عفكرة، المعرض الفني اليوم.

Yes. عفكرة is a colloquial Levantine way of saying على فكرة.

It means by the way, just so you know, or sometimes oh, and one more thing.

In fast everyday speech, على often gets reduced to عَ, so على فكرة becomes عَفِكرة / عفكرة. In more careful or formal writing, you are more likely to see على فكرة written as two words.

Because in Arabic, especially in the present tense, the verb to be is usually omitted.

So:

• المعرض الفني اليوم literally looks like the art exhibition today but it means the art exhibition is today

This is a very normal Arabic structure, called a nominal sentence.

If you wanted past or future, then Arabic would usually use a verb, for example:

• المعرض الفني كان مبارح = the art exhibition was yesterday
• المعرض الفني رح يكون بكرا = the art exhibition will be tomorrow

A natural breakdown is:

• عفكرة = by the way
• المعرض = the exhibition
• الفني = artistic / art-related
• اليوم = today

So literally, it is something like:

• By the way, the art exhibition today

And naturally in English:

• By the way, the art exhibition is today

Because in Arabic, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe.

So:

• المعرض الفني = the art exhibition

Literally:

• the exhibition artistic

This is the normal Arabic order:

• noun first
• adjective second

Compare:

• معرض فني = an art exhibition
• المعرض الفني = the art exhibition

Because the adjective has to match the noun in definiteness.

Here, المعرض is definite: the exhibition
So the adjective must also be definite: الفني = the artistic / the art-related

That is why Arabic says:

• المعرض الفني = the art exhibition

If it were indefinite, it would be:

• معرض فني = an art exhibition

So this is a very important pattern:

• definite noun + definite adjective
• indefinite noun + indefinite adjective

A helpful pronunciation is:

• ʿa fekra, il-maʿraḍ il-fannī l-yōm

You may also hear slightly different vowels depending on region, such as el- instead of il-.

A few pronunciation notes:

• ع in عفكرة and معرض is the Arabic letter ʿayn, a sound English does not really have.
• ض in معرض is a heavy/emphatic d sound.
• اليوم is often pronounced close to il-yom or lyom in connected speech.

So in quick natural speech, it may sound something like:

• a fekra, l-ma3rad il-fanni l-yom

Not always. معرض can mean several related things depending on context, such as:

• exhibition
• fair
• show
• expo
• showroom

But when you say المعرض الفني, it clearly means something like:

• the art exhibition
• the art show

So the word is flexible, but the adjective الفني makes the meaning clear here.

Yes, time words can often move around in Arabic, but the position changes the feel or emphasis.

Here:

• المعرض الفني اليوم is a very natural way to say
• the art exhibition is today

Putting اليوم at the end makes it sound like the key new information.

You can move it in other sentence types, for example:

• اليوم في معرض فني = there is an art exhibition today

But المعرض الفني اليوم is a very normal and compact way to make this kind of announcement.

Most Arabic speakers would understand it.

What makes it feel especially colloquial/Levantine is mainly عفكرة as a reduced spoken form of على فكرة.

The rest of the sentence is very widely understandable across dialects:

• المعرض الفني اليوم

In more formal Arabic writing, you would more likely see:

• على فكرة، المعرض الفني اليوم.

So the sentence is colloquial and natural in Levantine, but not hard for other Arabic speakers to understand.