Ahmed Badry’s body of sculptures and drawings act as a proposition for objects that strive to recover usefulness. The objects, in their current state, only function as tokens for speculation on alternative narratives of production, parallel to and immersed in a neoliberal global economy.

Badry’s series, The Provisionary That Lasts, is an accumulation of five years of research and observation. The artist makes use of impractical scales and non-durable materials to rebuild bodies of everyday instruments. Using found images as models or his own design, he combines the assumed functions of some and erases those of others, in reference to a culture of improvised troubleshooting. The objects act as monuments of thrift, leading to a pattern of language that could exist outside of the prevailing economic conditions.

Badry examines the effects of the non-codified objects on language, collapsing the two poles of metaphor and metonymy. Through a process of re-presentation using projection, writing, drawing and 3D printing, the objects lose their ability to be named. The tangled object invokes a disruption in communication or possibly access to new neologisms.

Ahmed Badry completed a BA in Art Education at Helwan University, Cairo in 2003. His solo shows include The Provisionary that Lasts, Medrar, Cairo and AB Gallery, Luzern (2014); Two Minutes Delay, AB Gallery, Zurich (2011); Made in China (with Anastasia Katsidis), Kasko, Basel (2011). His group shows include Open House, Delfina Foundation, London (2017); Contemporary Artistic Revolutions: An Institutional Perspective, AUB Gallery, Beirut (2017); D-CAF | Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival, Cairo (2016); HOME WORKS 7, Beirut Art Center, Beirut (2015); Kunst (Zeug) Haus Rapperswil, Zurich (2015); What are you doing, object?, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2015); Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Algiers (2013); Regionale 13, Projektraum M54, Basel (2012); Cairo Documenta 2, Hotel Viennoise, Cairo (2012); Regionale 11, Hegenheim, France and Freiburg, Germany (2011) and at Darat al Funun, Jordan (2010). Badry spent a year in Beirut completing Ashkal Alwan’s Homeworkspace Program 2016-2017. He lives and works in Cairo.