Youssef Nabil (Egyptian, b. 1972)

These stills from a televised concert of Umm Kulthum exaggerate the performer's ritualistic, almost prayer-like gestures. They are accompanied by words- 'I die', 'I live forever', 'Don't forget me', 'Amen'- that are themselves a comment on the singer's extraordinary status as a diva. This status has survived well beyond her death, inspiring such contemporary artists as Nabil, who was barely three years old when she died.
Part comic strip, part religious icon, the images are bothe satirical and sublime. Nabil came across them in the middle of the night while watching television in New York, an act of serendipity that he has described almost in terms of a revelation. Despite the spontaneity of this discovery, STAR has been carefully manufactured, with Nabil hand-painting the prints so as to give them an almost dream-like intensity.
(Saeb Eigner, Art of the Middle East: Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World and Iran, London, 2010, p.103.)