23 Oct 2011

Delfina Foundation: 14 Proper Nouns with Hassan Khan & Nida Ghouse

14 Proper Nouns, a set of references, drawn from Hassan Khan's seminal work 17 and in AUC, will serve as subject matter for a fortnight of discussion between the artist and curator-in-residence Nida Ghouse.

21st October - 3rd November 2011
Every night (including weekends) 19:00-20:00.

The discussions will be rooted in 17 and in AUC – the transcriptions, which is a document of every audible word uttered by the artist during a 56-hour performative action that took place in a rented apartment in downtown Cairo. Over 14 consecutive nights in 2003, from 7 until 11 pm, the artist sat in a sound proofed one-way mirrored glass room, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, literally reflecting onto himself. In front of an audience he could neither see nor hear, his primary purpose was to speak of the years he spent from 1990 to 1995 as a teenager at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

The programme for the ʻproper nounsʼ is as follows:

Friday 21 October: Funhouse
a year in the house of bliss and loss

Saturday 22 October: Yassin El Tohamy
the munshid who made philosophical poetry as popular as coca-cola

Sunday 23 October: Egyptian TV
strategies learnt from the world's worst television

Monday 24 October: Pulmolar
a cough syrup that bent streets and made asphalt soft

Tuesday 25 October: John Cage
the tapes that came after reading silence

Wednesday 26 October: Attar
daily breakdowns at the theater workshop

Thursday 27 October: Midan Ramsis
paranoia and ecstasy with the crowd

Friday 28 October: Hendrix
a guitar becomes something else

Saturday 29 October: JC Auditorium
auteur cinema and the incredible power of the living moving face

Sunday 30 October: William Blake
how hell was made dense

Monday 31 October: Ard El Golf
making noise in bedrooms and on rooftops

Tuesday 1 November: Sherif
a friendship forged through a shifting lens

Wednesday 2 November: Cairo Atelier
the haunt of the corrupt intellectual

Thursday 3 November: English Literature
a university department with a seminar room

Hassan Khan (b.1975) is an artist, musician and writer. He lives and works in Cairo, Egypt.

Nida Ghouse (b. 1982) is a writer and curator based in Bombay, India, and the first recipient of the DELFINA-FICA Research Fellowship residency in partnership with Iniva and Goldsmiths.

Please note that each event is limited to an intimate audience of 15 people, strictly by RSVP. To reserve a seat, please email rsvp@delfinafoundation.com.