Contexts of Egyptian Art During the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Yasser Ibrahim Mohamed Mongy (b. 1972) is an Egyptian academic, visual artist, and specialist in graphic arts. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Graphic Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University (1996), followed by a Master's degree (2003) exploring the artistic treatment of death in printmaking, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy (2006) focusing on graphic representations of the devil and metaphysical symbols of evil. Currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Graphic Arts at Helwan University's Faculty of Fine Arts, Prof. Dr. Mongy has presented three solo exhibitions and is an active participant in Egypt’s contemporary art scene, contributing to numerous national and international exhibitions and festivals. His curatorial and critical expertise has also been recognized through appointments to various juries for Arab art and criticism competitions. He served as Secretary of the Fine Arts Committee at Egypt’s Supreme Council of Culture until 2014, and since 2008, has been a contributing expert to the Civilization Lexicon project at the Academy of the Arabic Language. In 2014, he was appointed as a research and documentation consultant at the Arab Museum of Modern Art (Mathaf) in Doha. Since 2019, he has been seconded to Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, where he teaches art history and criticism in the Department of Art Education. 

Prof. Dr. Mongy has authored over twenty scholarly publications, primarily focused on art history, visual culture, and criticism. His writings — spanning topics in art, literature, heritage studies, documentation, and museology — have appeared in numerous Arab newspapers, academic journals, and digital platforms. His literary and critical output includes fiction, theoretical works on visual arts, and cultural critique, with notable titles such as Artists and Heretics: Hidden Codes in the Works of Art Pioneers and The Project of Modernity in Arab Visual Arts. He is the recipient of multiple accolades, including the Grand Prize at the 10th Youth Salon (1998) and the Sharjah Award for Visual Art Criticism (2008, 2009), reflecting his dual impact as both a practicing artist and a critical voice in the Arab art world.

(The primary language of this lecture is Arabic. Real-time translation into English and German will be available via Zoom's Translated Captions feature.)