Theater| Davis Performing Arts Center, Georgetown University
Another panel discussion also with Attar, Naga, Naji, and Okail.
11:00am-12:30pm
[Free]

Book Signing

2018— 05 (03)
San Francisco, CA
Green Apple Books by the Park (9th Ave)

The cable car competes with morning rush hour, and the wind blowing over from the bay has the neighborhood trapped in wet wintery mist.

Multiple breakfast joints wrestle for your attention, and you’re this close to stepping into Roxanne, but the refuge offered by The BeanStalk Cafe has you won over with its large windows and understated decor. You nestle into a good corner with your small cap, breakfast bagel, and PKD novel. It’s good to be in San Francisco.

Tonight’s the night we bring one noir city from across the world to another: Talk & signing for The Apartment in Bab El-Louk

Where: Green Apple Books By The Park (9th Ave)
Date: May 3rd, 2018
Time: 7:30 pm
Who: Elisabeth Jaquette, Ganzeer, Edward Gauvin

Japan

2018— 09 (29)
Kyoto-Tokyo Shinkansen

Contradiction.

If you wanted one word to summarize Japan, that would be it.

Sleek considered minimalism coexists unironically with loud, shrieking graphics. The Japanese very generally are quite reserved in their emotions, but the characters in the advertisements that crowd their cities (not to mention the animes) are always a little too over-expressive. Trains are superfast, billboards are hi-def, and ordering noodles from a machine is commonplace, but you can only really pay for most things in cash (which, let’s face it, puts Japan behind China as far as financial transactions go). A culture so fascinated by “the West” yet also exhibits deep pride in its own ways. A cuisine comprised largely of flesh and carbs with very little fresh fruit or vegetable content isn’t really reflected in the slender figures of the people who consume it. One might wonder what use city-sized malls and multi-story mega-stores is to a people who reside in capsule-sized living quarters. And how at all it’s possible for Japan’s capital -a megacity of over 36 million- to be spotless clean is something that will forever blow my mind. Not to mention that if you exclude rush hour(s), Tokyo is generally pretty quaint aside from a handful of streets. Public restrooms are in every train station and metro stop in the country, and also always squeaky clean. The trains of course run perfectly on time, and so do people. You get a sense that there is no room for error, no room for spontaneous accidents. It’s as if every single step in every citizen’s day is perfectly calculated; an entire nation operating like clockwork, despite the disruptions caused by the 28 million tourists who descend upon it every year. I get the sense that life in Japan is very compartmentalized; there is commute time, there is work time, and there is eating time. There is drinking time (with colleagues after work probably), and there is shrine time. There could be cat time (at a cat cafe possibly), and there could be companion time (at a companion bar). Not to be confused with love time (at a love hotel). No time should ever contaminate any other time.

I say this obviously as a fresh observer who hasn’t had the chance to explore Japanese culture with any kind of legitimate depth, but the purpose of this kind of writing is to put down first impressions, which may very well contradict with future more nuanced observations. In any case, I never like to pass judgement on any of the places I visit, but rather try to absorb a little bit, and walk away with new perspectives that may aid me in the remainder of my life. And if there’s anything I take away from this trip, it’s that a more minimal and structured approach to living may very well be in order for me.

But judging from the past couple of newsletters, I guess that’s been on my mind for a while now.

Two more days left in this fascinating country, hopefully not the last time I’m here.

Definitely won’t be the last time I write about it.

Book Signing

2018— 08 (09)
Denver, CO
Tattered Cover Books, Colfax Avenue

Book signing for WHO WILL SPEAK FOR AMERICA? from Temple University Press coming to Tattered Cover Books on Colfax this Aug. 9th, 7pm!

Editor Nathaniel Popkin and I will talk (& sign copies) while being kept in check by Angela Evans of the Boulder Weekly.

[Tattered Cover Books event page]

(All royalties go to Southern Poverty Law Center.)

Travel

2017—12 (15)- 2018—01 (01)

Talk

2017—12 (12,13)
Beirut, Lebanon

حديث: نحو أساطير جديدة للبشرية الحديثة

الثلاثاء، ١٢ ديسمبر: مانشُن - شارع عبد القادر، بيروت - ٧:٣٠ مساءاً
الأربعاء، ١٣ ديسمبر: الجامعة اللبنانية - حرم حدث الجامعي، بيروت - ١٠ صباحاً

Talk: New Mythologies for Modern Humans

Tuesday, December 12: Mansion – Abdul Kader st, Beirut – 7:30 pm
Wednesday, December 13: Lebanese Univercity – Hadath Campus, Beirut – 10:00 am

سيعطي “جنزير"، الفنان المصري متعدد التخصصات، نبذة عن إحتواء الأساطير القديمة للعديد من المواعظ والإرشادات الهامة، والتي على أساسها قامت ثقافات العالم القديم بأكملها. وسيوضخ كيف تهيمن على جميع تصرفاتنا وإنتاجنا الحالى ثقافة واحدة كبرى ألا وهي ثقافة التربح المادي البحت. سيتضمن الحوار أساليب للتصدي لهذه الثقافة من خلال إنتاج ثقافي على نحو إسطوري يتناسب مع عصر تسود فيه العنصرية، التآكل البيئي، وإعتناق كل ما هو جديد من تكنولوجيا

"جنزير” فنان متعدد التخصصات يعمل على نوع من التمرد الثقافي والذي يُعرض بقاعات ومتاحف بأوروبا، شمال أفريقيا، أمريكا الجنوبية، والولايات المتحدة. لعب دوراً محورياً في الإنتفاضة الإبداعية التي صاحبت الثورة المصرية، مما دفع جريدة الـ"هافينجتون بوست" بوضعه على قائمة “٢٥ فنان شارع بالعالم يهزون ساحة الفن العام”. ووصفته جريدة الـ"نيو يورك تايمز" بأنه “حرباء"، في حين وصفته مجلة "بدون” بكونه “فنان طواريء”. هو يعمل ألآن على رواية مصورة طويلة تحت عنوان “القبة الشمسية"، والتي نالته جائزة "مُفكر عالمي” من مجلة “فورين بوليسي” عام ٢٠١٦. عاش “جنزير” بالقاهرة، ونيو يورك، ولوس أنجوليس، وألآن مدينة دينفر، والتي تعد بالنسبه له أهدأ مكان في الوجود

“From a blend of the personal and the sociopolitical, Ganzeer strives for emotive art that unravels as you peel back its layers.”

— Alex Puntiel, BOOKLYN.ORG