MISR brings together dozens of photographs that Karim Noureldin took in Cairo, where he stayed during an artist residency in 2008. Marked by the ubiquity of colour in the Egyptian capital’s streets, Noureldin captured many of the decorative paintings covering storefronts and garage shutters. Selected in blocks of 16 images, they present basic geometric shapes like triangles, circles or stripes on a solid background. The set highlights Noureldin’s penchant for abstract vocabulary, and continues the dialogue begun with his drawn work.

These photographs appeared in the publication MISR Karim Noureldin (2008)—a tribute to the anonymous painters of those urban interventions. Through the many snapshots he takes during his travels, the artist documents real places, thus assembling a large visual repertoire that his own pictorial work echoes.