Book launch: Remembering the graffiti artist

Family, friends and colleagues pay tribute to Asim Butt.

ISLAMABAD:

Friends and family of the late artist Asim Butt gathered for the launch of a monograph titled “Rebel Angel” at the Khaas Art Gallery on Tuesday.

His mother Amna Zahid spoke about the family-funded book, which celebrates Butt’s contributions to the world of contemporary art. All proceeds from the book sales will be donated to the Asim Butt Trust, a non-for-profit organisation dedicated to helping the underserved achieve their dreams, particularly in healthcare and education.

Prior to the discussion, a short video featured Butt out for his street art, his conversations and reflections on art, religion, politics and humanity. It shows his efforts to make the art relatable to an ordinary person on the streets, a sort of activism. The clip was recorded by a journalist Adrian Fisk and his companion Alia Salahuddin, a copy of which is also a part of the book itself.

The panel discussion comprised art critics Aasim Akhtar and Nafisa Rizvi as well as artist Sheherbano Hussain, who was also a close friend of Butt.

Akhtar shared his interactions with Butt, his no-holds-barred expression and details about their teacher-student relationship, critique of his artworks and talking about his unassuming and humble demeanor despite having been so well-read. “I can’t possibly think of anyone his age and his time and his chronological age who could make art quite like him. He knew how to layer his canvas, he knew exactly the physics and the chemistry of painting. The way he’d explain to you why he chose a particular colour.” Akhtar also read out a three-page testimonial that Butt had written about him at the end of the class term.

“There is so much one can say about him. He was not just one of my best friends but we had the kind of relationship where we visited each other’s studios and discussed each other’s works,” said Hussain. She said that his art was subversive and it went against the grain in paintings.

In an age when doyens and purveyors of art who promote new media of art and look down upon painting as a traditional medium, Butt put himself out there and painted in streets and would often get in trouble for painting graffiti and yet remained undeterred. She shared how Butt embraced Stuckism, an international art movement and founded the Karachi Stuckist Group.

Rizvi said that she had found it simultaneously difficult and easy to edit the book. “[I worked on the book] for the sake of memory and because I felt very strongly that [Butt’s] work had to be recorded for people to come, and for historians to come.”

Unlike artists who work from nine-to-five, Rizvi said that Butt’s artwork meant everything to him – he slept it, he ate it, he dreamt it and he did not go to bed, his work went to bed with him.

Zishan Afzal Khan, the gallery owner, recalled hosting an art exhibition of Butt’s artworks shortly after being introduced to him through a friend. “He was an exceedingly charming young man and a great artist. Part of his charm was his constant self- introspection. He was very nervous about the show and I told him his work was fantastic and it really was – the show was a sell-out,” she said.

In his honour, she hosted a reception but strangely he did not turn up for it. “Later, I got a call in some crazy hour of the night and he told me that he was out painting graffiti somewhere in F-7, saying he had to let it out of his system.” The street-art was removed just two days later in 2009.

A student of both art and political science, Butt abandoned his PhD in history to devote himself to painting as well as graffiti art in Karachi. His most notable graffiti art pieces include the symbolic “Eject” symbol appearing at various places towards the end of General Musharraf’s government.

Butt died on January 15, 2010, at his house in Karachi of an apparent suicide.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2015.