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Do You Have Work Tomorrow?

Mahmoud Khaled
004 / 2 November 2012
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In Do You Have Work Tomorrow? (2012), artist Mahmoud Khaled captures the ephemeral nature of desire as it manifests against a backdrop of a turbulent and perpetually shifting city. A two-hander, Khaled's work presents a staged conversation using Grindr, the locative mobile phone application designed for gay men. Through this simulated act of exchange, Khaled explores the tensions that arise out of a transformative moment – boredom, disenchantment, and sexual frustration. As the narrative unfolds, a borrowed cultural vernacular begins to emerge. Khaled asks which 'heat' is stronger – that of an illicit sexual longing, or the disruptive fire that encapsulates a moment of deep-seated societal change?

 

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About the author

Mahmoud Khaled

Mahmoud Khaled (Alexandria, Egypt, 1982)

 

A visual artist, he earned a baccalaureate degree in Painting from Alexandria University, Egypt, in 2004. Khaled combines photography, video, sculptural forms and text with installations and video installations. His work conflates gender issues, often regarding the construction of male identity, tension between public life and private intimacy, and reflections on the value and meaning of art as a form of political action. In a deeply conceptual way, Khaled operates by appropriating materials and removing them from their original context to unveil concealed, disguised or staged dimensions that underlie contemporary societies and their relationships increasingly mediated by virtual exchanges. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibits throughout Europe and the Middle East, including the AUB Art Gallery in Beirut, Lebanon (2013); the Stedelijk Museum Bureau in Amsterdam, Netherlands (2011); Institute du Monde Arabe/IMA in Paris, France (2012); Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo, Egypt (2010); Manifesta 8 in Murcia, Spain (2010); Bonner Kunstverein in Bonn, Germany (2009). He attended the artist residency Videobrasil in Context (2012). Khaled lives and works between Alexandria, Egypt and Trondheim, Norway.