Mahmood: "here's why I shot the video at the Egyptian Museum and what its meaning is"

A lengthy interview with Corriere della Sera to explain his relationship with art and the reasons for the video shot at the Egyptian Museum in Turin, directed by director Attilio Cusani: this is the one Mahmood gave yesterday to journalist Candida Morvillo, and in which there was also room for a defense of Chiara Ferragni ’s much-criticized sortie to the Uffizi. The young Italian-Egyptian singer, real name Alessandro Mahmoud, for the video clip of his new single Dorado, made together with Sfera Ebbasta and Feid, chose the Turin museum as the set for some scenes, where he is seen dancing shirtless in the Gallery of the Kings.

Mahmood, in choosing the Egyptian Museum, wanted to focus precisely on theimportance of knowing and recognizing one’s own culture and origins: he had never been to the Egyptian Museum, he confessed to Candida Morvillo, and he went there incognito together with the director to visit it and to see if it could be a suitable venue for the video. “I immediately breathed an air of a giant, huge story,” he said. “We had the idea to put in the display case not the most precious necklace, but my christening gift necklace, which has a pendant with Nefertiti’s head: it symbolizes that the real wealth is our origins, the culture we come from.” The message of the video, says Mahmood, is “that of a boy in his bedroom who dreams of a ’dorado’ world, finds himself surrounded by Egyptian statues, and realizes that the gold is not in material goods, but in the heritage of culture that constitutes our origin.”

The singer also talks about the relationship between young people and museums and tries to give an answer as to why young people attend museums little: “I think there is a lack of habit,” Mahmood argues. “I was lucky enough to have a mother who, from a very young age, made me visit all the most important ones. In Egypt, on the other hand, when I was eight years old at the Cairo Museum, I was fascinated by Tutankhamun’s gold, by the beauty of so many artifacts from thousands of years ago. So many times, growing up and looking at a work, I felt a gnawing in my stomach. I feel that outside, in the streets, in the squares, everything changes, but in those rooms, in certain paintings or sculptures, there is something greater that remains.”

There is also time to talk about Mahmood’sfavorite work, which is far from obvious: "The Death of Cleopatra painted by Jean-André Rixens in the mid-nineteenth century, which is in the museum in Toulouse. There is Cleopatra, in bed, killed by the snake, among the distraught servants. It’s a wonderful painting, I’ve kept it as a screenshot on my phone for a long time, but these are things you can’t be satisfied with looking at on a social: in person, they have another power."

Finally, in conclusion, the artist, as anticipated, defends the photo shoot taken by Chiara Ferragni at the Uffizi, as well as the “incriminated” photos of her with Botticelli’s Venus.

Mahmood: "here's why I shot the video at the Egyptian Museum and what its meaning is"

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