ANNA BOGHIGUIAN

ANNA BOGHIGUIAN, Egypt (1946)
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Bio

Born in 1946 in Cairo to an Armenian family, Anna Boghiguian was raised in the city of Heliopolis, northeast of the capital city; renowned for its inhabitants from the upper class, and...

Written by ARTHUR DEBSI

Born in 1946 in Cairo to an Armenian family, Anna Boghiguian was raised in the city of Heliopolis, northeast of the capital city; renowned for its inhabitants from the upper class, and communities of foreigners. First, the young girl went to the Armenian Nubarian School, where she attended drawing lessons, given by the Armenian painter Onnig Avedissian (1898-1974). In 1958, she enrolled in the American College for Girls, and finally, continued her education at the American University of Cairo, between 1964 and 1969. There, she studied political science, and showed a particular interest in the works of some German philosophers such as Georg Hegel (1770-1831), and Karl Marx (1818-1883)^[1]. In the early 1970s, Boghiguian immigrated to Montreal, Canada, and completed her training in art and music, at Concordia University^[2]. She permanently came back to Egypt in 1995.

When she was twenty years old, Anna Boghiguian took to traveling the world, discovering many countries such as the United States, India, Cuba, and Nepal. She would never leave without notebooks and sketchbooks, which became the real memories of what she contemplated. Much of her art was produced in her diaries in which she combined her drawings with her poetry, texts, and collected photographs. These trips enriched herself as well as her passion for literature, and poetry: she read authors including Albert Camus (1913-1960), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)^[3]. These travel adventures opened her to the world, to the cultures, and the local customs, being a source of inspiration for her artistic and written work – she is the author of some books like Anna’s Egypt, An Artist Journey, published in 2003. She depicts the cities that she visited and its people, highlighting the notion of migrations, and exile, though the motifs of the train, the river, or the desert. This gave her the reputation of a nomad artist[4].

The frenzy and the activity of Cairo has always capitated Anna Boghiguian. In the 1960s, the artist used to record sounds of the city, and composed music with them. Then, she would adapt these sounds into a painted work.

During her stay in Montreal until the late 1980s, Anna Boghiguian developed several techniques of creation, by using collages of pictures that she would take from newspapers, magazines, and advertisements. She also used butcher’s paper, and recycled cardboard as supports for her works. In parallel, she produced natural installations such as gardens, and beehives, to tackle the transformation of the world, notably the ecological turmoil. With an experimental artistic language, she highlights some other issues of today’s world, for example international conflicts, colonialism, and global trade. She particularly explores another important theme, which is the human condition. Throughout her career, she has come to understand that their political, social, and religious environments effectively condition individuals^[5]. A conditioning limited by the borders, that Boghiguian aims to abolish. In the work entitled Once Alive We Prayed for Freedom for Life (2014), part of the Dalloul Art Foundation’s collection, the painter depicted an imaginary scene to discuss the vast topic of freedom that concerns the whole of humanity. In a dense composition, she applied saturated colors, and chosed abstracted forms, and simple lines, to draw elements that are oddly associated with each other. Indeed, she combined scissors, a bird, and strange insects, surrounding the central and intimidating figure, and integrated some scripts all around the canvas. The artist is known for this surrealistic treatment in which she mixes different means of artistic expression, and consequently creates complex narrative works like ‘tablelike drawings’^[6]. It seems that she wrote what came to her mind while she was painting, as if she revealed herself.

In this example, she illustrated an intriguing element that she often uses in her art: the ear. As a matter of fact, Anna Boghiguian is interested in the forms of this body part that is able to hear anything like music, speeches, or screams. In a way, she recalled with emotions her own experience, when she heard stories from people, or the noise from the cities – while traveling, she sound recorded moments that she lived –, and suggested that the ear is a strong tool for the collective memory. This collective memory results from historical references and geographic spaces from the past, that the painter wants to link with the present.

Anna Boghiguian lives and works in Cairo.

Notes

Sources

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CV

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024

Anna Boghiguian: Period of Change, The Douglas Hyde, Dublin, Ireland

2023

Anna Boghiguian: Conversations, Campoli Presti, Paris, France
Anna Boghiguian: Time of Change, Galleria Franco Noero, Via Mottalciata, Turin, Italy
Anna Boghiguian: Time of Change, The Power Plant, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Anna Boghiguian: A Clown Jumped into the Arena, Galleria Franco Noero, Via Mottalciata, Turin, Italy

2022

Anna Boghiguian, KOW, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Anna Boghiguian: Sometimes Unexpectedly The Present Meets The Past, IVAM Centre Julio González, Valencia, Spain
Anna Boghiguian: Period of Change, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Austria

2021

Anna Boghiguian: Sometimes unexpectedly the present meets the past, MGKSiegen, Siegen, Germany

2020

Anna Boghiguian | A Short Long History, SMAK, Belgium

2019

Anna Boghiguian, Retrospective Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, UK
Anna Boghiguian: Le Carré, La Ligne et La Règle, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris, France
Anna Boghiguian, Artes Mundi, Wales, UK
Anna Boghiguian: Conversations on Limits and Unlimits, Mendes Wood DM Gallery, Sao Paolo, Brazil

2018

The Loom of History, New Museum, New York, US
Anna Boghiguian, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria
Anna Boghiguian, Retrospective Exhibition, Sharjah’s Art Square, Sharjah, UAE

2017

Anna Boghiguian. The Artist’s Studio, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporeano, Rivoli, Italy
Woven Winds, INDEX, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden
Anna Boghiguian, Retrospective exhibition, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte, Torino, Italy

2016

A Walk in the Unconscious, Carré d’Art, Nimes, France

2015

Cities by the Rivers, SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada

2013

Anna Boghiguian. Unstructured Diary for an Autobiography, Daad Galerie, Berlin, Germany
ZYX-XYZ an autobiography- odd times in life, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

2011

A Poet on the Edges of History, Galerie Gitti Nourbakhsch, Berlin, Germany

2010

A Voyage Throught Cavafy’s Alexandria-Watercolors by Anna Boghiguian, Benaki Museum of Islamic Art, Athens, Greece
Anna Boghiguian, Gardens of Egypt, Safar Khan Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt