Adham Lutfi’s black-and-white caricatures of leading personalities and Mohsen Abul Azm’s vignettes of social and cultural life are currently shown in comparison at the Maulana Azad Center for Indian Culture (MACIC), depicting an India the artists know intimately, but have never visited.
Titled “India-Egypt: A Humorous Perspective of the Ordinary and Extraordinary, the exhibition was inaugurated on Sunday by the Indian Ambassador to Egypt R. Swaminathan and Hossam Nassar, first undersecretary of state for the foreign cultural relations sector of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.
Both Swaminathan and Nassar commented on the “human and cultural proximity between both India and Egypt. Nassar was further convinced through the exhibit of the shared humor amongst both countries, which he found “the wittiest in the whole world, and as staple as the shared cuisine of “koshary and aats (lentils).
When you asked around for opinions, most were directed to color and animation of Abul Azm’s caricatures. Mohamed Abla, painter and director of Fayoum’s caricature museum, said he was impressed by the detail of Abul Azm’s work.
Abul Azm’s pictures of India are inspired from photographs and movies, showing India at a picturesque distance. Unfolding like tales, the pictures depict a snake-charmer, a procession of female dancers with the elephant-riding mahouts, and a woman adorning herself in a mirror.
Unlike these tales from India, Abul Azm’s paintings of Egypt are anecdotal, the caricatures appear coarse and unattractive, with buck teeth and leathery skin. It is this unforgiving eye for detail that then provides the humorous bite to the images.
While the image of a woman bathing a child appears idyllic, the juxtaposed Egyptian counterpart shows a woman grimacing while scrubbing the skin off a wailing infant. “Look at this! said the ambassador pointing to the expressions of the Egyptian mother and child. Clearly amused by the buck-toothed face, he pointed to another caricature of a man who had tucked his galabeyya (gown) in his mouth so that it did not come in his way as he walked.
Be it a basket on the side or a knife in the corner, the domestic tableaus of Abul Azm’s paintings pay attention to the littlest of objects, framing it in the narrative of the picture. There is an air of abandon to the women who have thrown back their inhibitions, and are captured in private moments indulging in gossip over the telephone, or applying garish make-up, or cutting vegetables while watching television.
Abul Azm also does not shy away from grit: one scene depicts a woman whose hands are parting a child’s hair looking for lice. In another picture, a maid has put aside her bucket-and-mop to look at a computer, one inexperienced hand going across the keyboard, another expertly handling the mouse.
In comparison to Abul Azm’s animated caricatures that appear to have stolen a glimpse from private scenarios, Adham Lutfi’s black-and-white caricatures unfortunately appear staid and lacking animation. Nevertheless, a lot of detail abounds in the production of caricatures: the large heads looming above tiny bodies carry identifying trademarks: the mole on Naguib Mahfouz’s cheek, Gandhi’s bald head and glasses, the Nehru hat, and the peace sign held up by Nelson Mandela.
Asked why Mandela was present in an Indo-Egypt meeting of caricatures, Lutfi answered that he considered him an international figure like Mahfouz. Lutfi’s caricatures of Indian personalities, including Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Amitabh Bachchan, are produced especially for the exhibition upon the suggestion of the Indian Cultural Attache Suchitra Durai.
While Lutfi’s work is quite literally concentrated on the extraordinary looming figures, it was in the mundane, middle-class depictions of Abul Azm that – as the saying goes – the Indians shared bread and salt with the Egyptians.
The exhibition of caricatures will continue at Maulana Azad Center for Indian Culture, 23, Talaat Harb Street, Downtown Cairo, until Dec. 31. Tel: (02) 2393-6572.
