Le Lab expands their horizons globally with exhibitions around the world from Europe to America, and back to Africa.
Le Lab, founded by Rasheed Kamel redefines the way in which collectible design is interpreted in our region today, building bridges between art, architecture, and design.
Under the direction of Kamel, one of the most renowned collectors of art and design in Egypt and the Middle East, Le Lab has curated and organized three highly successful exhibitions taking place in some of the most prestigious galleries and museums around the world, including “Awakenings” at the Salon in New York, “Out of the Ordinary” in Brussels, and “Art Egypt” in Cairo.
Each exhibition featured carefully selected pieces that showcase the unique vision of Le Lab and its commitment to pushing the boundaries of contemporary design.
Le Lab’s “Awakenings” showcased the talent of all Middle Eastern designers including Khaled Zaki, Omar Chakil, Tessa and Tara Sakhi, Richard Yasmine, Mostafa Abdel-Moity, Basim Magdy, and Mohamed Fares.
It displayed an irregular merge of ancient methods, materials, and techniques with modern ones, creating universal and futuristic designs. Le Lab was able to leave a notable impact at the NY Exhibition due to Egypt’s emergence as an insider in the design world.
Each of the designers’ pieces strongly reflected their journey, making room for the audience to experience both individuality and solidarity.
As for the “Out of the Ordinary” exhibition, Le Lab took us to The Boghossian Foundation, the heart of Brussels’ creative life.
The fair presented an introductory voyage to the core of a demanding selection of more than a hundred modern and contemporary artists in a confidential and exclusive format, in addition to a distinctive selection of contemporary design from the MENA region.
The latter depicted a selection of recent works by Bahaa Amer and Omar Chakil, which when put together created a world of ethereal fantasies and reveries.
Amer’s creations are characterized by unorthodox compositions and what has been called a “metaphysical” graphic language mixing human and animal figuration.
Whilst Chakil‘s works included several pieces in his signature style fashioned of Egyptian alabaster, such as a stool, table lamp, centerpiece, and receptacle.
Le Lab finally brought us back to “Art Cairo” in collaboration with Gypsum. The exhibition represented 11 artists living and working between the Middle East, Europe and the United States, whose rigorous and singular art practices vary in medium and form.
The artists involved in this exhibition include Taha Belal who participated with Series of Vertical Whitener, Extruder, Tractor China and Office Boy Rolex Drum Sieve; Nada Baraka who contributed with Whirlwind, Spears and Goggles, and Noturnal Fate.
Khaled Zaki who presented Naqada Wild inspired by the sheer wonders of the native fauna of our region. Cherif Morsi exhibited Memnon that focuses on how the beauty of old can only manifest through time.
Driven by Rasheed Kamel’s cultural heritage, whether “Awakenings”, “Out of the Ordinary” or “Art of Cairo”, Le Lab invited us to witness and join their journey of art, creativity and design, promoting exceptionally inspirational designers. Assembling these diverse talents empowered a platform that
showcased what the contemporary Egyptian and Middle Eastern design scene has to offer, and because the sky is the limit, Le Lab constantly pursues its vision regionally and globally, which is to tell the story of our historic past, tales of major societal events and re-explore the way they are perceived.
About The Founder and Artists/Designers
RASHEED KAMEL
Founder of Le LAB
Rasheed Kamel is considered one of the leading collectors of art and collectible design in Egypt and the Middle East.
His collection, housed at his private residences in Cairo and London, is a diverse assemblage of modern and contemporary art including 18th- and 19th-century-designed furniture, in addition to highly sought-after antiques which he acquired over the past 20 years.
The common thread running through all his pieces is one of character and curiosity; each piece tells a story, asks a question, or piques an interest.
Kamel’s latest endeavor in the world of art and design is Le LAB, the first collectible design gallery in Egypt.
Kamel‘s mission for Le LAB is twofold: to introduce the Egyptian public to collectible design by inviting esteemed regional and international artists and designers to exhibit at the gallery and to provide opportunities for regional talents on the international stage.
His drive and passion have been instrumental in making Le LAB a highly regarded destination for collectible design in a very short period.
Rasheed grew up in Egypt entrenched in a rich culture of art with myriad influences, from the ancient Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine, and Islamic traditions to the more recent British and French colonial cultures.
Whether he was in the greatest cities of Egypt or the smallest villages, Rasheed’s creative sensitivity and sharp eye allowed him to appreciate the impact of these various cultures on the art and design of the area.
His observations and understanding of this world were further strengthened once he left Egypt for higher education, allowing him to view of the region from an international perspective and kindling a determination to support regional and Egyptian artists, designers, and craftsmen and create a base from which future creativity can thrive.
Kamel is also a practicing lawyer, and senior partner at Al Kamel Law, a Legal 500 leading firm where he heads the M&A, banking, and finance divisions, and is listed in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame for commercial and corporate infrastructure practice.
He served on the Tate Modern Middle East and North Africa Acquisitions Committee (MENAAC), on the board of trustees for the fourth edition of the Egypt INT’L Art Fair, and on the advisory board of Art D’Égypte, one of the region’s foremost international art exhibitions.
