"She is an avid reader of Ali Shariati, Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz, and this love of literary and philosophical traditions underpin Meher Afroz’s practice, with a synergy between Urdu and contemporary art,” writes Niilofur Farrukh. “Only a handful of Pakistani artists have so successfully managed to connect the contemporary with the consciousness of a civilisation and continued to bring into discussion the tensions and transformations of half a century. From this emergency and elegance in the art of Afroz, has emerged A Beautiful Despair.”

A Beautiful Despair: Art and Life of Meher Afroz, is a hardcover monograph, complete with coloured illustrations and the artist’s exhibition history, that was released in November 2020.

Conceptualised and edited by art interventionist and critic Niilofur Farrukh, who has especially focused on Afroz’s decolonised art practice, the book contains 16 semi-personal to semi-scholarly essays (and an introduction by the editor), which unravel the art of the contemporary artist and printmaker.

The release of the book was preceded by three online panel discussions with international and national art collectors, critics and historians that engaged with feminist perspectives in the artist’s works and the necessity of reading and writing an art history devoid of colonial influences.

Afroz’s art practice was the subject of Farrukh’s first book, Pioneering Perspectives (1998), as well as many other research and curatorial projects. While Farrukh has co-authored many publications since 1998, A Beautiful Despair succeeds Pioneering Perspectives as an in-depth and critical volume dedicated solely to demystify the geometry, abstraction, people and objects in Afroz’s solemn prints and mysterious paintings.

A recent monograph detailing the art practice of eminent artist Meher Afroz realigns reading and writing about art history through a decolonising lens

The artist has been painting and making prints for over four decades. Spiritual and ethical values (sourced from Eastern and religious philosophy) witnessed and practised through the fabric of society are often the bedrock of her prints. Over time, her art has contemplated lives of men and women, the human condition, destiny and free-will.

In his essay ‘The Reluctant Sarmad’, art and literary historian Salman Asif explores this narrative and writes that ‘pictorial shards’ in the artist’s prints explore social and racial identities that are uncertain of their future in the contemporary turbulent world.

More essays in the monograph crystallise Afroz’s love for Urdu poetry and her symbolism-laden melancholic imagery that is sometimes concealed from plain sight. These symbols, that are made over an earthly palette abundant with physical marks acting as palimpsests, are tantamount to many themes that recur in the artist’s oeuvre.

In the essay ‘Violence in the Garden of Eden’, filmmaker Aisha Gazdar explores the people and talismanic objects such as prayer beads and cap in many of the artworks. For Gazdar, these forms represent the shift in social perspectives and opinions, and the increasing rift between ethnic and religious groups in society.

The many essays penned by numerous scholars and activists, including Savita Apte, Salima Hashmi, Romilla Kareem, Aquila Ismail and Fehmida Riaz among others, offer fresh insights into the artist’s life that has also impacted her practice and image making. The art of Meher Afroz is thus complex and nuanced; inevitably, it requires a meta-rumination, patience and a thorough reading of the book for its comprehension.

In her concluding essay ‘Thinking Through Urdu: Embeded Epistemologies’, Farrukh asserts that the instrumentalisation of Urdu as a language has greatly allowed Afroz to decolonise and own her history, that is also the history of the South Asian Subcontinent. The monograph achieves a similar purpose.

The publication is a fantastic documentation of the life and art trajectory of one of the most prolific and influential printmakers in contemporary South Asia, and the book’s availability allows readers to come closer to an infinitely rich world with a shared language, symbols and heritage.

A Beautiful Despair: Art and
Life of Meher Afroz
Edited by Niilofur Farrukh
Le Tropical Pvt. Ltd. Lahore
167 pages
ISBN: 9789697120369

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 31st, 2021