Exiled to Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya @ Prototype Gallery L4

April 28, 2015, 9:10 am

In the famous old building beside Petronas Twin Towers, a square recess in the floor is stuck with quotes, one which states, “God created many species and every species has a place to live. Ants and snakes have a hole. Fish have water. Tigers and bears have bushes. But Rohingya don’t have any place to live. We want to ask the world, where is our place?”. Surrounding pin boards feature black & white captures taken from 2006 to 2014 which document the plight of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group persecuted in Myanmar and internationally recognised as de jure stateless, i.e. one without citizenship of any nation state.

Rakhine Buddhist Monks shout anti-Rohingya and anti-UN chants as they protest through the streets of Sittwe

In an interview with BFM, photographer Greg Constantine says, "...statelessness touches on so many bigger themes, that are indicators of how we live life in 2015 (…) statelessness deals with the theme of identity, the power of the state, about people's access to human rights, inclusion, tolerance..." These themes are entirely familiar with the concerned Malaysian now, and drew my apathy/empathy/sympathy more strongly than what documentary photography usually does. As traffic clogs up around the exhibition venue to accommodate delegates of the 26th ASEAN summit, questions of our national identity, and our identity as nationals, become ever more pressing.

Captions: [top] Rohingya gather around a water pump in an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp outside of Sittwe. Though more facilities have been built throughout the camps, large numbers of Rohingya continue to suffer from waterborne issues.

[bottom] The Burmese authorities take photos of Rohingya families so they know exactly how many people live in each house, like this photograph.

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Dear Dark Cloud @ Taksu

May 4, 2015, 12:46 am

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It is easy to dismiss Khairul Azmir Shoib’s works as mere illustrations, yet his fantastical characters have persisted in the local visual arts for the past 15+ years. The success of his mentee Haslin Ismail, whose mecha / book collage creations are even more irreverent, is perhaps indebted to Meme in setting precedence for the appreciation of such non-canonical art. Viewing these exhibits, one can find common elements with Malaysian contemporary art – skulls aplenty, found wood, and gaudy frames – apart from the badly-done drips evident in ‘Gothic Kebaya’. All portraits feature the protagonist, whose obvious features manifest in different guises – a giant head, large eyes, and a high forehead.

Nightwish (2015)

With a sidekick always in tow, Meme’s female lead is more hopeful heroine than psychological avatar, contrary to the isolation theme stated in the catalogue essay. Gina Fairley writes in a previous exhibition, “(w)hile we want to read Meme’s drawings and paintings within the realm of illustration, rather they are fragments of a fantasy that are extremely open ended to interpretation and, if anything, enter an isolationist position of alter-egos, psychosis, and introspective dreams – the space of non-narrative.” As compared to his solo exhibition “Let It All Rain Down from the Blood Stained Clouds” held two years ago, a black background now becomes a fairy tale landscape, none prettier than the bronze darkness in ‘Nightwish’ and ‘In the Shadow of the Horns’.

Tulip - the Dog that Ate Nightmares #14 (2013)

The improved mastery in painting, is testament to the artist’s continuous growth and willing engagement with different mediums and styles. Such regular experimentation is rare among Malaysian artists, but Meme’s efforts are easily overlooked due to his signature fantasy themes, myself guilty in past assessments of his output. Cute characters in a surreal landscape are the stuff of inspirational folklore, and these pictures should not be dismissed just because it contains no overt references to Puteri Gunung Ledang. In the exhibition’s best work, ‘Sisters’ juxtapose a skinny mannequin with an elegant figure dressed in sumptuous blue, the applied chiaroscuro effectively portraying a silent drama. Give me beautifully drawn sombre melancholy, over vacant images of regurgitated politics, anytime, anywhere.

Sisters (2015)

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UNPACK-REPACK: Archiving & Staging Ismail Hashim (1940 – 2013) @ NVAG

May 6, 2015, 9:12 am

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Adding on to the complications of showcasing an artist’s estate, Wong Hoy Cheong now has to deal with a larger space and public works, in this collaboration between private gallery and national institute. Transplanting the tribute show from The Whiteaways Arcade to Galeri 3A, the curator aims to “…locate Ismail spatially in an environment and his community.” Chances of seeing degraded bicycle seats are less likely on Jalan Tun Razak as compared to Beach Street, and the sense of displacement immediately leads one to ponder upon the purpose of archiving and staging. Visitors are greeted into a passage of test prints from Looking Out, followed by Looking In to an odd corner of homely captures. The previously delightful room Going Bananas is now rendered irreverent, nestled deep within the gallery space in an exhibition that often takes itself too seriously.

Snapshot of print at Looking Out – ‘Streets’

Three cheeky arrows and a video of Ismail playing the saxophone bookend the walkthrough, but few other exhibits spell fun. A plywood wall of photographs in yang ‘tu yang ‘ni breaks the monotone, and marks the only obvious reference to an artist whose characteristic wit should be celebrated more. Inducing laughter are snapshots of furniture shops with arty signboards, bananas juxtaposed with a Marlboro advertisement, and a curious string of hilarious captions. Clever bilingual wordplay describe accumulated garbage at a lift lobby (‘Sambil tunggu, sambal sumbat! (Waiting is full-filling!)’), and a pigeon dipping its beak into a can of Coke (‘Macam mana gamaknya rasa The Real Thing? (Hey, I could do with some of The Real Thing!)’). Inspiring awe are pictures of potted plants hung on a dilapidated wall, romantically referred to as “A Thing of Beauty…”

Installation snapshots of prints at yang ‘tu yang ‘ni – ‘Humour’

Stuck on the flip side are photographs rearranged from the framed work ‘Ants can, Malaysians sure boleh!’ Such tinkering raises questions around the management of a deceased artist’s belongings. Is it acceptable to show unfinished works? Or in this case, to alter and create a new composition? How ethical is it for Fergana Art (which represents the artist's estate) to show and sell test prints, or print editions from film negatives? Ansel Adams once said, “(y)ou can liken the negative to the score and the print to the performance.” Unlike the catalogue raisonné – a relatively simple listing of traditional artworks – managing a photographic archive is trickier. Presenting one’s worldview without his consent risks “…second-guessing the artist”, like how one author describes the posthumous exhibition of Garry Winogrand, which images were printed from undeveloped rolls of film.

