Our path is what defines our existence, whether we are a migratory bird, a flowing stream or a planet in orbit. Artists and their artworks are no exception. Discovering the path is El Masar Gallery's true vocation. Angy Essam will walk with you down El Masar's artistic path. Contemporary Egyptian artists seem to be masters of cultural integration. Egypt has always been a fertile breeding ground for Modern and Contemporary Art, with a history that unfolds in cultural waves, producing a blend of poetic memory that has bred a vibrant art movement which is feeding into an increasingly promising art market. The art itself is in need of nothing more than a platform to display it, hence the founding of El Masar Gallery in 2008. Capitalizing on twenty years of experience in the curating and promoting of Modern and Contemporary Egyptian art, the well-known artist Waleed Abdulkhalek, founder of El Masar Gallery, has transformed a turn of the 20th Century space, into a unique exhibition venue. The gallery is located in the famous Behler's Mansion in the heart of the city, on Zamalek Island, a district that is well loved by Cairo's literati, it being home to a wealth of bookstores, theatres, fine Arts and music universities, the Opera House and the Cairo Library, not to mention the National Museum of Modern Art. ''In recognition of the importance of the flux of Modern, Contemporary and Conceptual Egyptian Art, El Masar Gallery is providing multifunctional exhibition spaces as a platform for Egypt's pioneering artists,'' said Abdelkhalek. El Masar Gallery is both the path and the trace, as a cultural nexus of exhibitions and documentation, to define the genuine value of modern, contemporary and conceptual Egyptian art. Abdelkhalek admitted that he had thought a great deal about the name of the gallery before deciding on it; he wanted to choose a name that reflected the Gallery's soul and goal. '' The great artists like Youssef Kamel, Ragheb Ayad and others who were the first generation to graduate from the faculty of fine arts in 1911, are the reference point for the Dawn of the Art Age. If we observe their history carefully, we shall find that the secret behind their greatness is that they decided to follow a path of their own choosing, whether it was the most popular path at the time or not. Their path ( El Masar), is what turned them into what they are and the secret behind each one's success, is the path he chose to follow,'' said Abdelkhalek. El Masar's main goal, as stated by Abdelkhalek, is to make people understand the various stages and generations of art. ''El Masar has cooperated with artists beginning with the landmark, third generation of the Egyptian modern art movement, followed soon after by the pioneers of the fourth generation, the innovators of the fifth and the talented and promising contemporary artists of the future,'' said Abdelkhalek. The differences between successive generations of artists were clearly apparent in all the exhibitions held by El Masar, from the start, to date. "El Masar's Premiere Exhibition ( Ouverture Exhibition), held in May 2008, displayed the works of the third generation of artists, the great, well-known artists Farouk Hosny, Adam Henein, Mounir Canaan and Taha Hussein.'' Abdelkhalek explained that each one of the four represents a different type of art. "The Ouverture Exhibition was followed by the Contemporary Views exhibition, which was about the art movement in general, for artists like Adel El Siwi, Ahmed Caraaly, Ahmed Sabry and Hazem Taha.'' Art lives forever and so do artists: they live after death. "With this fact in mind, El Masar held the Nostalgia Exhibition for 16 dead artists, representing Egyptian Art from 1930 to 1979. They included Ragheb Ayad, Ingy Efflatoun, Hussein Bikar, Mounir Canaan and Gamal El Segeeny," said Abdelkhalek. El Masar has paid great attention to Alexandrian artists like Mahmoud Abdallah, Al Ghoul Ali Ahmed and Mohammed Salem, holding a special exhibition for them under the title: Pharos of Art. '' After staging third generation exhibitions, we held exhibitions for the fourth and the fifth generations, entitled Contemporary Vibes, to include artists like Ayman El Semary, Hamdi Attia and Hazem Taha Hussein and Sabah Naeim.'' El Masar mixed the various generations of art and artists, whose works have lasted with us from the past and will stay with us through today and into the future, in the Contemporary Views II exhibition. They included figures like Mounir Canaan, Mahmoud Abdallah, Taha Hussein, Hazem Taha Hussein, George Bahgoury, Laila Ezzat, Medhat Shafik, Hany Rashed and Sameh Ismail. According to Abdelkhalek, "El Masar is biased in favour of art in general, whether it is the work of a well-known or an unknown artist, a professional or a beginner. What is important is the talent." Well known professional artists are important for art galleries whose main goal is making a profit. For El Masar, what is important is to present true art. That is why Abdelkhalek was enthusiastic about presenting the well-known talented young artist, Karim Al Qurity, when he was still a fresh graduate. ''The internationally renowned, Contemporary Egyptian Artist Karim Al Qurity, 28 years old, held his first solo exhibition, ( The Golden Calf), in El Masar; this exhibition was a metaphor for the 25th of January revolution.'' Art is all about representing the truth and reality through symbolism. '' The audience's role is to look at the artistic pieces and to read the messages hidden deep inside the colours and lines,'' said Abdelkhalek. Al Masar Gallery's latest exhibition is a solo one by the famous Artist Omar Al Nagdi, entitled: "Surrounding Memories". The exhibition showcases paintings depicting the artist's memories of his surroundings, which were stored in his subconscious. The memories of the surrounding scenes captured from his daily life, haunt him until the moment he walks into his studio to bring them out into tangible reality. Every painting is an expressive reflection of an incident that evoked his emotions enough, to make it to his consciousness through marvelous masterpieces. ''The best is yet to come in El Masar,'' said Abdelkhalek.
