Twists and puns: Art that magnifies the meaning of ordinary words

LAHORE:

An exhibition of the works of internationally-acclaimed artist Iqbal Geoffrey commenced on Monday at the National College of Arts’ Zahoorul Ikhlaq Gallery.

The show, titled BE CAUSE, features 25 pieces made in collage and mixed media.



“The work is not just about the artist’s imagery and visual, it is also his play on words and how he twists them around to derive a meaning that one is not usually familiar with. It is just like how he spells his last name, which is actually Jafri, but he writes it as Geoffrey,” Maryam Arif, the curator for the show, said.

“The show’s title is Be Cause. ‘Because’ is the word we use regularly but by separating ‘Be’ from ‘Cause’ Geoffrey has tried to convey that everyone should become a cause or become a life’s purpose,” she said.

The show is conspicuous because it involves another renowned artist – Sadequain.

“Sadequain did illustrations of Mirza Ghalib’s poetry some 35 years ago in a traditional way. I have known him for nearly 60 years but when I returned from America in the early 80’s, he gave me an album of Ghalib’s poetry written in calligraphy,” said Geoffrey who is in his 70’s.



“After being engaged with it for a long time, I have now presented 23 of those illustrations. This is a very conceptual interpretation of Ghalib.”

The collages include the original calligraphy by Sadequain. Asked to explain the images, Geoffrey said one should find the explanation themselves. “When you find your own explanation your mind is liberated and you can reject the meaning given by the artist,” he said.

Talking about his other two pieces, he said one of the pieces had been titled ‘in justice’. “There is a pun intended in the title. In justice means fashionable justice for me, just like how something is ‘in’ these days,” he said about the work depicting legal petition papers hanging on a wire.

The other piece is also a collage on which he had been working for many years. “I can work on a collage for 40 years. I keep on editing it. Sometimes I put a lot of things on a collage and later realise that they are not required.”

“The exhibition is a reflection of Iqbal Geoffrey’s two halves – as a visual artist and a lawyer. He combines the two by making his work about social structures, social systems, justice, and injustice and so on,” said Quddus Mirza, an art critic.

“He translates one aspect of himself to another in an unusual way. It is this unusualness that works best. Everything is art. The way he blends things together, the text, the petitions, collages and materials. A great aesthetic sense and innovative approach is visible in his work,” Mirza said.



Geoffrey is a legendary artist, NCA Principal Murtaza Jafri said. “He was acknowledged at Tate in the 60’s when I was still in primary school. I consider him a true image maker as he portrays the images of today,” Jafri said.

The exhibition will conclude on October 15.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2015.