At the Sink (1987)

2,000+ of the 14,000 items documented thus far are made accessible to the public (every Tuesday & Saturday) at Living Archives. In an effort to pique the viewer’s curiosity, personal belongings (a birth certificate, among others) are exhibited in the area before this last section. Why does stuff – potentially of no value to the artist when he was alive – matter in appreciating one’s artworks? Does analysing an artist so thoroughly beyond his art, an act of adoration or hero-worship? With so many groupings suggested in staging this archive, is the curator conforming to ‘bahasa museum’, or is he demonstrating the futility of categories? Browsing spreadsheets on a laptop, it is telling that the archive records are different from the exhibited categories. Objective qualitative measures like form and medium are included, although one odd field called ‘Value Level’ suggests a subjective measure.

Snapshot of print at As The World Turns

Gillian Pistell writes, “(a)n archive is neither a collection nor a library.” Preservation and determination of Ismail Hashim’s archive are the responsibilities of the team led by artist-cum-archivist Nur Hanim Khairuddin. Working with limited precedents from a regional and medium-specific standpoint, the ongoing Tate Access& Archives project serves as a reference for assessing the team’s efforts. Does cataloguing standards cater to multi-level hierarchies in order to define contexts? In digitising a photographic archive, are the metadata standards more inclined towards librarian or visual art archiving? What are the sustainable infrastructures required to maintain both physical and digital archives? Are these issues and learnings shared with the National Visual Arts Gallery, and what can this project learn from the national institute in this aspect?

Dapur minyak, dapur gas, jerang air, goring cucur (Kerosene stove, gas cooker, water boiling, fritters frying) (1990)

Scanning the contents of Living Archives, images of partially empty grids and quirky juxtapositions help increase my appreciation of Ismail’s works beyond contained spaces and coffee-related compositions. On a personal level, such observations fit into Hal Foster’s description of the archive “…as a place of creation, part of the embodiment of its utopian ambition – its desire to turn belatedness into becomingness (…) a move to turn ‘excavation sites’ into ‘construction sites’.” Artist-cum-curator Hoy Cheong’s reconstruction is an installation of others’ belongings, with the intent to highlight the difference between staging and archiving. For the casual visitor, however, appreciating hand-tinted photographs with witty titles is sufficient for an afternoon well spent. Like an Ismail quote on the wall states, “(t)he artwork is the most reliable source.”

Personal favourites from the ‘Commercial Prints’ folder at Living Archives

“Christian Boltanski has said of the problems posed by preserving items within a museum setting:

Preventing forgetfulness, stopping the disappearance of things and beings seemed to me a noble goal, but I quickly realised that this ambition was bound to fail, for as soon as we try to preserve something, we fix it. We can preserve things only by stopping life’s course. If I put my glasses in a vitrine, they will never break, but will they still be considered glasses? … Once glasses are part of a museum’s collection, they forget their function, they are then only an image of glasses. In a vitrine, my glasses will have lost their reason for being, but they will also have lost their identity. (The Museum as Muse: Artists Reflect, Kynaston McShine, 1999)”

- Perspectives: Negotiating the Archive, Sue Breakell, 1 April 2008 [Tate papers Issue 9]

Fun Fair #2, Sg. Ara Penang (1974/2001)

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The Space Between @ Wei-Ling Contemporary

May 13, 2015, 9:12 am

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Exhibiting two works each by eighteen notable mid-career artists, the space between pairs of old and new art, reveal little about curatorial strategy or artistic growth. Liew Kung Yu’s large creations dominate the place via its strong aura – the spectacle of three-dimensional columns overshadow nearby paintings, while bling from a jewellery booth nullifies romantic snapshots hung opposite. In the latter, pinheads dot the back of lighted billboards projecting fatalistic statements, effectively parodying the irresistible allure of shiny objects. The installation is fortunately located some steps away from Ivan Lam’s glossy paintings, but renders the wooden constructs of Noor Azizan Rahman Paiman next to it, even more obscure than it already is.

Installation snapshots of Liew Kung Yu - STONED (2013 - 2015)

‘Bandar Sri Tiang Kolam’ serves up snapshots of Corinthian pillars embedded in Malaysian buildings, Kung Yu’s layered collage failing to suggest a local alternative to Greco-Roman notions of beauty. Umibaizurah Mahir’s beautifully patterned pedestals provide a quirky alternative, although the voyeur may catch a glimpse of flesh if looking in from the shop window. ‘Bukan Tetek’ is as raunchy as its title denies, Chan Kok Hooi’s painting adhering to his signature surreal trompe-l'œil style, where another delightful example starring the MSN Messenger icon hangs opposite. Banners parroting international news magazines and photographs celebrating ethnic Malay writers, flank this corner of the gallery, as scale emerges as the key ingredient in capturing one’s attention.

Chan Kok Hooi - Love Chat with the Mirror (2007)

A large circle and three small spirals by Vincent Leong, brings the viewer round to the conclusion that clever art-making can be unnecessarily tiresome. Exhibited away from a dining room, printed plates by Yee I-Lann loses its context, which images of the proletariat also fail to displace aristocratic notions about elegant tableware. Ahmad Shukri’s superb pair of exhibits show him at his best when amalgamating straightforward iconography – an older assemblage of ethnic motifs held within a square wooden frame, or a newer chalkboard layered with black alphabets describing repeated precepts. More obvious politics manifests in ‘Raging Bull’ by Jalaini Abu Hassan, where a proud bull-headed Malay and an intrusive flying pig, front a lazy background with crooked shadows.

Ahmad Shukri Mohamed - Malaysia Great Wall (2015) [detail snapshot at bottom]

Surprisingly holding its own to nearby art which invoke questions of identity, Sean Lean’s juxtaposition of Chinese things and comic superheroes are attractive and even meaningful, in contemporary representations of altar worship and protective charms. Showing off a new style is Yau Bee Ling, whose graphite hand signals can perhaps be mistaken for the output of HH Lim, whose contributions here are merely filler material. Choy Chun Wei’s gothic “Construction” series is always a joy to appreciate, but in an exhibition filled with figurative representations, abstraction (especially Kim Ng's) become nondescript. There is nothing to be found in between these spaces, but the plurality and quality of Malaysian art on show, still makes this trip to the sixth floor a worthwhile one.