KHALED ZAKI
Artist/Designer
Khaled Zaki is an international artist born in Egypt known for his accomplished sculptures and installations.
His work draws upon sources ranging from ancient Egyptian statuary and Italian renaissance sculpture to Egyptian modernism.
He holds a master’s degree in restoration from the Faculty of Archaeology at Cairo University and studied sculpture at the al-Khonany Museum of Art in Giza.
Zaki followed his university education with an extended stay (1988–1997) in Pietrasanta, a medieval town on the coast of northern Tuscany known as the “City of Artists,” where he became the first foreign winner of the Pietrasanta – Strettoia Painting Prize Painting Prize in 1989.
Zaki seeks to bring together these two great traditions, Egyptian and Italian, in his sculpture.
In 2000, he won a competition for the design and execution of a monumental sculpture in al-Galaa Square, Cairo.
His first solo exhibition in Egypt was held at the Gezirah Art Center, Cairo (2002), and he subsequently exhibited at Safar Khan, Cairo (2002), Gallery Misr, Cairo (2014), and Heist, London (2015.)
His work has been included in numerous global exhibitions and biennales, including the Egyptian commission for the 55th International Venice Biennale (2013); and Barry Freidman at The Salon: Art + Design, New York (2013) alongside renowned designer Wendell Castle.
He received the International Artist prize from Art Taipei, Taiwan (2015), displayed “The Lost Treasure” at the 7th Beijing International Biennale (2017), and participated in Biennale de Dakar (2022) where he was also appointed jury member.
In 2018, with his new series “Resurrection,” Zaki brought his considerable skill as a sculptor to bear on the recent events of the Egyptian revolutions.
In 2018, he held his retrospective exhibition “The Return” at Ubuntu Art Gallery, Cairo, where he also held “Resurrection 2: Among People” in 2021.
He showcased “The Journey” at Tabari Art Space in Dubai (2022) following two successful shows there, “In the Wind of January” (2014) and “Hymns of Gold” (2016).
He launched his first design piece, “The Wave,” a wooden sculptural piece where function, art, and architecture meet, in collaboration with Le LAB at Dubai Design Week (2021). In 2022, Le LAB showcased “The Wave” at NOMAD St Moritz together with an array of Zaki’s artwork in collaboration with UBUNTU art gallery. Zaki’s works can be found at the British Museum, London; the Egyptian Museum for Modern Art, Cairo; the Egyptian Museum for Modern Sculpture, Aswan; and in private collections around the world.
OMAR CHAKIL
Designer/Artist
Omar Chakil is a French Egyptian Lebanese former singer/songwriter, creative consultant, interior designer, product designer, and artist.
He briefly studied design at Milan’s DOMUS academy but defines himself as a “self-taught” natural aesthete who tries to bridge a variety of cultural gaps through his creative practice.
After decorating private homes around the globe for nearly two decades, Chakil started experimenting with limited-edition objects and furniture.
His first series, exclusively made from raw Egyptian alabaster blocks, sold out at Over the Counter Gallery during Beirut’s 2018 Design Week and traveled with similar success to France, the KSA, Italy, and the USA. His work has been increasingly solicited by architects and galleries around the globe ever since.
Known for introducing the concept of collectible design to Egypt, one of his homelands, Chakil is regularly associated with Egyptian alabaster which he often but not exclusively chooses as his medium of expression.
His pieces have been featured in numerous exhibitions around the globe including Dubai Expo 2020; prestigious French auction house Piasa; Parisian gallery Boon; traveling collectible fair Nomad; Athens Carwan; and Le LAB in Cairo. In 2022, Architectural Digest selected Chakil in their referential AD50 list for the Middle East’s brightest talents in architecture and design.
TESSA & TARA SAKHI
Designers
T SAKHI is a multidisciplinary architecture and design studio co-founded in 2016 by Lebanese-Polish sisters Tessa and Tara Sakhi and based in Venice and Beirut.
In an increasingly fast-paced world, the sisters place social interaction at the core of their practice and question our contemporary understandings of identity and living whilst drawing from cultural heritage.
They design both permanent and ephemeral spaces and objects, evoking emotional and physical experiences by incorporating senses and memory.
Their work also focuses on sustainability by recuperating waste materials and recycling them to achieve new textures, shapes, and forms.
Their synergetic projects are diverse and range from small-scale architecture, urban public installations, commercial and residential interior design, and collectible objects.
Despite their versatile talents and contrasting affinities, the sisters combine their duality to create a hybrid occidental-oriental inspiration, and collaborate with creatives from diverse cultures, provoking a dialogue and exchange that encourages craftsmanship and innovation.
Their work has been exhibited in Beirut, Venice, Paris, Milan, London, and Dubai. They have also donated works to support several NGOs to provide scholarships for architecture students and fund relief efforts for the reconstruction of Beirut, among other causes.
Their first solo-exhibition, “I Hear You Tremble,” held in
collaboration with Le LAB, previewed their new Murano vessels collection “Jurat” in Chiesa di San Gallo in Venice for the Italian and Venice Glass Weeks in September 2022 and won the Recognition Prize from Fondazione di Venezia.
