In the mind's eye
Nazar (Sight): the third album, Mohieddin El-Labbad, Cairo: Dar Al-Arabi for Publication and Distribution, 2004. pp144
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A line from the famous Mohamed Abdel-Wahab song: "If we love, our excuse/ Is that there is sight in our face."
"When I was little, we lived next to the Sultan Hassan Mosque in Cairo, and the tram that passed through the wide street made a huge sound when it turned around the mosque. For me at that time the tram driver was the greatest, most important person in the world, because he drove that giant, fearsome monster. I kept wishing that I'd grow up to be a tram driver. However, I never managed to become a tram driver. I never even learned to drive a car. All that happened was that I learned to draw, and I became a mere draughtsman. But I have found, thank God, that this work gives me many wonderful opportunities, one of which is that I can draw myself as a tram driver, the way I always wished to be."
Mohieddin El-Labbad
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This, the latest book by one of Egypt's most accomplished graphic artists, is the third in a series that the author prefers to describe as "albums". They are rather scratch books, printed on recycled paper and crammed full of illustrations, cartoons, extracts, book covers and, remarkably, articles written by El-Labbad himself: a collage artist at heart, El-Labbad does not always differentiate between his own and other artists' work. He borrows themes, motifs and any other visually compelling item he might come across. Here, as in his book Mi'at Rasm wa Akthar (100 Drawings and More, published by Dar Al-Mustaqbal Al-Arabi), El-Labbad never loses sight of the cartoonist's political commitment, and he uses his considerable skill as a draughtsman, along with his sense of humour, to underline current issues and highlight the ironies in them.
Though committed, El-Labbad's visual commentaries never fall into the trap of oversimplification or merely rhetorical flair. Rather, they are reflections of the artist's very personal, if indissolubly engaged, attempt at reconciling himself to an increasingly absurd reality through art. In the circumstances, it would be no exaggeration to say that El-Labbad undertakes such compendia to stay sane. Much of the material that makes up the present book has previously appeared elsewhere, and El-Labbad points out that he has revised his articles thoroughly. "I have made some corrections that I needed to make," he explains. "I have made some improvements that I needed to make. I found that some of the information on some issues required elucidation, while others required bringing up to date..."
The book's principal topic is "A century and a half of imperialist caricature", and it is intended to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the British satirical magazine Punch, an occasion El-Labbad comments on by noting that the magazine had been out of print until it was revived by the Egyptian millionaire and UK resident Mohamed El- Fayed. The 143-page book is divided into six sections: "Caricature, artists and magazines"; "Visual observations in our lives"; "Children's culture and their illustrated books"; "Graphic design, book and newspaper layout"; "Figures"; and "Photography". Together, they give an impression not only of El-Labbad's singular intellect, but also of the madnesses of our times.
Reviewed by Youssef Rakha
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