Yau Bee Ling - Hands On (2015)

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Hulutopia @ White Box

May 19, 2015, 4:00 am

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“There is no wonder of discovery. At most, the paintings are restatements of the plain and mundane. Nothing hides the bleakness throughout, as if the point is for us to be distressed by these depictions of ourselves as failures despite our constant attempts at transcending our limitations, endeavours that only confirm our fatuous existence at the end of the day. Is HULUTOPIA then simply catharsis, an indulgence of a bleak picture of humankind? Is it negativity refined into ‘paintings’, a mere projection of the world falling apart, on canvas? This would be a tempting conclusion.”

– Lessons for Seeing Ourselves, Ahmad Fuad Rahmat, 2015, exhibition catalogue for Hulutopia: Through the Looking Glass Into Promised Lands

The Elephant (2014)

Masses of nude faceless figures cower or scurry within dreary landscapes, these depictions of humiliating postures alluding to a sense of shame, if one agrees with Ahmad Fuad Rahmat’s surface reading. Kamal Mustafa’s second solo exhibition is more explicit in his social commentary but less dynamic visually, as marketing messages stopped harping upon unique art-making methods. Withdrawing from the clockwork existence projected in ‘Obscura’, I recognise a familiar motif in the other hybrid work ‘The Black Question‘, then proceed to be distracted by images of wartime destruction and a rotating wayang puppet. The ear remains a potent symbol, especially when paired with the question mark; the appendage is utilised also to maximum effect in the wonderful ‘Green Promised Land’.

Video preview for The Black Question (2014)

Hung next to the exhibition title work and equally green, isolated huts nestled in thick swirls of vegetation, paint an agrarian utopia as imagined by the Khmer Rouge. Portents of a social engineering disaster take the form of ghoulish faces emerging from the canvas, as one begins to ponder about the purpose of re-presenting historical events from lands afar. Blended vivid colours and snakes & ladders draw my gaze momentarily back to ‘Hulutopia’, a metaphorical paradise that becomes the beacon of hope within Kamal’s dog-eat-dog territories. ‘Abdi-cation’ and ‘Almost There’ make straightforward statements, which describe a world where development becomes increasingly disjointed and subjective.

Green Promised Land (2012 – 2014)

These contradictions are elucidated best in the “Museum” series, tailored captures juxtaposing artefacts with people whose dress reflects the wearer’s religion, based on popular assumptions. The entry point to understand fleshy Greco-Roman sculptures or the skeleton of an extinct creature, is via the self-proclaimed authority – the museum, the historian, the curator. Appreciation of a displaced foreign object piques curiosity, and develops a veil of enigma in the eye of the beholder. In these four pictures, Kamal holds the media responsible for conjuring prejudices, and for turning humans into curious objects. Is the museum a neutral ground, and should we trust its narratives? Likewise, should we even bother about media stories from unfamiliar places?

Museum 2 (2014)

Hassan Abdul Muthalib writes, “(w)hat runs obliquely throughout Kamal’s works is the theme of religion and the media.” Looking at the gorges in ‘Blue Promised Land’, one wonders, why do many Malaysians empathise with Palestinians in its conflict with the Israelis? Is it to express solidarity with other Muslims? With the Vatican’s latest pronouncement on global matters, should Catholics think of Jerusalem as belonging more to the Palestinians? How many Malaysians have been to that part of the world? Are we going to see stranded ships in Kamal’s new works? Bleak pictures project the artist’s moral stand, yet the detached lens in Kamal’s compositions denotes a reservation for other worldviews. As ‘The Elephant’ hung near the gallery’s entrance/exit reminds us of John Godfrey Saxe’ s poem – “Though each were partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!”

Delousing Room B (2015)

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Peasants and Proletariats @ Xin Art Space

May 24, 2015, 8:58 am

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Tracing its respective histories, framed paintings aggrandize the powerful and evoke reverence, while prints on paper record images that are circulated for a wider audience. This analogy likewise describes the social strata of art patrons, who traditionally regard prints as a lower class in the hierarchy of art mediums. Going strong after hosting artworks by national laureate Pak Samad and the KL Life Drawing Community, new gallery Xin Art Space puts together a cross-generation exhibition in conjunction with the 44th year since Malaysia begin celebrating Labour Day. The published catalogue includes Long Thien Shih’s 1993 essay about the development of printmaking in Malaysia, along with a useful glossary of printmaking terms and international definitions of an original print.

Shieko Reto - Sex Workers Series III (2015)

Going along with history which presumes art printmaking originated from China, small woodcut prints by Chuah Thean Teng attract immediate attention with its organically-framed scenes and dense fine lines. Done in the late 1930s with his Romanised name inscribed in signature, Teng’s works already display great compositions, exemplified by the slanted angles in ‘Working’. Hung next to it are striking pictures of workers like ‘Key Maker’ and ‘Durian Seller’, Lai Loong Sung’s scraggly figures adhering to a dramatic but overbearing aesthetic that recall Egon Schiele. More contemporary are city scenes by Adeputra Masri, whose crowded cartoons draw busy diners seated in front of heritage buildings, with the Petronas Twin Towers visible in the background.

Lai Loong Sung - The Drunkards (1976)

Bitumen marks create a dusty effect in Kim Ng’s “Street Walker” series, his desolate portrayals of foreign workers projecting an uneasy class consciousness when exhibited collectively, perhaps indicative of the reason it is less popular with collectors. Also testing the tolerance of fine art collectors are stencilled works by Rat Heist and Shieko Reto; Bright graphics by the former look better on a wall than on paper, while the latter’s depiction of transgender sex workers is restrained behind colourful design, as I repress the urge to spray paint stencilled telephone numbers over these works. Shaifuddin Mamat’s clever silkscreen ‘Pemisahan telah lengkap’ admits failure in empathising with the construction worker, his incomplete picture representing a mindful and social detachment from oft-ignored nation builders.

