Youssef Nabil - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Friday, October 17, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist.

  • Catalogue Essay

    The Egyptian artist Youssef Nabil is fascinated by concepts of identity and self-awareness. Nabil’s intimate portraits, including many of himself, explore the themes of sexuality, selfhood, sensuality, and the interplay between the apparent and implied elements of human portrayal. My Frida comes from a series in which Nabil photographs a female character who recalls the famous Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. For Nabil, the portrayal is not only a visual recollection of an iconic image, but has a deep rooted meaning which finds genesis in the work of Kahlo herself. Troubled by her life experiences, and fascinated by the visual culture and mythology of her native Mexico, Kahlo’s paintings were fraught with symbols of suffering, sexuality and cultural introspection. Kahlo’s obsession with herself was in no way vain, but stemmed from her own recognition that the subject she had most knowledge about was herself, a reflective realization which is echoed both in Nabil’s “My Frida” and in other examples of his oeuvre.

72

My Frida

1996
Hand-painted gelatin silver print.
37.4 x 25.4 cm. (14 3/4 x 10 in).
Signed, numbered of twelve and dated 'Youssef Nabil 1996 CAIRO' on the reverse. This work is from an edition of ten and two artist's proofs.

Estimate
£7,000 - 9,000 

Sold for £6,250

Contemporary Art Day Sale

18 Oct 2008 2pm
London