Huda Lutfi (b. Cairo, 1947) is a cultural, gender historian by professional training whose work in the field of the visual arts translates these affiliations in multiple complex ways. In 1983, she received her PhD in Arab Muslim Cultural History from McGill University, Montreal, Canada. A self-trained artist, Lutfi, began her practice during the mid-1990s, amid the rise of an independent art scene and the establishment of a number of influential art institutions. In 2012, a self-titled monograph on Huda Lutfi was published by The Third Line.
Huda Lutfi's solo shows include: Healing Devices, Dallas Museum of Art, Texas (2021); Our Black Thread, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo, Egypt (2021); When Dreams Call for Silence, The American University in Cairo, Tahrir Cultural Center, Cairo, Egypt (2019); Still, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2018); Magnetic Bodies, Imaging the Urban, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2016); Dawn Portraits, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo, Egypt (2017); Magnetic Bodies, Townhouse Gallery West, Cairo, Egypt (2015); Cut and Paste, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt (2013); Huda Lutfi: Twenty Years of Art, Tache Art, Cairo, Egypt (2011); Making a Man out of Him, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt (2010); Zan'it al-Sittat, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2008); From Egypt with Love, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2008). Huda Lutfi: A Contemporary Egyptian Artist, The Muscarelle Museum of Art, Virginia, USA (2001).
Her group shows include: Cairo Photo Week, downtown Cairo, Egypt (2021); Occupational Hazards, Apexarts, New York, USA (2019); Feedback: Art, Africa and the 80’s, Iwalewahaus Museum, Beyruth University, Germany (2018); Tell me the story of all these things, Villa Vassilieff, Paris (2017); The Turn: Art Practices in Post-Spring Societies, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna (2016); La Bienal del Sur, Caracas, Venezuela (2015); Fotofest Biennial: View From Inside, Houston, Texas ((2014); Alexandria Biennial for Mediterranean Countries, Alexandria (2014); Fotofest: View from Inside: Contemporary Arab Photography, Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2015); Terms and Conditions, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2013); De Colline en Colline, Sidi Bou Said & Takrouna, Tunisia (2013); My World Images: Festival for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (2010); Trilogy, The Palace of the Arts, Marseille, France (2008); Umm Kulthum, The Fourth Pyramid, The Arab World Institute, Paris, France (2008); Contemporary Egyptian Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Bonn, Germany (2007); Contact Zone, The National Museum of Art, Bamako, Mali (2007); Homage to Moustapha Hasnaoui, Frederic Moison Gallery, Paris, France (2013); I am not there, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt (2012); Dak'Art-African Contemporary Art Biennale, Dakar, Senegal (2010); Icons Reloaded, Elysee Arts Gallery, Liege, Belgium (2009); Cairo Modern Art in Holland, Fortis Circustheater Gallery, The Hague, Holland (2001).
Her work is part of major collections including: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, USA; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan; Circustheater Foundation, Hague, Netherlands; The American University in Cairo; Egypt and The British Museum, London, UK. The World Bank, Egypt. Muscarelle Museum of Art, Virginia, USA; Indianapolis Museum, Indianapolis, USA. Margueitte Hoffman Art Collection, Texas, USA.
Lutfi’s practice has been sensitive to a loud political climate. Moving between metaphorical and literal visualizations, her work has been playful, subversive and at times equally as brutal as the conditions it reacts to. Bodies were deconstructed, reproduced, frozen, and ornamental; they reenacted layers of social and political transformations in her urban context of Cairo.
The artist re-appropriates discarded objects, elements from a boisterous street culture, and political allusions into her particular narratives. In parallel to her interest in materiality, a continuous meditative undercurrent is inspired by her early personal interest in Sufi practice and culture. These themes of permanence, the use of repetition and the perpetuated typologies in Lutfi’s works are compelling statements on the indiscernibility and multiplicity of our realities.
Lutfi leans into the physicality of her objects, their elements contribute to thesis of the work, from her interest in made-up mannequins and dolls –endemic to the city and its power displays— to the heritage of medieval mechanical devices, and minimalist threads that have been sewn by hand for hours on recycled car filters and organza teabags. The bodies in her work are functional, decorative and concurrently disposable. Her work experiments with gender juxtapositions, and constantly explores masculinity and femininity in an insidiously patriarchal context. Her opus is a parallel history of an urban space, a mirror to a highly contested notion of the public.