Dr. Sam Bardaouil is the author of Surrealism in Egypt: Modernism and the Art and Liberty Group. He is an art historian who has taught at universities such as the American University of Beirut and the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. His publications have appeared in numerous academic publications and journals such as Dada/Surrealism, Qantara and the International Journal of Humanities. Together with Till Fellrath, he is the co-founder of Art Reoriented, a multidisciplinary curatorial platform based in Munich and New York. Since 2016, they are also the co-chairmen of the Montblanc Cultural Foundation in Hamburg. Their curatorial projects are marked by a rigorous inter-temporal, trans-cultural, and cross-disciplinary approach. Bardaouil and Fellrath’s work is equally rooted in the field of modernist studies, as well as global contemporary artistic practices. Some of their recent museum exhibitions include safar, the 4th edition of Jeddah 21, 39 in Jeddah, Staging Film: The relation of image and space in video art at the Busan Museum of Art (2016), When Process Becomes Form: Dansaekwha and Korean abstraction at the Villa Empain in Brussels (2016), I Spy With My Little Eye: A new generation of Beirut artists at the Mosaic Rooms in London and Casa Arabe in Madrid and Cordoba (2015), Mona Hatoum: Turbulence at Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha (2014), Songs of Loss and Songs of Love at the Gwangju Museum of Art (2014), Paul Guiragossian: The Human Condition at the Beirut Exhibition Center in Beirut (2013), and Mathaf’s inaugural contemporary art exhibition Told Untold Retold (2010). Their critically acclaimed international traveling exhibition Tea with Nefertiti: The making of the artwork by the artist, the museum, and the public was presented at Mathaf in Doha, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, IVAM in Valencia, and the State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich (2012–14). For the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, Bardaouil and Fellrath were the curators of the Lebanese Pavilion, with the presentation of Akram Zaatari: Letter to a refusing pilot. In 2015/2016 they were part of the team of curatorial attachés for the 20th Sydney Biennale. Their touring exhibition Art et Liberté: Rupture, war and Surrealism in Egypt (1938 – 1948) was recently shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It is currently on view at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, followed later this year by the Kunstsammlung K20 in Düsseldorf and the Tate Liverpool.

Art/Art History

Modern

19th-21st Centuries

Egypt

All Middle East

Modern Egypt, Modernism, Surrealism, Post-Colonial

Arabic (native)

French (fluent)

English (fluent)