A few weeks ago, Spanish photographer Miguel Angel Sanchez visited the Inception Gallery in Paris’ very hip Marais neighborhood. The pictures he showed instantly appealed to the gallery owner not usually ready to show photography. That is how the young (34 years old) unknown photographer and world traveler’s exceptional 22 large format prints taken before and of course during the Arab Spring of Cairo came to be exhibited.
The Egyptian capital’s revolted were the anonymous actors of the revolution. Many of these unsung heroes still bear scars from injuries suffered during the Tahrir Square riots. Miguel Angel Sanchez wanted to “immortalize” these martyrs of the revolution. In his Cairo studio, inspired by 17th century Spanish and Italian painters, he used chiaroscuro to intensify the drama in the faces and expressions. The decor used the objects of their daily lives: musicians, street vendors, bloggers, intellectuals and politicians. And of course Marina, the beautiful university student, Kirolos Nagy, this militant Copt in danger. Even a politician, Zawi Hawasz, an Egyptologist and former government Minister.
A sociological study of Cairo where each person on display becomes an icon. This deliberately provocative pictorial point of view is magnified by the choice of paper used for the prints. Baroque and expressionist, the postures and expressions take on an even greater theatrical force. Miguel Angel Sanchez was right to knock at the Inception Gallery door.
L’âme du monde features all 80 of his Cairo pictures and was published by Lunwerg Books with a text by journalist Nuria Teson.
Paul Alessandrini
Les révoltés du Caire
Until March 10, 2012
Inception Gallery
37 rue de Poitou
75003 Paris
0177166807