For two consecutive years in 2020 and 2021, they were selected in the AD50 list of the brightest architects and designers in the Middle East, amongst other nominations in China, Milan, and Berlin.
RICHARD YASMINE
Designer/Artist
Richard Yasmine is a Lebanese interior architect and product designer who uses his imaginary world as a simulation to try out new ideas and create new objects inspired by life, emotions, and the physiology and needs of the human body, but he also focuses on internal chaos combined with a certain innate sensitivity—sometimes extreme, provocative, or unexpected but still minimal, bold, and straightforward.
He integrates Middle Eastern, and specifically Lebanese, knowhow and spirit within each of his products by collaborating with craftsmen and searching to marry tradition and technology while maintaining his signature identity of commotion mixed with sobriety and a touch of fantasy.
He has showcased his work at La Biennale de St Etienne, Paris Design Week (2015, 2018); Milan Design Week (2016–2022); Milan Design City (2020, 2021); Zona Maco Mexico City (2019); Shanghai (2020); Beirut Artfair (2015, 2016); and Design Junction during the London design festival (2017); among others. His designs have been featured extensively in international magazines and media platforms such as Wallpaper*, Architectural Digest, and Highsnobiety. In 2017, he was selected by Esquire MIDDLE EAST among six designers worth knowing and was nominated for the emerging designer of the year by Dezeen 2018, among many other accolades. In 2018, he was commissioned to create “Ô-CULT The Water Sanctuary” by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was curated by la Triennale di Milano design museum.
In 2020, “Wake Up Call” was selected to be part of the permanent exhibition of the MUDAC Museum in Lausanne, and in 2020, his “After Ago” collection went viral and inspired major fashion brands.
This collection was followed by “Flowing Fragments,” “Size Matters,” and “Il Viso Del Mondo.” In 2021, Yasmine was named on the AD50 list for the Middle East and in DWELL 24.
MOSTAFA ABDEL-MOITY
Artist
In Collaboration with Zamalek Art Gallery
Mostafa Abdel Moity was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1938 and received his degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Alexandria (Department of Painting) in 1962. He immediately began teaching as a faculty member at the academy and has continued ever since. Of his many impressive posts, perhaps his most prominent were vice president of the World Congress of Contemporary Art in Venice in 1985 and the head of the Egyptian Academy in Rome in 1988.
Mostafa Abdel Moity’s early works had touches of the figurative and the recognizable, with his style developing and evolving into distinctly abstracted paintings and sculptures characterized by aggressive bold lines and blocks of vibrant color underlined by the expert use of shade and light that give depth and meaning to his canvases. Circles and triangles are used extensively in his work, together with other geometrical patterns, evoking notions of outer space and infinity.
BASIM MAGDY
Artist
In Collaboration with Gypsum Gallery
Basim Magdy is an Egyptian artist born in Assiut who uses fictitious pasts and dystopic futures to put forward a critical commentary on the present. Magdy has shown his work in solo exhibitions at many prestigious museums around the world including MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MAXXI National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome; Jeu de Paume, Paris; and Mathaf: Museum of Modern Arab Art, Doha; among many others. His work has also been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Castello di Rivoli, Torino; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and Whitechapel Gallery, London; among others; and has featured in the New Museum Triennial, New York; La Biennale de Montreal, Montreal; Seoul Mediacity Biennale; 13th Istanbul Biennale; Sharjah Biennales 11 and 13; and La Triennale: Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.
Magdy was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize, Kiev (2012) and was awarded the Abraaj Art Prize, Dubai (2014); New:Vision Award, CPH:DOX Film Festival, Copenhagen (2014); and the Experimental Award, Curtas Vila do Conde–International Film Festival, Portugal (2015). He was also selected as Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year (2016).
His work features in the collections of MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim, New York; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art and the MoCP Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, as well as the Centre Pompidou and Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris; the Deutsche Bank Collection; Sharjah Art Foundation; Mathaf: Museum of Modern Arab Art, Doha; and ARTER, Istanbul, among others. He lives and works in Basel, Switzerland.
MOHAMED FARES
Designer/Artist
Mohamed Fares is an indelible part of Egypt’s creative zeitgeist. Highlights of his career trajectory include his current position as Chief Designer of Alchemy Design Studio and CEO of Alchemy Architecture.
In 2008, he represented Egypt at the International Young Design Entrepreneur (IYDE) Awards held in London.
As a thought leader in design, his history extends beyond the numerous commercial and residential projects he has executed and into the realm of everyday life.
Fares’ creative fingerprint can be seen in his own line of eyewear, as well as in his photography projects and his musical interests.
His finesse in storytelling and his eye for captivating visuals are on clear display in his work as an auteur, and he has occupied the director’s chair on several projects.
Fares gives each project under his purview clarity and intent, focused through the lens of his mind’s eye, and always presents a unique and layered narrative.
The results are, in equal measure, surprising and delightful. His iPhone Series is an ongoing and dynamically evolving project that is all about spontaneous moments captured by iPhone and presented with a series of captions that express life through the artist’s eyes.
For Fares, this series is all about appreciating the randomness of the journey and the beauty that lies within unexpected encounters. He lives and works in Cairo, Egypt.