Wael Shawky's Mythical Topographies at Galleria Lia Rumma, Naples

Egyptian artist Wael Shawky (born 1971 in Alexandria) presents a solo exhibition at Galleria Lia Rumma in Naples, featuring sculptures and drawings that evoke mythical creatures and imagined landscapes. The works manipulate reality through inherited and voluntary imagery, blending knowledge and fantasy to disrupt memory and historical narratives. Shawky's pieces depict homogeneous topographies and shared customs, representing a self-assertive discourse on civilization. The exhibition explores a sense of belonging to secret and forgotten identities, mobilizing symbolic forms with subversive potential. Fantastic animals and bronze sculptures with turreted cities on their backs shift through mountainous terrains, prompting explorations in places of non-attachment. References to Surrealism are evident in the forms, while the imagery conveys the concreteness of archaeological reports. The show is curated by Raffaele Orlando, an archaeologist and official at the Ministry of Culture, who works at the Reggia di Caserta.