Their Souls Into Mine

By Rania Khallaf, "Life in a picture" - "Al-Ahram Weekly - Cairo, Egypt
16 - 22 October 2008/Issue No. 918

Popular markets and moulids make up Taha El-Qurani's intimate world

After the smashing success of Taha El-Qurani's mural Friday Market, which hung at the Al-Hanager Art Centre last year in an event that caught the interest of art lovers, critics and media alike, another mural, The Moulid, was unveiled yesterday at the same venue.

El-Qurani has surprised his audience with a piece even more adventurous than Friday Market, this time depicting the rituals of moulids throughout Egypt. The cost and effort required to produce such a huge mural -- 323 (?) metres wide and 140 cm in height [1'059 (?) feet wide and 4.59 feet in height] -- poses the question of the real motive behind this unusual genre.

"Since the second half of the 20th century there has been a gap between plastic arts and their audience, because of some abstract and surrealist trends that began appearing at the time," El-Qurani says. "So I was thinking about this gap, and I saw that there should be some interaction with real people: popular markets and moulids have been my key."

The son of Sheikh Mohamed El-Qurani, a distinguished Quran reader in the 1960s, Taha El-Qurani grew up under the influence of his father's Quran reading. The atmosphere in his home was intellectual, as his father was a friend of the colloquial poet Salah Jaheen and musician Sayed Mekkawi, two leading figures associated with the development of contemporary Egyptian popular art.

It took El-Qurani seven years to complete the two murals. Although he started working on both simultaneously, Friday Market mural was exhibited first because, at 20 metres [(?) 65 feet] in length, it was a little smaller.

"It is a kind of very unique and emotional experience that one feels in such crowded places," the artist says.

This is where dervishes, dancers, worshippers and Sufi enchanters meet together." El-Qurani adds that there are about 12 million Sufi followers in Egypt who are sincere participants in Egypt's 3,362 regular moulids, which are held at all times of year. It is this fact that initially moved his artistic senses towards that "peculiar portrait of life".

El-Qurani, who is listed in the Genes Encyclopaedia as the first Arab artist to have produced such gigantic artistic portraits, graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in 1982. He began showing in the mid-1980s, mainly exhibiting portraits and still life. El-Qurani's move towards painting murals depicting rare features in Egyptian popular culture started seven years ago.

"It all came as a coincidence," he says. "I was once involved in drawing models, and the idea jumped to my mind of sketching one of Cairo's most popular moulids. So I started with one portrait, then another, until I had produced a 32-metre- [104 feet] long mural.

The popular hidden culture in Sufi followers; their customs, clothing, and traditions, have not been recorded by any social research academy. Sufi chanters at moulids do not just chant meaningless songs, on the contrary they memorise the poetry of the most notable Sufi poets such as Ibn Arabi, Al-Halag and Ibn Al-Farid. All this results in a very rich popular culture that should be respected and recorded. And here comes the documentary role of this mural, and its peerless capacity to convey the feelings and problems of these marginalised people."

Although they might look similar, the two murals differ on some points: Friday Market, also known as the Souq Al - Imam mural, depicts street vendors, the people who come from various modest villages to trade or make other transactions, or for marriage. "The mural has brought the cause of these marginal people to the fore. These are people who can scarcely find food or clean water, and most importantly respect," El-Qurani says.

His vision has already made an impact: in reaction to the mural Abdel-Azim Wazir, the governor of Cairo, has donated LE7 million [USD 1,285,253] to develop facilities at the market.

Far from being a distant observer of the market or of moulids, El-Qurani interacted with the people, lived with them and loved their rituals. "It was like a transmigration of their souls into mine," he says. "In many cases I found myself acting as if I were one of them. It is very clear in the heavy brush strokes which reveal my interaction with such peculiar characters."

The artist's emotional interaction with the Sufi followers when working on The Moulid, meanwhile, was different. Here his religious passion drove him to become more involved in the moulids' rituals and people. To produce The Moulid, El-Qurani studied the rituals and history of several local moulids in addition to photographing and video-recording some of the most interesting such as those of Al-Hussein, Al-Sayeda Zeinab, and Al-Imam El-Shafie.

"I could not have worked on this mural without the influence of Quran recitations by El-Banna, Mustafa Ismail and Mohamed Refaat," he says.

The popular appreciation of El-Qurani's murals is shown by the honorary title "Artist of the People", which has been given him by the public and critics alike. His passion for people is not restricted to marginalised people alone. Talented individuals who have not had the chance to enrol in academic art studies are most welcome in his Creativity Centre, which offers a peculiar artistic experience for talented people from the age of 16 to 80.

With an estimated value of about LE200,000 [USD 36,721] each, and with no sponsorship, the future of the murals is unknown. Several businessmen have offered to buy them but have been turned down by El-Qurani.

"I have one condition, that Friday Market is exhibited at the People's Assembly so that it will remind politicians of the miserable status of marginal people in Egypt," El-Qurani says.

This suggestion has been officially rejected, but El-Qurani still hopes to find a good future sponsor so he can pursue his biggest dream: producing a mural entitled Egypt that would portray Egypt's ancient history and contemporary life.

"I hope Egypt will be a travel spot not just because of its ancient art and architecture, but also for its contemporary art. Such a mural could be exhibited in the new museum area, adjacent to the Pyramids Plateau. I am sure that it would attract many more visitors. All we need is a sponsor, because such a project will need a lot of money that I can't afford alone."

Some have criticised El-Qurani's works on the grounds that they are no more than an imitation of the more passionate works of the Orientalists, who portrayed popular aspects of Cairo in the 18th and 19th centuries. "The only difference, I believe, is that I do my work with a vision that sides with simple people and their daily tragedies," he protests.

A leftist artist, El-Qurani believes that art should be supportive of simple people. "My work has nothing to do with other murals such as the ones exhibited in Alexandria by artist Farouk Abdel-Salam, which has been used just as décor," he says. "Instead any artistic work, especially murals, should show some interaction with or against the subject of the work, which is what my murals have done successfully."

El-Qurani has gone further to criticise the term mural itself. "Why do critics insist on calling it a mural, and not an artistic epic that reveals many dramatic features of life in Egypt, and the pains and dreams of people?"

Art itself, he feels, should be for ordinary people. "Art should be extended outside the realm of elite districts such as Zamalek and Garden City, and reach people. This is my goal, and I am heading towards it," he says.