‘An internal dialect’: Imran Mir’s final paper on modern art launched

The late artist completed ‘What You See is What You See’ before his death in October.

KARACHI: Late artist Imran Mir’s Twelfth Paper on Modern Art was launched at Mir’s residence on Tuesday evening in the presence of his family, close friends and colleagues.

The late artist and advertising trendsetter completed the book, titled ‘What You See is What You See’, before his death in October this year.

“Of all the things I learnt from my father, his fearlessness and nonconformity will always stay with me,” Mir’s son, Kenan, told the audience. “The title of the book is synonymous with his persona. He had no double standards: what you saw was literally what you got,” he said.

This is comparable to the emergence of a new discipline in science with a very different perspective, claimed Hameed Haroon, the CEO of Dawn Media Group, at the launch.

“It seems Imran Mir is turning his back to this (practice) in an attempt to create a world that is not entirely reflective but contemplative,” Haroon quoted an excerpt from Dr Rasheed Araeen’s comments on the book. He added that the book was not a monograph but instead a series of perspectives of his work.



“His book is a piece of him,” said art writer and editor Nafisa Rizvi. “His work is not merely important but seminal in its very meaning.”

Nilofer Furrukh, the curator and Mir’s friend, talked about Mir’s silent humour and his personality. Saying that he was known as a prankster among his friends, she recalled how he used to draw cartoons and caricatures of them all. “This book is the aesthetic voice of Imran in his work,” she said, sharing with the audience Mir’s own remark about his work being an internal dialect of himself.

Architect Shahid Abdullah remembered Mir as a nature enthusiast, who once called him over early in the morning only to excitedly show him a vine that had finally blossomed after years of tending.

After the launch, the audience and the guests were invited to the accompanying exhibition, consisting of 28 paintings and eight installations, that was on display inside his house.

“The installations are a natural outcome of the geometrics that Imran Mir expresses in his two-dimensional works,” said Rizvi in a press statement about the exhibition. “The controlled chaos of his immense canvases is indicative of the lens through which he viewed the universe, the world and his life.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2014.