The "Notebooks of Absence" exhibition by artist Mamdouh El-Qassifi opens at the Mokhtar Museum tomorrow, Thursday.

Under the patronage of Dr. Gihan Zaki, Minister of Culture, Dr. Mahmoud Hamed, Head of the Fine Arts Sector, will inaugurate the "Notebooks of Absence" exhibition by artist Mamdouh El-Qassifi at 6:00 PM tomorrow, Thursday, May 14, 2026, in the Nahdet Misr Hall at the Mahmoud Mokhtar Cultural Center.

In a statement about the highly anticipated exhibition, titled "Mamdouh El-Qassifi... and His Secret Code," Dr. Salah El-Melihi, former Head of the Fine Arts Sector, said: "This rich tapestry of diverse elements flows smoothly from the subconscious, like beads of a rosary falling from the fingers of a rememberer. In their diversity, they are everyday scenes from a dreamy memory, blending the rational and the irrational, or rather, scenes that exist between wakefulness and dream, combining realism, symbolism, and myth." He added: "So you find them scattered among masks and faces of musicians, men and women, fish, cats, wheels, and old, locked gates in an ancient neighborhood, and small plants sprouting on the walls of a face that makes a house, and scenes of an Egyptian alleyway, cafes, locks and keys, and bottles inhabited by figures who don't seek a way out, who have taken the bottle as a protective shield like a turtle's shell or a snail's home crawling in the night, and lovers dwelling in a matchbox like matchsticks waiting to be lit, and others dozing in a dish like a feast about to be eaten, and faces of paper dolls inscribed with verses from an ancient text, a secret code of a private language, not without humor and irony, inviting you to its company."

The "Notebooks of Absence" exhibition is scheduled to continue until May 24th.