Ahmed Bassiouny exhibit at the Venice Biennale

You may remember the death of the remarkable Egyptian artist/musician Ahmed Bassiouny. (Click HERE to see my previous posts about him.)

At the Research Conference here in early May, his good friend Shady El Noshokaty (who teaches at AUC) showed an extremely moving film about Bassiouny’s life and career, including scenes showing what an electrifying and imaginative teacher he was in the Art Department at Helwan University south of Cairo. Clearly, his students adored him, as any of us would have.

On the first day of the Revolution, Ahmed was severely beaten by police, but insisted on returning to the protests anyway. On the fourth day of the Revolution, he was gunned down by a sniper and his body run over and crushed by a government vehicle. It took his friends and family a number of days to find his body in a morgue elsewhere in the city.

Now, the Egyptian government is helping to fund an Ahmed Bassiouny exhibit at the Egyptian pavilion at the VENICE BIENNALE. Additional funding for the show came from my office, and still further funds from Lisa Anderson, President of AUC.

If you plan to attend the Venice Biennale, please stop by the Egyptian pavilion and learn about the remarkable man who was Ahmed Bassiouny.