Shaifuddin Mamat @ Poodien - Pemisahan telah lengkap (2015)

Samsudin Wahab returns to printmaking since joining a fellowship, here presenting a monstrous figure that resembles Davy Jones from Pirates in the Caribbean. Metaphorical creatures are popular subject matter in local art, but few can be regarded as masterpieces, until one sees the bees and ticks of Abdul Mansoor Ibrahim. Sinuous lines and organic shapes transform insects into stunning images, his monochromatic prints demanding the viewer to go closer and inspect its exacting details. Less attention grabbing but equally powerful are works by Mansoor’s mentee Fuad Pathil, the former firefighter paying tribute to the profession via heroic scenes. Awkward composition and amateurish scale in the older ‘Rescuer’, has since matured into the panoramic ‘Fire Fighter’, which line-up of firefighters makes for a beautiful film still.

Abdul Mansoor Ibrahim - Pollen Bath and Nectar Collection (2015)

Outline is visibly absent from Madzi’s figures, the artist relying on the contrast between printed areas to illustrate forms. Fire and smoke is inscribed brilliantly in ‘On Duty’, its foreground figures and background action capturing drama in a manner that recalls French Romanticism. Exhibiting twelve works and nearly selling out on opening day, Pangrok Sulap’s prints combine poster design with social activism, and serve as the exclamation mark in this remarkable group show. Although some works feature a raw aesthetic, the RM 150 price tag is an irresistible offer for an original print, especially when collectively made works carry slogans like ‘Capitalism Kills My Nostalgia’, ‘Jangan Beli Bikin Sendiri’, and ‘Di Belakang Saya Ada Orang Kampung; Di Belakang Orang Kampung Ada Saya’.

Fuad Pathil @ Madzi - On Duty (2015)

Also interesting is to appreciate the individual style of the collectives’ members – Jerome Manjat’s formal compositions, Rizo Leong’s attractive perspectives, and personal favourite Mohammad Bam’s incisive two-dimensional caricatures. This exhibition triumphs with its focused subject matter and its humbling yet inclusive presentation, and it is a bonus to find out that GST is not charged for its sale of artworks. As another May Day rally passes by, curator Tan Sei Hon writes in his typically offbeat manner, “(b)y celebrating them [workers], we also celebrate our own humanity which we sometimes forget exists under the weight of various job titles, positions and authority which we hold now but becomes meaningless once we are no longer ‘working’.”

Mohammad Bam (Pangrok Sulap) - Labour of Love (2015)

“The government, the workers, the employers work constructively together on growing and upgrading our economy. We may not agree all of the time but there’s give and take because we trust one another and we can rely on one another to take a longer term view of our enlightened collective interests. This is a system which has delivered results, not just over one or two terms of government but for 50 years, half a century. Our unions are equal partners with employers and with the government.”

- Lee Hsien Loong's May Day Rally speech, 1st May 2015, The Star Performing Arts Centre

Kim Ng - Street Walker XI (Going Home) (2008)

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Melukis Puisi: Sebuah Pencitraan Puisi-Puisi Pyanhabib @ White Box

May 30, 2015, 7:14 pm

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In this tribute show to local poet Pyanhabib Rahman, artists are invited to test their “…capability in reading literary texts and transforming them into visual images”, and the results reveal a certain aesthetic symptomatic of the current state in Malaysian visual art. Counting the many animal and coffee pictures, figurative representations make up the majority of exhibits. Even non-painting works depict literal translations, such as Fadhli Ariffin’s vicious video of the artist as a chained dog, and Jamil Zakaria’s tongue-wagging chicken wire sculpture. Among earthy colours and cluttered compositions, Syahbandi Samat’s fine ballpoint drawing stands out with its clarity, ‘Hidup’ a beguiling scene that describes beautifully the verses of its accompanying poem ‘Semadi ii’.

Syahbandi Samat - Hidup (2015)

“aku imbang diri / atas rentang tali / direntang tanah datar / kemilau mata pisau / menyentak duri mawar” – Semadi ii (24 September 1983, Anak Alam), Pyanhabib

When mimicry is not the approach, however, a lacking execution in artworks fail to sustain the viewer’s gaze. The emptied-out guitar by Azam Aris, a superimposed projection by Kamal Sabran, and Poodien’s mirrored words, display clever intent but present an unattractive aesthetic. Rocks as transcript appear in a few works, as Faizal Suhif’s monoprint outdoes his mentor Jalaini Abu Hassan in creating an absorbing picture. Anne Samat’s black net background diminishes the effect of her crafty creations, while I wish a clean surface was used instead of a corroded one in Saharuddin Supar’s incisively cut steel.

Saharuddin Supar - Luka-Luka Menyembuh (2015)

“seperti siput mengembara; ketika air sedang surut
aku mengembara begitu siput; dengan mulut
penuh lumpur terkapar; begitu aku jadi nanar
dengan mulut terbuka menghulur; lidah terbakar”

– Luka (21 March 1977, Kota Bharu), Pyanhabib, Balada Pyanhabib, pg. 9

Adeputra Masri - Kenyang (2015)

Adeputra Masri’s ‘Kenyang’ riffs on information overload caused by media technology, its grotesque mythical birds and chess pieces the perfect foil to the desperate poem ‘Lapar’. Moving on to another physiological need, carnal desire is depicted as a temptation in Latif Maulan’s private dance, and as a habitual preoccupation under the sheets by Mohd Akhir Ahmad. Sabihis Md Pandi’s wonderful ‘Taman’ presents this topic best with its garden of desire, as I did not find sex explicitly mentioned in Pyanhabib’s writings on display. In its efforts to fit many white walls, customary large format works fail to visually project poetry and its nuances. Forceful association of one poem per hanging impedes appreciation for both art forms, which reflects also the lack of care by presenters of Malaysian visual art. Indeed,

“maaf / kalau aku tersentuh / susumu yang penuh” – Taman (3 October 1980), Balada Pyanhabib, pg. 35

Sabihis Md Pandi - Taman (2015)

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Snippets: Taiwan, Apr 2015

June 4, 2015, 9:02 am

≫ Next: Known x Unknown @ Aku Café & Gallery

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One pleasant Taichung memory is sitting on a mat surrounded by casually displayed art at 無為草堂, a rustic and serene tea house that befits the description of an oasis within the urban sprawl. The next day, I visited the astoundingly large National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art 國立台灣美術館, which had 5 shows ongoing on top of exhibiting pieces from its permanent collection indoors and outdoors. The main showcase is “TYPEMOTION”, “an international research, edition and exhibition project” sponsored by the Goethe-Institut, which aims to explore typography in moving images since the early 1900s. Browsing a multitude of looping videos within an intentionally dizzy layout, one forsakes deep appreciation of its compendious exhibits, to focus on twelve works by Taiwanese artists.

