In mid-February, Mori Art Museum Associate Curator Kenichi Kondo noticed an article on the Nafas website, which specializes in art news from the Middle East. Egyptian media artist Ahmed Basiony, it said, had gone to Tahrir Square in Cairo to join the protests against president Hosni Mubarak. He had been shot and killed.
"We had met Basiony in December," Kondo said. "We didn't know of him before we got to Cairo, but we were introduced by another artist and he came to show us his portfolio."
Kondo had gone to Cairo with the director of Mori Art Museum, Fumio Nanjo, to conduct research for an exhibition of art from the Arab world that will be held at their museum from June through October next year. He explained that Basiony created media-enhanced performance works, such as one in which he wore a large, sealed plastic suit and ran on the spot with an accompanying video that was generated automatically from the pace of his heart rate.
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