For most street artists in India, Hanif Kureshi remains an inspiration and an unflinching proof that art can revolutionise the world. His untimely death at 41 due to lung cancer complications on September 22nd, 2024, remains a sad day for the art community, but his works will live on forever and be the muse of generations of artists to come. Read the story of Hanif Kureshi, the artist of the streets and DAKU, his alter ego.

Young Man with an Arts Degree

Kureshi, born on 12th October 1982 in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, graduated from the prestigious MS University in Baroda with a degree in arts. The Indian typography artist we know and love today must have come from countless experiments and assignments that he did on typography and street art during his college days. Little did the young man from Gujarat know then that these would come in handy later in life when he would dramatically change the course of the art scene in India. Back then, he was just starting his career in advertising at Ogilvy & Mather in 2003 and subsequently moving on to advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy in 2008. He left his career to focus more on street art and typography.

Changing the art scene, one wall at a time

St+Art Foundation and Lodhi Art District

In 2013 Hanif Kureshi co-founded the St+Art Foundation, a non-profit initiative aiming to bring art to public places. Their love child is the Lodhi Art District in Delhi, where India witnessed, for the first time, an open-air art district. The high walls overlooking the public were perfect for the various murals that Kureshi and other like-minded artists bestowed upon it. Lodhi Art District now contains over 60 murals by national and international artists. Later, the organization established seven art districts throughout the nation and Hanif Kureshi?s street art travelled to Ukkadam in Coimbatore, Nochi in Chennai, and Mahim in Mumbai.

Handpainted Type project

Kureshi’s passion for hand-lettering and painting signs inspired him to first comb India’s alleyways for street sign painters, whom he then started hiring to paint alphabets in their fonts and styles. He started digitizing fonts and rebranded them as HandpaintedType after seeing that the number of people supporting the art form was declining.

Sassoon Dock Art Project

The Sassoon Docks Art Project is an endeavour by St+Art India that aims to convert Sassoon Dock into a dynamic artwork composed of installations, photo stories, graffiti, and art shows. Completed in cooperation with more than 40 artists worldwide, it depicts the lifestyles of the Marathas, Banjaras, and Kolis. The docks also witnessed Kureshi?s work featuring words that evoke nostalgia and intimacy stuck back-to-back in various mesh.

Google Cultural Institute

Google Cultural Institute partnered up with Kureshi in the Lodhi Art district for a visually evocative experience using colour. The entire fa?ade wall of one side of the building is clad in bright colours with Hanif Kureshi?s typography that says ?We love Dilli? in the Devanagari script taking centre stage. The roads also get a pretty makeover and it feels like every day is Holi in Lodhi!

Ventures of DAKU

Hanif Kureshi?s DAKU project is his attempt to make art democratic and accessible while using the street as a medium to address various socio-political issues that threaten our country. DAKU, the Hindi word for dacoit is apt as he is an anonymous dark knight shedding light on important circumstances. DAKU is supposedly anonymous and even though Hanif Kureshi has never acknowledged his secret life as DAKU, the inner artists? circle certainly hasn?t seen Kureshi and DAKU in a room together!

Disappointed Gandhi

Amidst the pile of trash that grows each day in Bangalore, a curious onlooker might strike your eye. It is no other than our ?Father of the Nation?, Mahatma Gandhi, wearing a vest and holding our broom. And even though he is smiling in the cutout placed by DAKU, we know he is disappointed in us and in a country that is largely unclean despite the stalwartly Swacch Bharat Abhiyan program launched by the government.

India Design Forum

3,00,000 used plastic bottles are given life in this installation which is shaped like a question mark, asking ?why? there haven?t been more efforts to reduce plastic population. This installation in Hyderabad asks an important question to which there haven?t been answers. It is a reminder to the big corporations about how the after-effects of their processes are harming the earth and its inhabitants.

Hyderabad Billboards

You are late for work in the morning and are driving through the Khairatabad flyover in Hyderabad and something catches your eye. It?s a billboard with the message, ?A sad dark skin girl turning fair and happy in 5 steps?? You forget the rat race for a moment and let out a chuckle thinking of the whole irony of it. This is what DAKU does best. Make the public and people responsible aware of the hard-hitting realities the society in India faces.

Time Changes Everything

In Hanif Kureshi?s public art as DAKU in the later stages, he was inspired by the?Egyptian sundial and used shadow as a medium for his art. In his piece The Theory of Time, he uses a large-scale installation of a poem by Christophe Manon on Place Graslin. The poem, which is about time, is from the 2009 Univerciel collection. The text’s shadow is projected onto the ground by the artwork following the path of the sun. Our often-forgotten sense of time is sharply brought to attention by the artist’s relationship between shadow and time. His work in the?Lodhi Art district reflects the same concept of changing time. The art piece comes alive from 9 AM to 3 PM every day.

There may not be another artist like Hanif Kureshi or DAKU who took you to the streets and made you think. Here?s to hoping that young people come forward with more revolutionary art that makes heads turn while also turning our cities into beautiful landmarks.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanif_Kureshi
• https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/art-to-the-streets-artist-hanif-kureshi-passes-away-9583250
• https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/art/painting-on-the-wall-street-artist-hanif-kureshi-remembered-for-making-art-democratic/article68679276.ece
• https://homegrown.co.in/homegrown-creators/a-one-man-revolution-the-artistic-legacy-of-the-late-hanif-kureshi
• https://www.hindustantimes.com/htcity/htcity-delhi-junction/rip-hanif-kureshi-legacy-lives-on-through-delhis-vibrant-street-art-at-lodhi-colonys-art-district-101727162338913.html
• https://xxlcollective.com/artist-hanif-kureshi
• https://xxlcollective.com/artist-daku