Tsai Charwei 蔡佳葳 - Incense Mantra 香咒 (2013)

Chinese ideograms make great figurative representations, and different approaches – from computer animations to a robot installation – are equally effective. Leaving wonderful impressions are Tsai Charwei’s (蔡佳葳) meditative video of burning incense, and Lin Shu-Min’s (林書民) remarkable interactive room, which translates chosen words into evocative three-dimensional landscapes. Walking past another three solo displays, the group exhibition “Finish and Unfinish 『不满』之见” intrigues with its curatorial premise. 30 artists present two works – one completed, one regarded as 70% finished – hung side by side, which prompts thinking about the aspiration for perfect form, a requirement stated in art competitions (popular in Taiwan) which obsolete notion harks back to salon paintings in 19th century Europe.

Installation preview video of Lin Shu-Min 林書民 - Literary Encounter 文字遇 (2015)

Unfinished forms describe Louis Kahn’s philosophy in architecture, whose drawings, ideas, aphorisms, and building mock-ups are presented in a thorough exhibition at Taipei Museum of Fine Art 臺北市立美術館. For one who said “a room is not a room without natural light”, this exhibition “…is in a room that is not a room, but a space whose bland, blind whiteness makes a mockery of the work of an architect obsessed with the quality of light.” (Edwin Heathcote, on the same show in London) Photographs of archaic structures are easier to stomach than “The Testimony of Food: Ideas and Food” upstairs, an incoherent exhibition that brings together art which refers to food. Chocolates in the shapes of war machines and a recreated poppy garden briefly piqued my curiosity, otherwise the walk through failed to whet my appetite.

Tai Ming-Te 戴明德 (2015) - [l] Androgynous - Girl with Flowers; [r] Androgynous - Girl with Scissors

Escaping from dreary self-realisation to Taipei Contemporary Art 台北當代藝術館, one is greeted by an organic 15-feet tall screen on the outside, then a 15 cubic metre cloud hanging on the inside. Yu Wen-Fu 游文富 utilises craft to shrink the space that one experiences, effectively enveloping and enthralling the visitor with thousands of bamboo sticks and feathers. Analogies matter little when the visual effect is so powerful, as one projection of a running man leads into an imaginary field of reeds, and a pair of legs emerging from one floating cloud of feathers inspire awe. The artist displays a strong grasp of volume and scale, especially in the mildly claustrophobic but always threatening ‘Wall of Thorns 朿刀辟土（刺壁）‘, and for the room filled to the brim with feathers, which demands the visitor to climb steps and ruminate upon a surreal scene.

Chou Ching-Hui 周慶輝 - Animal Farm 人的莊園 No. 02 (2014)

This sets the mood for more fantastical scenes upstairs, where Chou Ching-Hui 周慶輝 presents tailored photographs of people trapped in their surroundings. Photographed in zoo enclosures, modern life concerns are staged in captivating sets, each exploring themes like beauty, identity, isolation, and helplessness. Utilising a readymade background of real trees and forest murals, the artist injects formal compositions with a multitude of figurative and metaphorical layers. Objects used in the photographs like syringes and glass bottles, are displayed in between galleries together with ornamental wallpaper, as animal noises line the corridors to create an immersive experience. Easily the best piece of art seen this year, I exorcised my regret at missing Au Sow Yee’s exhibition at Guling Street 牯嶺街. This August at Lostgens' then!

Installation views of Yu Wen-Fu 游文富 - Build 竹工凡木 <築> (2015)

“Seeing something again is an important aspect of art. You don’t ever see all at one time. You could see it indefinitely, and there would always be something you haven’t seen, because art is a product of the intuitive—the most powerful instrument within us. The intuitive is the most accurate sense we have. Science can never reach it. Knowledge can never reach it. The beautiful thing that the intuitive gives is a sense of commonality, a sense of human agreement without example. Something can be produced for the first time, and somehow it has a quality of having always been there. That is the quality of human agreement.”

- Louis Kahn, in an imagined interview with Carlos Brillembourg, BOMB #40, Summer 1992

Chou Ching-Hui 周慶輝 - Animal Farm 人的莊園 No. 03 (2014)

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Known x Unknown @ Aku Café & Gallery

June 8, 2015, 4:29 am

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Working without the explicit support of an art dealer and/or institutional support can be difficult, especially when artists want to be regarded as more than just a graphic designer or crafty artisan. Elevation to the fine art pantheon, requires the support and patronage from an elitist group of collector/curator/gallerist, especially prevalent in Malaysia’s small art scene. As art seeps into middle-class consciousness, this elite group is diluted, or the hope is that it will be. Contributing to this erosion of power is the sembilan art residency program, an initiative driven by enthusiasts to increase art awareness and ownership among the public. Inviting artists to stay at foreign locations with an objective to produce artworks is a forceful objective, but the program’s second iteration contains sufficient interesting pictures that refresh the tired eye.

Installation view of ERYN (2015) - [top] Shell Bonsai; [bottom] Sleeping Bonsai [picture taken from juxtaART.the sequel web log]

Surreal juxtapositions describe the works of both resident artists – Winne Cheng @ ERYN, and Raja Azeem Idzham @ Ajim Juxta. Looking past circular canvases to the clear drawings framed behind glass, the former depicts bonsai trees and garden heads in a whimsical manner. Paintings with arches and boxes by the latter project great depth, and a fitting presentation by an artist whose prolific output is thematically stronger than Haslin Ismail (although Haslin’s book cut-outs are hard to beat). Ajim’s illustrations represent his visually absorbing style best – a couple of “Penghuni Distopia” works contain words describing Yusof Ghani’s series, and come across as unintentional yet incisive jabs at the abstract brush strokes prevalent in modern Malaysian art. Ombak sudah cemar, Gelombang sudah kulat, waves be gone!

