Abdel Kerim was shapeshifter of meanings and materials, yet he also gave form to even the voids between life and death, ruin and resurrection, memory and myth. In doing so, he was not simply one of the pioneers of Egyptian modernism; he was arguably the chief architect who forged it.
Safarkhan is honored to pay homage to the legacy of Egypt’s most versatile Modernist, Salah Abdel Kerim (1925-1988), on the centennial of his birth from November 19 to December 10 with an exquisite collection of artworks and personal articles, supplemented by a trove of special allocations for this event from the private collections of Safarkhan and the heirs to his estate. In many respects, Abdel Kerim hybridized the notion of an artist in the traditional sense, encompassing veritable roles of; painter, interior designer, muralist, ceramicist, sculptor, mosaicist, scenographer, caricaturist, graphic designer, academic and ultimately philosopher of art and design. As such, he has been posthumously recognized as a force of transformation and transcendence in the visual language of modern Egypt, and in Safarkhan’s estimation, the nation’s most versatile ever Modernist. Abdel Kerim nobly believed Egyptian modernism needed to transcend both Eurocentric mimicry and nationalist nostalgia — it needed to speak in an original, personalized and ingenious language, and he lived that example with aplomb. In 2015, Safarkhan founder Sherwet Shafei on the eve of a retrospective dedicated to the master, the last solo exhibition hosted for the artist at the gallery, remarked on the significance of his versatility as an artist; “The multifaceted art of Abdel Kerim is partly characterised and informed by the wondrous fusion between Oriental and Western culture and art.”
Abdel Kerim’s painting simultaneously embodies qualities of geometric, cubist, expressionist, surrealist, figurative and abstract genres, marrying them together with a sensational touch of genius. His painting is charged with a certain vitality, symbolic tension, and effusiveness communicated through a masterful anatomical expertise, and a sublime palette, which quickly garnered international recognition. But it was in sculpture that he would find his most radical voice, his ultimate calling and his most supreme talent of all his myriad specialities. Working with a variety of scrap metal, he developed a self-described technique he called “sculpting from emptiness.” Rather than chiseling or modeling from a preconceived block, he built forms from the inside outward, allowing air, light, and negative space to inform the sculpture's dynamic presence. Despite being repeatedly commissioned for various national monuments, he maintained: “I do not believe in the creation of a ‘national’ art… Sculpture must accept these changes. I no longer work the block starting from the surface: I start from the interior, working outwards to the exterior.” Abdel Kerim’s sculptures were not merely assemblages — they were resurrections. Each piece carried the tension between decay and dignity, between feral wildness and inner peace. Abdel Kerim’s works were thus confrontational to the viewer, forcing introspection and a grappling with the philosophical quandaries he explored through his art.
Abdel Kerim's journey traces the evolution of an artist in dialogue with time, material, and identity. He fascinatingly reimagined ancient Egyptian artforms — which he always remained influenced by and reverent of — through the eyes of modern existentialism. Where Pharaonic art celebrated divine perfection, Abdel Kerim’s art eschewed this whilst retaining its mastery of proportion and form, and instead explored humanity’s imperfection, which was the anatomy and reality of the lived human experience. In doing so, he cultivated an unparalleled interpretation and practice of modern Egyptian art unmoored from mimicry and tethered instead to universal human expression. Abdel Kerim’s subsequent legacy now ceaselessly pulses through Egypt’s artistic landscape. His sculptures continue to muse in metallic tones about beauty, survival, the duality of man, and the strange holiness of beasts. Salah Abdel Kerim was not just a creator of forms — he was an architect of cultural identity, shaping how modern Egypt saw itself through art that bends and often breaks — traditional expectations. His works remain both structural and spiritual, paradoxically grounded in the physicality and permanence of the metal he so adeptly manipulated, and the ephemeral nature of the human experience. In the history of 20th-century Egyptian art, Salah Abdel Kerim remains singular, and his art personifies the mantra of Safarkhan founder Sherwet Shafei that ‘the power of art transcends.’ Abdel Kerim was shapeshifter of meanings and materials, yet he also gave form to even the voids between life and death, ruin and resurrection, memory and myth. In doing so, he was not simply one of the pioneers of Egyptian modernism; he was arguably the chief architect who forged it.
