In September of next year, the Alexandria Biennale will return with its 27th edition, curated by artist Moataz Nasr. “This Too Shall Pass,” Nasr told The Art Newspaper, will bring together the work of fifty-five artists from the Mediterranean basin in its main program. Alongside that program, capsule exhibitions in Alexandria museums will spotlight emerging Egyptian talent, signaling both a revival of the biennale’s historic legacy and an investment in the city’s cultural future.
The biennale was last held in Alexandria in 2014, when it briefly relaunched after being suspended in 2011 due to Egypt’s precarious political situation and financial pressures. Unlike earlier editions, which were entirely state-funded, this revival is backed by a public-private partnership—one of the few viable models as institutions worldwide grapple with shrinking public support. The organizing committee includes officials from Egypt’s Ministry of Culture alongside private patrons active on the international art scene, such as Mai Eldib, Ahmed Shaboury, Hisham El-Khazindar, Rasheed Kamel and architect Omniya Abdel Barr.
First launched in 1955 under the patronage of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Alexandria Biennale is among the oldest in Africa and the third oldest in the world, following Venice and São Paulo. Conceived as a platform for dialogue among Mediterranean countries and beyond, the biennale once reinforced Alexandria’s standing as a cultural center—a legacy reaching back to ancient Egypt and the classical world, when the city’s monumental library was said to hold all the world’s books.
Alexandria’s cultural prominence began soon after its founding by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE and flourished under the Ptolemaic dynasty (305-30 BCE), later becoming the second-largest city of the Roman Empire. Situated on the Mediterranean and populated by Greeks, Egyptians, Jews and other communities, it became a crossroads of knowledge, trade and artistic production. At its peak, Alexandria was a hub for preserving and circulating Greek philosophy, drama, poetry and science. Ships docking in the port were famously required to surrender manuscripts, which were copied—the originals were kept in the Library, which had the largest collection of Greek works in antiquity. Alongside the Library, the Mouseion served as a center for knowledge creation, hosting scholars such as Zenodotus of Ephesus, Callimachus and Aristarchus of Samothrace, who produced critical editions of Greek texts. Their work shaped the contextualization of these writings and became pillars of Western civilization.
In recent years, Alexandria, like Cairo, has suffered from cultural drain, further aggravated by the pandemic. Nasr, born in Alexandria but long based in Cairo, remains one of Egypt’s leading contemporary artists and an active cultural organizer.
His work has been widely exhibited at biennials, including Venice in 2017 (where he represented Egypt with his immersive video installation The Mountain), Dakar and Sharjah, and it is held in major institutions such as the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the British Museum. In 2008, he founded Darb 1718, a contemporary art and culture center in Cairo’s Old Fustat neighborhood, which became a vital hub for exhibitions, residencies, performances and education until its demolition in 2024 to make way for a highway. In recent years, he has curated three editions of “Something Else,” Cairo’s off-biennial.
In 2009, another Alexandria-born artist, Wael Shawky, won the biennale’s Grand Prize. Shawky has since represented Egypt at the 2024 Venice Biennale with Drama 1882, a multi-part opera filmed in a historic theater in Alexandria that has toured internationally, including a recent presentation at MOCA Los Angeles. He was also recently appointed artistic director of the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, launching in Doha in February 2026.
Reviving Egypt’s art scene
The relaunch of this historic biennale reflects broader efforts to revitalize Egypt’s cultural institutions and re-establish its role as a hub for Mediterranean and African art. Among the most anticipated initiatives is the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), near the Giza Pyramids, heralded as marking “a new chapter in Egypt’s ancient story” with a striking new home for more than 100,000 artifacts, including the complete Tutankhamun collection.
Designed as an immersive and experiential museum dedicated to Egyptian civilization, the GEM has been in a trial phase since October 2024. Its soft launch gave visitors access to the main galleries, the Grand Staircase, select exhibits and cafes, while major highlights such as the Tutankhamun collection and the Khufu solar boats remained closed. July 3, 2025 was originally announced as the official opening date, but on June 14, 2025, Egypt’s prime minister confirmed that the full opening would be postponed to the fourth quarter of 2025—most likely November—due to escalating regional tensions, particularly the conflict between Israel and Iran. No new official opening date has been announced.
Meanwhile, other initiatives have sought to re-energize interest in the country’s cultural heritage. Since 2019, “Forever Is Now” has staged contemporary art at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Pyramids of Giza, placing new works in dialogue with 4,500 years of history. The 2024 edition included works by Chris Levine (U.K.), Federica Di Carlo (Italy), Jake Michael Singer (South Africa), Jean Boghossian (Belgium/Lebanon), Jean-Marie Appriou (France), Khaled Zaki (Egypt) and Luca Boffi (Italy). The exhibition was organized by Nadine Abdel Ghaffar, founder of CulturVator|Art D’Égypte, a multidisciplinary cultural consultancy that activates spaces for cultural promotion and builds partnerships to strengthen Egypt’s presence on the international stage.
Initiatives such as “Forever Is Now” show how ancient heritage can be reconnected with contemporary creativity, supporting not only the recovery of Egypt’s cultural sector but also its international appeal, which has been hampered by political instability and regional tensions. Whether the Alexandria Biennale will succeed in drawing the international art world back to Egypt—while encouraging a rediscovery of the country’s heritage, its history and its complex present—remains to be seen. In line with its cultural commitments, Egypt ratified UNESCO’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2007, aiming to safeguard cultural diversity and foster an environment in which cultures can flourish and interact freely.
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