Opinion Hanif Kureshi’s art created a bridge between the street and the people

A font pulled a city out of bankruptcy in the 1970s, when American graphic designer Milton Glaser fashioned the “I <3 NY” logo. It was a back-of-the-envelope design, inspired by hearts carved on tree trunks. The logo went on to become a pop-culture phenomenon that features as a coffee cup merch and a signpost for a city, all at once. Like Glaser, Gujarat-born, multidisciplinary urban artist Hanif Kureshi, who died on Sunday, was someone who used typography to bring India to the world. That design is about being personal, was Kureshi’s calling card.

“Typefaces are like people,” he said, “You knew them by the clothes they wore. You could take Helvetica to a party and it would fit it, while the single font, red box of The Economist is so distinct.” Kureshi had an incredible ability to not just bring people to the streets, as he did in Mumbai’s Sassoon Dock Art Project and Delhi’s Lodhi Art District through his St+art India initiative, but he also brought the street to the people. His Handpainted Type project came from the streets, seen on shop boards of juice sellers and paanwalas — thick, unabashedly bold and vibrant in tone and lettering. He democratised art, taking the edge off the white cube, blunting its stuffiness and unreal price tag.

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Kureshi inspired an underground graffiti movement. While he elevated the streets with murals, he also reminded people at traffic signals to “Stop Shopping”, “Stop Gossiping”, “Stop Posing”. It was not an attempt to find his voice, but to lose it in experiments with paints and fonts, stickers and shipping containers, walls and boxes. Not just a provocateur, he valued collaborations with artists, musicians, designers, creating works that traveled to festivals abroad, where they dined with kings but never lost the common touch.