19th Century Austrian Qahwa Painting Comes to Life in Cairo’s Downtown

'Ahwa mazbout, law samaht!' is the baladi chic art installation Cairene ahwa-goers have to look forward to. If you’re no stranger to shisha qass and Turkish coffee by the curbside, it's unlikely you’ll find an art show that will hit any closer to home. 

The installation is a re-enactment of a 19th century Austrian painting of a traditional Cairo coffeehouse, ‘The Chess Game’ (1896) by Ludwig Deutsch. By recreating the environment depicted in the painting in real life, the project is meant to merge Egyptian and Austrian cafe elements at the hands of Mexican artist Oscar Cueto (we're getting real cosmopolitan here). The installation aims to explore how coffeehouses impact the intellectual and cultural life of both Austrians and Egyptians— and whatever you think of the Austrians, we can all agree that watching football games wouldn’t be nearly as fun without them.

Hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum in Downtown Cairo, the installation will run from March 11th to March 18th in Vienna Cafe in Downtown Cairo, and is in collaboration with philomena+ art & architecture platform. Seeing Egypt’s favourite weekend pastime of hanging around cafes like this, we have to admit that some art will always stay timeless.