Currently exhibited at the Zamalek Art Gallery is Masterpieces X, a collective show featuring some of Egypt’s finest artists including Farghali Abdel Hafi, Gazbia Sirry, George Fikry, and Zeinab Al Sageny.

This exhibition marks a decade of “Masterpieces” exhibitions held by the high-end space to showcase Egyptian modern painting and sculpture. A stroll through the pristine gallery, sprinkled with the works of seasoned artists, gives you a glimpse into the past decade’s highlights.

But this year’s collection does little to reflect contemporary trends in the Egyptian art scene. It displays the artworks of masters in their field, but it neglects key elements in today’s artistic panorama: political content, citizen engagement, and young art.

For there is no doubt that the 25 January revolution has transformed the practice of art, perhaps for good. Art was used as a tool with which to reflect on current events and react to frustrations with the political transition. Artists joined amateurs and painted on street walls, graffiti flowered, and galleries invited younger artists who were exploring alternative forms of expression.

While Masterpieces X provides a valuable insight into the country’s modern art landscape at large, it fails to the capture the full extent of the changes brought about by the popular uprising of 2011.

This year’s summer exhibition skillfully blends paintings with sculpture, which makes the experience all the more enriching. You are greeted at the door by Mostafa Abdel Moity's colourful composition. The artist uses a bright palette and a variety of shapes to create maps that aim to reveal the workings of the universe. Abdel Moity believes that art is the only salvation for mankind; without it humans would merely live, rather than truly exist.

Zeinab Al Sageny then brings into the gallery a world of her own creation, where curly-haired, wide-eyed women exist in the utmost serenity. A number of sculptures are scattered all across, transforming the experience into a three-dimensional promenade.

You recognize the paintings on the wall from Zamalek Art Gallery’s previous solo exhibitions; for instance, Gazbia Sirry's unhindered, childlike works reappear on the ivory walls, back from “Time and Place”, to induce in the same space the same sense of hope.

You smile as you catch sight of Farghali Abdel Hafiz’s larger-than-life painting of fishing boats inhabited by jubilant children, which takes up an entire wall and emerges as a window onto the sea. Fishing is a prominent theme in modern Egyptian art; Rabab Nemr’s masterful pen drawings of a fisherwoman embraced by a fisherman appear as if they were stills from a movie.

One of the most interesting artists featured in this show is Sameh Ismail, 38. He shows two paintings that carry the spirit of young art; infusing calligraphy with graffiti-like inscriptions, Ismail creates fluid, reeling canvases. What resembles a highly stylized version of street art is refreshingly familiar. It is closer to the pulse of Egypt’s streets than any other painting in the show.

One of his paintings shows scribbles of an order of tea, shisha, and lemonade, followed by the political demand “the constitution first”. The scribbles appear as an afterthought against a background of calligraphy and color, but they bring it to life.

The exhibition manages to combine a range of styles by artists with different backgrounds. To provide a more accurate chronicle of the year’s art, however, it should have invited a greater number of young artists like Ismail to demonstrate the revolutionary spirit.

The exhibition runs until the end of September at the Zamalek Art Gallery, 11 Brazil Street, Zamalek, Cairo
Ramadan Hours: 11:00-2:30 pm and 9:30-11:00pm