How Art Cairo is expanding an appreciation for Arab art in Egypt

Art Cairo has returned to the Grand Egyptian Museum for the third time, but both the fair and its venue are markedly different this year. For one thing, the event has moved to a bigger location within the museum, just beyond the lobby. The statue of Ramesses II stands as a lofty usher, looming at a proud 11 meters by the stairs that lead up to the fair. The lobby is now also bustling with movement as the museum has recently begun welcoming visitors ahead of its official opening, a date for which has yet to be set. The space is a moving overture to the fair, bringing to mind thousands of years of Egyptian history ahead of an impressive display of contemporary artworks. “We moved to a bigger and more spacious place within the museum,” Mohamed Younis, founder and managing director of Art Cairo, says. “We wanted to integrate the old Egyptian artefacts with the modern and contemporary works.” Egyptian antiquities are not far removed from the works in the fair’s opening space. Egyptian modernist painter Samir Rafi has an entire booth dedicated to his works. Several of the paintings show the late artist’s penchant for figurative and surreal works. A pair, which particularly stand out, depict mummies with a modernist flair. The Rebellious Mummy and The Satisfied Mummy were both painted in 1958 and take a cubist approach to portraying mummies with a rich ochre and crimson palette. Syrian artist Nizar Sabour is presenting a series of works dubbed Egyptian Sarcophagi . The paintings depict famous Egyptian cultural figures, from Youssef Chahine and Naguib Mahfouz to Faten Hamama and Umm Kulthum , as well as other Arab talents, such as Fairuz and Mahmoud Darwish . The works are painted long and narrow panels, alluding to the form of sarcophagi. They take cues from ancient Egyptian motifs as much as they do from Coptic iconography. Sabour was also commissioned to create a painting that reflected upon the fair’s theme: Peace to All Nations. The work, displayed by the entrance to the fair, depicts a flock of doves and other birds flying above a grove of olive trees. The Museum of Modern Egyptian Art has also set up a significant display of artworks in the opening space. Most of these are being displayed outside the museum for the first time. The works are all by female Egyptian artists who are considered pioneers of the country’s modern art movement. These include Tahia Halim, Inji Aflatoun, Zeinab Abdel Hamid and Naima Shishini. “We agreed with the Ministry of Culture to bring museum works from the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art,” Younis says. “In the history of Egypt, it has never happened that works come out from the ministry to be exhibited in the private sector, so it’s quite significant.” Building bridges is a central focus of the fair, Younis says, and it has been since the event’s inception in 2020, when it was called Egypt International Art Fair. “We're a country with rich history and civilisation,” he says. “The fact that we didn’t have an art fair was upsetting. We’ve been getting bigger every year, and this year, we have the largest number of participants.” The fair has been steadily expanding to include galleries from more countries across the region. Palestinian, Iraqi and Bahraini galleries are participating from the first time this year, there are also institutions from as far as the Netherlands and France taking part. However, even in the European booths, Arab art is the focus. This gradual expansion, Younis says, has led to an international understanding and appreciation of local tastes. “The galleries taking part are no longer the same as they were a few years ago,” he says. “At first, they were still testing the Egyptian palette, to see what collectors like and what they don’t. Now they are much more confident. Gallerists are much more discerning in their choices, and the selections are highly focused.” This growth is also reflecting back on the arts scene in Egypt, Noor Al Askar, project manager of Art Cairo, says. “Egypt, for some time since the revolution and the pandemic, has been insular artistically. Egyptians, for the most part, were only exposed to Egyptian artworks,” she says. “Of course, that was quite gratifying in itself because there is a lot to see, from modern to works by the young generation, who are brilliant. But we're trying as much as we can to expand to more countries to enrich the scene further.” Art Cairo, she says, is curated with that ethos, aimed as much to collectors as to casual visitors. “People don’t not go to exhibitions as much as they go to fairs,” Al Askar says. “Fairs are an experience. This is my fifth year with Art Cairo, and I see the calibre of collectors are increasing, and their tastes are also broadening. One prominent Egyptian collector told me today that he was focused on local artworks, but this edition of the fair made him realise that artworks from Iraq, Syria and other countries are also worth investing in.” Instilling an appreciation of art from both Egypt and the wider Middle East is also an aim for the fair’s talks programmed, dubbed Hiwar, or dialogue in Arabic. In one panel, Syrian artists Sabour and Khaled AlKhani will join Egyptian creatives Ali Said and Khaled Zaki to discuss how Arab artists are merging their cultural identities with global trends and redefining the region’s contemporary art in the process. Another talk will feature art historians Valerie Didier, and Hussam Rashwan as they discuss the importance of documenting, authenticating and preserving modern Arab artworks.

How Art Cairo is expanding an appreciation for Arab art in Egypt

The fair is running at the Grand Egyptian Museum until Tuesday