A smiling portrait of Charlie Chaplin, a satirical drawing of the Ottoman Empire leaving the Middle East to the Europeans and a cartoon featuring King Fouad (r. 1922-36) occupy the walls of the Ubuntu Art Gallery in Cairo, a snippet of the array of topics covered by Egyptian cartoonists over more than a century. Ubuntu has chosen to end the decade on a funny note with “Caricature,” an exhibition of 220 cartoons by 78 Egyptian artists.

“I wanted to celebrate Egyptian caricature at a time when cartoonists are having a hard time finding jobs,” said Samir Abdelghany, who curated the exhibit and is a cartoonist himself. 

Abdelgahny told Al-Monitor that he had wanted to pay homage to the cartoonists who operate along a thin line, both economically and politically. Few can find jobs outside daily newspapers, and even fewer are lucky enough to escape censorship by the state or by their own media outlets. “All of the contemporary cartoonists in this exhibition agree on one thing: We are battling for survival,” Abdelgahny said.

The framed sketches hanging on the walls of the two-story gallery bring together works by younger generations of cartoonists and those produced by their forebearers, who mocked the Ottoman Empire and subsequent colonizers more than a century ago.