Ajim Juxta - Tari (2015)

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I Am Ten @ Richard Koh’s

June 12, 2015, 9:03 am

≫ Next: Winter Garden: The Exploration Of Micropop Imagination In Contemporary Japanese Art @ University Malaya Art Gallery

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After 3+ years of visiting Malaysian art galleries, art fatigue finally sets in. And it has to happen at my favourite neighbourhood gallery, whose international reach now warrants another house for showing art, sixth floor mall spaces be damned. Stuck in an anxious status is Gan Chin Lee, whose panoramic kopitiam scene recalls the vivid colours of Ivan Lam with a Phuan Thai Meng earmark, which sitters’ heads are blacked out as foreign entities. One distinguished figure sits within the darkness in Justin Lim’s ‘The Collector’, another black piece acting as a teaser for upcoming solo exhibitions. From an older series, Liew Kwai Fei’s flat colours in odd-shaped frames are presented in a beguilingly attractive manner, hugging the wall with negative space in between shapes providing a respite from the other abstract works on show.

Installation view of Liew Kwai Fei – Untitled (from Shape, Colour, Quantity, and Scale series) (2010)

‘Say Nothing, Do Nothing, Be Nothing’, commands the black brooding triptych that welcomes visitors (or stop them in their tracks) into the new gallery space. Five times smaller at the same price is another black work, this time by Yang Xun. Other large paintings occupy the walls – Natee Utarit’s classical skeletons, Zhu Xinyu’s ethereal forest, and Yang Jiechang’s ink layers. Group shows are inevitably devoid of context, so why am I expecting something more? Enveloped by large pictures with six figure price tags, I snap, as the meaning of luxury hit hard upon my poor soul. Beauty and value are subjective notions, and holding an art-critical lens suddenly become a strenuous affair; The painted ripped effects of Wong Perng Fey and Yeoh Choo Kuan, technically brilliant as they are, evolve into representations of zombie formalism that fulfils only the immediate visual sense.

Yeoh Choo Kuan – Say Nothing, Do Nothing, Be Nothing (2015)

Even non-paintings dominate the walls, although Chang Yoong Chia’s magnified prints of his stamp collages, transform creative storytelling into a nihilistic reaction to the art market. Being familiar with famous paintings from the Western canon, impedes my appreciation of contemporary painting. Are the techniques too similar? Are the same themes regurgitated? If art is meant to represent, why use this synthetic material called paint, when other modes can infer as much if not more? What is the reward of self-expressive brush strokes? So that a collector can equally reward their own self-expression, by spending large sums of money? Ironically, the conundrum I experience is also represented in this exhibition. Samsudin Wahab’s ‘Jerangkap Samar’ is a painted-over painting trapped in a net, then encased in a frame within a frame. Stuck, just like I am.

Samsudin Wahab – Jerangkap Samar (2015)

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Winter Garden: The Exploration Of Micropop Imagination In Contemporary Japanese Art @ University Malaya Art Gallery

June 17, 2015, 9:02 am

≫ Next: Textile Tales of Pua Kumbu @ Universiti Malaya Art Gallery

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Japan. Micropop. Winter. Such obscure and faraway notions come together in an art exhibition at one quiet university gallery. Cute cats, rebellious acts, and manga characters, display a collective reaction to local norms, and does little to increase one’s appreciation of Japanese culture beyond existing perceptions. Paintings by Makiko Kudo and Masaya Chiba display a strong sense of melancholia, especially in the wooden rod jutting out from the latter’s ‘story of famous tree #6’. Most works, however, “…often seems idiotically primitive in technique and absurdly obvious in concept” (David Balzer). A certain dullness covers most paintings, unsurprising given the transportation mileage these works have accumulated (the exhibition has travelled for seven years to at least 18 countries, and just showed at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang).

Video snapshots of Taro Izumi – White Bear (2009)

Like the crazy game shows on Japanese television, works that project weird hilarity are the most affecting. Taro Izumi presents the folly of representation in a manner similar to rotating flashcards at a child. Fleeting pictures are diluted in water or slid away in a linear fashion, symptomatic of how we absorb visuals in the current age. Lyota Yagi’s vinyl made from ice amalgamates natural and synthetic mediums into one entertaining set, its video’s wistful projection most waggish as the artist departs in a car while the record is still playing. As I leave, a chance observation sees Tam Ochiai’s illustrations reflected onto Ibrahim Hussein’s absorbing work via the gallery’s glass enclosure. Universal dichotomies of hot/cold, implicit/explicit, and macro/micro pop into my mind, as I return home to look at pictures of ukiyo-e prints.

Preview video for Lyota Yagi – Vinyl (2005–2008)

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Textile Tales of Pua Kumbu @ Universiti Malaya Art Gallery

June 22, 2015, 9:02 am

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Browsing through six partitioned sections, the organisers successfully create a modern museum-style exhibition, complete with technology-aided displays that include the use of an augmented reality mobile app, video projections, and recreated environs with sound boxes. A university research and collaboration project that focuses on one longhouse community, the content is light and understandably so, as most people from Peninsular Malaysia (myself included) have little knowledge about aborigine cultures that share the same nationality. Documentary loops about Iban women and the weaving of Pua threads are well-narrated – albeit with a foreign accent – and sufficiently draw attention without over-emphasis on the exotic.

Weaving Pua Kumbu - Iban ceremonial textile [from The Star Online YouTube channel]

The wonderful “Pua Slider” utilises mobile tablets to associate visual motifs on a stretched piece of fabric, while QR codes which generate maker and title information offer gimmicky technological innovation. Animated mythologies of the hero-god Keling and his wife Kumang are told by master weaver Bangie anak Embol, the most memorable story being ‘Tangga Beji’ which recounts one’s failed attempt at ascending to heaven, a familiar tale across many cultures. Craft skill and tedious effort manifest within woven fabric, old designs still resonating with a contemporary aesthetic via repetitive shapes and simple contrasts. Appreciating beautiful textiles hung from the ceiling, one wonders about the preservation of things, and how often its original meaning and utility must be stripped away in order to be preserved.

Installation view of the “Pua Slider”

“…Beji was a mythical hero / warrior from the Kapuas region in Borneo. His greatest ambition was to reach Petara, the supreme spirit, by touching heaven. So he and his followers searched for the tallest trees in the forest to make a ladder to climb up to heaven. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he failed every single time, and when he fell, the ladder that he had built was scattered throughout the land, and pieces of it turned to rock. These rocks, known as Tangga Beji, can still be found along rivers today.”

