Huda Lutfi

Abstract

Huda Lutfi is a prominent contemporary artist based in Cairo. Despite a long career as a historian and professor of Islamic studies, she is uniquely self-taught. With a PhD in Arab Muslim Cultural Studies, her academic background deeply informs her art, which she describes as “a game of bricolage” involving splicing history, art history, and contemporary Egyptian culture. Lutfi transitioned to art in 1991, initially creating collages while teaching at Harvard. Her work is defined by cutting and juxtaposing diverse visual archives, often blending popular Egyptian culture with historical or spiritual references and varied Arabic text. Themes of mutilated bodies, dolls, and mannequins are recurrent. Lutfi’s art acts as urban archaeology, prompting critical reflection on the contemporary visual environment and the persistent influence of historical memory. She has been a significant figure in Cairo’s art scene since the 1990s, with global recognition.

Biography

Huda Lutfi is a well-known, active contemporary artist living and working in Cairo, Egypt. However, to arrive there, she did not follow the standard route of an art school education in painting, drawing, or sculpture. Instead, she is a self-taught artist and longtime professor of Islamic studies, originally trained as a historian. Her work is defined by splicing history, art history, and contemporary Egyptian culture into what she calls “a game of bricolage.”

Lutfi received her undergraduate and master’s degrees at the American University of Cairo (AUC), after which she undertook doctoral work at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She received her PhD in Arab Muslim Cultural Studies in 1983 and returned to work as a professor of cultural history at AUC, a position she held until 2011. Her doctoral dissertation was a historical and cultural study of late fourteenth-century Jerusalem, which was published as a book in the mid-80s. Inspired by the rich historical literature of Arab-Muslim society, Lutfi also published several academic articles on Sufi thought, gender dynamics, and popular cultural practices in both medieval and contemporary contexts. Even though she has turned away from academic publishing, her deep knowledge of Arab and Islamic cultural history, as well as gender theory, is a constant thread throughout her visual work.

Her pivot to art came in 1991 when she was teaching Islamic history courses at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While living far from family and friends, she continued to pursue one of her favourite hobbies: collecting catalogues, brochures, and postcards from the museums and art galleries she visited. Using Harvard’s extensive art library, she also began to photocopy images from art history books for her personal image collection. While recuperating from serious surgery, and to cope with her pain, she resorted to cutting up images from the catalogues and postcards she had collected. Her first collage piece,Woman Cut in Half (1991), features a female figure sliced in half, clearly echoing her experience under a knife. She returned to Cairo the following year to resume teaching at AUC, yet also followed her newfound interest in collage and art. In 2011, she left AUC to focus on her artistic practice.

Lutfi’s work is defined by cutting, carving, and splicing a variety of visual archives. She often borrows images from popular Egyptian culture and juxtaposes them with historical or spiritual references. Frequently, she includes Arabic text, varying significantly from Sufi, to the quotidian and the political. Mutilated bodies also appear frequently in three dimensions, and she has an ongoing interest in dolls and mannequins. In Carpet of Remembrance (2003), she painted ninety-nine shoe moulds in silver and inscribed them with the Sufi phrase “I am in the company of the one who remembers me” (أنا جليس من ذكرني). These moulds were arranged in a large grid installation at an exhibit at the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo, in 2003, evoking Sufi dhikr (a form of devotion) meditations.

Lutfi’s collages show her deep historical knowledge and critical eye towards Egyptian culture and politics. Fellow AUC professor Samia Mehrez has written most extensively about Lutfi’s work. She argues that “Lutfi’s interest in integrating the historical and the contemporary has fashioned the archival dimension of her artistic production.” Like an urban archaeologist, Lutfi snips evidence from her city environment and splices it together to create a cohesive whole. However, instead of a research article that aims to write a coherent story, her artworks provoke critical thinking about the contemporary visual urban context. Lutfi has a clear aesthetic sense as an arranger but does not seek to impress with the technical skills of illusionistic representation. Overall, her works highlight the ongoing presence of historical memory in contemporary society and how today’s society is always in the process of becoming history. When she adheres to the Statue of Liberty’s crown to Umm Kulthum’s head, like inSuma Mother of Liberty (2008), she reminds us that today’s pop divas will, in the future, become icons of this historical moment.

Since the 1990s, Lutfi has been a steady presence in the Cairo art world, frequently exhibiting at its major galleries, including The Townhouse, Mashrabiya, Karim Francis, and Gypsum. As of the writing of this entry, she is represented by Gypsum Gallery in Cairo and The Third Line in Dubai. Her artwork is in collections around the globe, including the British Museum, the Barjeel Art Foundation, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Bibliography

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Dietrich, Linnea S. “Huda Lutfi: A Contemporary Artist in Egypt.” Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Autumn, 2000 - Winter, 2001): 12-15.

“Huda Lutfi: Bio.” Gypsum. Accessed 15 February 2024. http://gypsumgallery.com/bio-5

“Huda Lutfi.” Aware. Accessed 17 February 2024. https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/huda-lutfi/

“Huda Lutfi.” DAF Beirut. Accessed 17 October 2024. https://dafbeirut.org/en/huda-lutfi

Lutfi, Huda. Al Quds Al-Mamlukiyya: A History of Mamluk Jerusalem Based on the Ḥaram Documents. Berlin: K. Schwarz, 1985.

Lutfi, Huda. “A Study of Six Fourteenth Century Iqrārs from Al-Quds Relating to Muslim Women.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 26, no. 3 (1983): 246–94. https://doi.org/10.2307/3631887.

Lutfi, Huda. “The Feminine Element in Ibn ’Arabī’s Mystical Philosophy / ﺍﻟﻌﻨﺼﺮ ﺍﻷﻧﺜﻮﻱ ﻓﻲ ﻓﻠﺴﻔﺔ ﺍﻟﺘﺼﻮﻑ ﻋﻨﺪ ﺍﺑﻦ ﻋﺮﺑﻲ.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 5 (1985): 7–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/521749.

Authors: Huda Lutfi, Samia Herhez, Venetia Porter. The Third Line (Gallery: Dubai, United Arab Emirates) 2012

Lutfi, Huda, et al. “Women, History, Memory / ﺍﻟﻤﺮﺃﺓ٬ ﺍﻟﺘﺎﺭﻳﺦ٬ ﺍﻟﺬﺍﻛﺮﺓ”. Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 19 (1999): 223-244