Gypsum is thrilled to present What are you doing, object?, the season finale and the gallery's first group exhibition. For the show, Nile Sunset Annex brings together new and old works by eleven artists to look at together. Most of these artists, born between 1919 and 1992, have never exhibited in the same space and time before now.

Nile Sunset Annex is primarily interested in objects to which our meanings fail to stick. Many shapes, like experiences, cannot be properly described. Outside of categories and conceptualizations, despite our insistence, they are slippery and alien. They actually exist all around us, taking up space in the real world. When we notice them our brains are put to use chasing after them, confidently or doubtfully, but the objects speak for themselves, in the shapes beyond or between words. They confound reporters, and that is powerful.

The materials out of which these artworks have been made include wood, fiberglass, mud, plastic, cardboard, foam, photography, mirrors and various metals. In terms of display, some stand or spread out directly on the floor, others hang on the walls, and a couple rest on a plinth or a table. They make a persuasive case that objects are not passive or lifeless, nor pointers toward concepts or puzzles to be decoded. They are made up of tensions, forces, gestures, processes and exchanges and we can open our eyes to them if we want.

Nile Sunset Annex is an experimental self-funded artist-run project in Cairo. It organizes month-long exhibitions focusing on physical objects, produces a publication for each show, and it also acts as an artist, author or barmaid when necessary. It keeps one work from each exhibition in order to grow a contemporary art collection. Nile Sunset Annex was founded in January 2013, and consists of Taha Belal and Jenifer Evans.

ARTISTS

Doa Aly
Ahmed Badry
Mounir Canaan
Dina Danish
Malak Helmy
Iman Issa
Mahmoud Khaled
Hassan Khan
Kareem Lotfy
Mona Marzouk
Sarah Samy