- Tangga Beji, paraphrased from Jabu, E. (1991). Pua Kumbu – The Pride of the Iban Cultural Heritage, referenced from Low, A. (2008). Social Fabric: Circulating Pua Kumbu Textiles of the Indigenous Dayak Iban People in Sarawak, Malaysia [Academia.edu link]

Title: Baya Nanka Nanga Mandai
Maker: Baru anak Langi

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(Collecting? Buying? Acquiring?) Art

June 29, 2015, 9:34 am

≫ Next: Recess: Revealing Deceptions 自欺欺人

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“A subject matter that I am contemplating nowadays and that I am personally concerned with is the nature of a collection and the status of a collector. When talking about collections, we have to distinguish the differences between building a collection and owning a collection. While when we talk about collectors, we have to distinguish being a collector and becoming a collector. So, here we have four keywords: to build, to own, to be and to become. In the case of collectors, of which I am not one (and it annoys me all the time), we have: to build and to be. Someone who is a collector and wants to build a collection has an idea from the very beginning. Once he sets off his adventure, he has no other ambition than to make the collection as complete, complex and exemplary as possible. Is this a vice or a virtue? I don’t know.”

- Brussels collector Herman Daled, interview with Selina Ting, InitiArt Magazine, Paris, 6 October 2011

Hamidi Hadi - Embryo (2005)

Why does one collect art? Is it to make a profit? Is it for home decoration? Is it for fun, i.e. an enjoyable addiction? Is it to achieve social distinction/prestige? Is it to support a moral/political cause? Is it as payment to artists for personal enrichment? Is it to recover lost memories? Is it to (re-)construct history? Collecting artefacts has historically been a demonstration of power, and as one that occasionally buys art, I struggle mightily to continue procuring art in a meaningful manner. The idea of accumulating man-made objects run afoul of my personal beliefs – that the less objects one has, the less attachments one will have – and subscribes to a capitalist way of life that I wish to withdraw from, as hypocritically futile that ideal is. Having a focus is the buzzword in art collecting, the phrase sounding more like consultant speak to fast-track prestige via manufactured novelty.

Kim Ng - Untitled (89) (2014)

Anyone who has researched the opaque art market knows that investing in it is foolish, notwithstanding its damaging impact to 99% of the artists not in the blue chip category. Why spend thousands on a single piece of art, when there are many beautiful products and objects available to decorate one’s place? Display and maintenance of artworks are well-known issues. Should paintings and drawings be hung salon-style? Where to keep installations and sculptures that do not match the colour scheme of a corner space? If art is an enjoyable pursuit, and one paid monies to take ownership of an object, why bother about its preservation? Time and place naturally react with artworks, but am I doing artists a disservice by hanging paintings without frames, or storing photographs without wrapping it in acid-free paper?

Linda Chin - Rubber Rubber #8 (2013)

A useful trope for introspection is to translate ‘collect’ into one’s mother tongue – 收集 (gather/harvest), 珍藏 (hoard valuables) in Mandarin; Kumpul (gather/assemble), kutip (pick/extract) in Bahasa Melayu. Assembling disparate objects into a single place becomes a physical manifestation of one’s values – or is it? How does appreciation of an artwork, transcend individual taste and personal aesthetic upon its purchase? Does re-looking an acquisition generate new insight into one’s self? Turning motivations inside out, is building a collection just a show of power to create history? Collectors utilise their holdings to re-interpret legacies by opening private museums and publishing thick catalogues, such self-aggrandising gestures dwelling upon obsolete notions of connoisseurship.

Lim Keh Soon - Dilarang Merokok (2013)

“…public institutions must form the public memory as their core “, says Swiss diplomat Uli Sigg. I agree with this statement, yet the role of custodian is too noble to bear. Since the National Visual Arts Development Board was established, it is unclear if trustees still play a role in donations or acquisitions, notwithstanding the lack of publicised precedents about publicly donated artworks into the national collection. Patronage is my objective in buying local art, yet how does one buy art without forcing a capitalist exchange, which may manifest an implicit power play? Do collectors ask for an artist’s permission to display an acquisition outside his/her home, considering that the artist may not agree with the motive/intent of the exhibition? If art ownership is not an agreeable form of patronage, is critical praise sufficient to boost the confidence of budding artists?

Video of Okui Lala - 十年树木，百年树人 (translated as "It takes a decade to grow a tree, a century to shape mankind") (2015)

Miami collectors Donald and Mera Rubell are known to support artists by providing regular stipends, but which local artist would accept monthly allowances without feeling patronised? Crowdfunding websites for creative making like Patreon is not useful, for one who prefers to experience art real-life and real-time. Should monies be instead channelled to encourage continuous development of an art community? But if good artworks are being made and sold to fund social initiatives, what is wrong with a material transaction? Hamburg collector Harald Falckenberg remarks, “I give myself over to art. It gives me the ability to live in a parallel world (…) art is a means with which I can compensate for my complexes.” Selfish propositions underlie my purchases – a realisation difficult to acknowledge – as I look out for alternative approaches to support Malaysian visual art.

Snapshot from Minstrel Kuik - Song to Durga - Volume 2 (2014)

“For me, purchasing works of art provides the possibility to live with them, to contemplate them whenever I wish, to enjoy their intellectual and emotional challenge in direct contact (…) For the private collector, close to the pulse of creative production, it is most exciting to fall in love, to decide on his or her own, to spend his or her own money on something just discovered.”

- Berlin fashion designer Erika Hoffmann-Koenige, interview with Selina Ting, InitiArt Magazine

“While it is being constituted, it is better for a collection to remain discreet, even hidden. The attention mustn’t be distracted by the social aspect. The collector risks, unintentionally and even against his or her own convictions, being drawn into an ill-suited, false social role.”

- Ghent collector Anton Herbert, quoted in a 1999 interview with Jan Debbaut, Subjectivity, Partiality, Independence, Quality, Flexibility, 2000

Close-up snapshot of Tiong Chai Heing - The Nightmare of Materialism (2014)

P.S. Artworks pictured in this blog post do not represent those purchased by the author.

