Youssef Nabil's solo exhibition, Now Showing: Youssef Nabil's I Saved My Belly Dancer, curated by Linda Komaroff, opens at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA, USA.
The exhibition showcases the artist’s 2015 video I Saved My Belly Dancer, a recent LACMA acquisition, alongside 11 related photographs that parallel the filmic storyline and contemporaneous Egyptian film posters.
Like much of Nabil’s work, the subject matter is subtly autobiographical and reflects his longing for the past, as portrayed in the old movies he watched obsessively on television during his childhood in Cairo. Tahar Rahim performs as the artist’s alter ego and the belly dancer is played by Salma Hayek. The video and photographs have a dream-like, otherworldly quality further delineated by the unearthly intensity and tonality of the color palette, which the artist hand-painted on silver gelatin prints and colorized frame by frame with concentrated, supersaturated hues.
Now Showing: Youssef Nabil's I Saved My Belly Dancer is on view through 11 January 2026.
Visit the LACMA website for more information.
