For a Doha-based cartoonist who globetrots all through the year and fuels countless conversations with his unique brand of work that traverses political commentary, contemporary society, technology, and the limits of free speech, it was about time that he showed his work in the city.
Titled @las, Khalid Albaih’s upcoming exhibition will be held at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCU-Q) from March 2-21 – the entry is free – and is curated by Holiday Powers. While Albaih’s artworks first garnered recognition during the Arab Spring, today, he publishes his cartoons under Creative Commons licensing on social media at Khartoon!
A fusion of who he is (Khalid), where he comes from (Khartoum), and what he does (cartoons), Khartoon! is Albaih’s fully customised vehicle to voice his views on what’s ailing the Arab world and his native Sudan – and what it particularly stands out for is its simplicity, a nuanced economy of expression.
“This exhibition focuses on the ways in which technology is activated to provide a platform for activism in Albaih’s work. If the Arab Spring is a starting point here, 2011 is not highlighted for its political statements but instead as a way to consider the new modalities of internet-based publics and solidarities,” says a note on the soon-to-be-opened exhibition, “In these images, which exist primarily online, the repeated motif of the pen which signals an underlying commitment to the power of free speech and open dialogue is interspersed with Albaih’s viral images.”
Albaih is well-aware of the need to grab one’s attention and make the person pause a moment to see his cartoon “and try and understand what the problem is.”
In an extensive interview with Community in July 2014, Albaih said, “As an artist, you keep evolving. As Picasso said, no artist is original. You derive inspiration from things you like. Since we live in a trend-oriented world, as a cartoonist who works online, I have to be in with pop culture, in with the times. That’s because I am at the mercy of a scroll.”
Dealing with fleeting attention spans wasn’t an issue though when Albaih first emerged as a virtual revolutionist, as his sketches went viral via social media. “It came together – the Arab Spring, and me taking my cartoons to social media. Like me, there were scores. Graffiti artists, writers, cartoonists, filmmakers, bloggers, everybody came out, started writing more and in a more liberated way. We were a whole new generation but we didn’t know each other. Most of the region’s youth was waiting for that spark that went off in Tunisia,” Albaih said.
In no time, Albaih’s works added kindling to the firestorm of discontent growing among the disillusioned youth of the Arab world. As his works began being shared online across Arabia and the rest of the world, some turned his cartoons into stencils and plastered them on the walls; from Cairo to Beirut.
One such Middle East-trotting work was that of ousted Egyptain president Hosni Mubarak. Albaih’s clever twist of the word Misr (the literary Arabic name of Egypt) to Musir (persistent) in Arabic, written next to an illustration of Mubarak, was all the rage during the Egyptian uprising.
To show how everything is rather similar and really simple is an essential ingredient of Albaih’s artistic style. “My cartoons are for everybody. Even if you don’t understand the issue, the illustration will grasp you visually. I like being straight to the point. That’s because, today, people don’t want to read,” he said.
Faith in a bright future and the cynicism over constancy is an interesting contrast that co-exists within Albaih, who works a lot on repetition as a theme so as to show that things aren’t changing, all the while hopeful of change.
“It’s annoying and I want to annoy people. I want people to think, research, and know more,” he said, “I want people to fight with words, not with guns. In this region, it’s either you are with me or against me. If you are against me, you are the enemy. In social media though, it starts off all heated. They put their arguments forward and they don’t always agree. But they listen to each other. I like the dialogue.”