Focus Stand Prize 2022 Awarded to Gypsum
Showcasing a multimedia installation by Mahmoud Khaled, the Cairo-based gallery was selected by an international jury of artists and directors
Showcasing a multimedia installation by Mahmoud Khaled, the Cairo-based gallery was selected by an international jury of artists and directors
The Frieze Focus Stand Prize 2022 has been awarded to Gypsum (Cairo, Egypt, Stand H12) for their outstanding solo presentation of Mahmoud Khaled in Focus, the section at Frieze London for galleries aged 15 years or younger.
This year’s jury of institutional curators and directors included Eliel Jones, Curator at Brent Biennial 2022 - Metroland Cultures, Natalia Grabowska, Programmes Curator at V.O. Curations and Tarini Malik, Curator at Whitechapel Gallery.
Mahmoud Khaled explores intimate dynamics while questioning larger structures that produce them. Engaging with the burden of nostalgia and state-sanctioned processes of constructing collective memory, Khaled records the presence of marginalised bodies through absence. His work complicates and appropriates form to offer virtual proposals for a redemptive future.
The mixed media installation For Those Who Can Not Sleep centres around a circular rotating bed that transforms the bedroom of a fictional man into a stage for his material existence. Drawing influence from Hugh Hefner’s 1960s Playboy office-bed and sexualised scenes from Egyptian TV, the artist creates an immersive manifestation of changes taking place in our domestic sphere, where sleep is harvested by pharma to serve an optimised state of hyper-capitalism. The installation highlights this violent entwinement of labour, play, and technology — how, even in bed, the ultimate place of erotism, we’re at work, being altered or enhanced.
Mahmoud Khaled was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and currently works in Berlin. His process- oriented, multidisciplinary practice can be regarded as a formal and philosophical rumination on art as a form of political activism, and a space for critical reflection. He has presented in international solo and group shows including The Mosaic Rooms (June 2022) Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2019), Witte de With, Rotterdam (2018), Istanbul Biennale (2017), Sharjah Bienniale (2017), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2016).
Find out more about Frieze London and Frieze Masters.
TICKETS
Be the first to know when Frieze London & Frieze Masters 2023 tickets go on sale, sign up to our newsletter and follow @friezeofficial on Instagram, Twitter and Frieze Official on Facebook.
Main image: Photo by Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Frieze and Linda Nylind.