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Recess: Revealing Deceptions 自欺欺人

July 6, 2015, 9:01 am

≫ Next: Ashes of Time 告白.告別～灰燼之後 @ Lostgens’

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Going beyond merely art fatigue, I re-evaluate my personal conviction that art has to be avant-garde. 95% of local creations still subscribe to centuries-old painterly representation, its market buoyed by capitalist transactions initiated by the nouveau riche, who have not grown out of bourgeois notions of connoisseurship. In an immigrant land where handicraft cultures are diluted across generations, historical context in Malaysian art is inexplicably absent. The dominant mode of describing a contemporary era are shallow and straightforward depictions, of an imagined nostalgia or popular politics. Much looking has built up unrealistic expectations, and looking from the outside is a tiring endeavour. Perhaps I am not looking hard enough, or at the right places. Perhaps if I stop looking, the avant-garde will find me instead.

Ajis Mohamad - Karangan di Penjuru Pulau (2014)

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Ashes of Time 告白.告別～灰燼之後 @ Lostgens’

July 30, 2015, 9:17 am

≫ Next: Twisted Life @ The Print Room

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A burn usually leaves a lifelong mark on oneself. The scar is a reminder of an event – perhaps malicious, perhaps unintentional – that is destructive nonetheless. Applying this visual metaphor literally, Chong Yi Lin burns photographs and baby singlets, two objects that carry overt but effective symbolic associations. Family portraits are stuck and burned onto pictures of soiled walls, causing severe discolouration around the image of the artist as a little girl. Nostalgic effects are popular among Dasein graduates, but in Yi Lin’s case, the purpose is not to freeze time as a melancholic moment, but to create a material reminder of the “…pain and unexpressed anguish…” suffered by the artist. The effectiveness of making artefacts to exorcise oneself, is not apparent in the final product, and likely manifest in the process of making.

Installation snapshots (2015): [top] We Move Away From This Place; [bottom] I See How Warm It Is Inside

Joss sticks char holes on white singlets, the burned marks lining up as nodes in a grid. This presentation recalls a systemic act of inflicting damage, which habitual repetition mediates pain as a justifiable sacrifice. In her series of “Portraits”, prints of these damaged clothes represent reproductions of personal loss, which Yi Lin juxtapose with a variety of picture-making techniques that end up looking like visual experiments. Writing, collage, thread, and photocopy transfers weave straightforward narratives; The wonderful ‘Portrait 8’ stands out with its large blots, alluding to the unresolved bigger picture when representing a scarred past. The power of the object is evident in the installations exhibited together with the aforementioned series of prints, where physical materials are easily more evocative than two-dimensional creations.

Portrait 8 (2015)

In ‘No Milk Today’, pacifiers are stuck onto the white wall or inserted into damaged singlets, some clear plastic elements having turned dirty yellow due to burning. Artificial instruments for nurturing babies become symbols of helplessness, its penetrating display and long spouts recalling the shape of condoms, thus adding a vicious element of aggression to this shocking presentation. A drastic change in one’s emotional tone is required to appreciate a woven bolster nearby made by Yi Lin’s mother & grandmother, which I presume the artist will bring along to Taiwan where she will further her studies. Photographs posted online of this artwork focus on the hands that made the object, a subtle and gentle ode to motherly love. Yi Lin’s great ability to translate personal emotions into visually arresting things, renders any references to Wong Kar Wai, unnecessary.

Installation snapshots of No Milk Today (2015)

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Twisted Life @ The Print Room

August 7, 2015, 8:30 am

≫ Next: Gerakan Seni 2015 @ SMK Bandar Baru Sentul

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Floating apples and tonal imbalances denote darkroom manipulations, such experiments employing a retro-DIY approach that dwells too easily upon visual effects and an emphasis on manual effort (or de-emphasis on technological innovation). The exhibition title subverts one fine art genre, and it is perhaps inevitable that the most attractive works on display focus on dramatic renderings of static objects. Shareem Amry captures flowers encased in melting ice, her black background limiting possible methods to create visual depth, which depend on hi-resolution textured surfaces of dead flowers. The results are beautifully poignant, its rectangular ice blocks recalling the shape of a coffin, with water as the nourishing element within. Shareem utilises solarisation to posit a glowing butterfly hovering over seashells, this surreal yet charming image hanging at the gallery's WIP section.

Shareem Amry - Under This Skin #1 (2015)

Paul Gadd demonstrates technical expertise with vivid and captivating captures, his subjects and titles referencing well-known examples of Western canonical art. Pig heads served upon platters are called “John”, while a lady draped with heavy linen and her breasts exposed, is titled ‘Waiting for Purgatory’. “Throne of the Fallen” sees a snake tied to a cross with fruits at its bottom, and spindly stalks of flowers on a shallow bowl refer to “The Reaping”. These striking pictures with Christian references evoke strong emotions, and when juxtaposed with the one odd set – a number of sunflowers studies – lay bare the presumption that post-impressionist tendencies (or, just Van Gogh) are more expressionist than classical subjects. It is astounding how a collection of photographs can project a playful twist on art history, as one looks forward to the studio gallery’s new direction.

Paul Gadd - Throne of the Fallen #2 (2015)

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Gerakan Seni 2015 @ SMK Bandar Baru Sentul

August 13, 2015, 9:01 am

≫ Next: Habitation and Elsewhere: Image as Instrument 居所與他方：影像測量計劃 @ Lostgens'

≪ Previous: Twisted Life @ The Print Room

In a country with an outdated education system – where science & math subjects are promoted as superior over the arts & humanities – the perception of art as a key to understanding one's culture, is lost on parents trained to perceive science stream students as having better career prospects. Pendidikan seniteaches drawing and colouring on a two-dimensional surface, which adheres to the basic notion of art as glorification technique. Good visual design and its appreciation is important, but what is sorely missing from this syllabus are art’s history and the development into its contemporary form, where realistic depiction is a secondary concern.

Snapshots from Kebun Kreatif project [pictures from Ili Farhana’s Facebook page]

With sustained activities that engage students with ideas of art as intervention, or art as a process, the month-long “Gerakan Seni 2015” stands out as a significant milestone in local art education programming. Having driven past colourful rags strung together, I walk across a wet field where an odd-shaped bamboo structure lies, then follow the hand-drawn map to glimpse an oven made of mud, and admire a charming garden signposted 'Kebun Kreatif'. Youthful enthusiasm is detected two blocks away, as I enter classrooms where students (and a few parents/teachers) are rolling black ink onto carved plates, or moulding clay tapirs outside a creepy exhibition of preserved insects.

Joint creation by Pangrok Sulap and SMKBBS students

Curator Tan Hui Koon gathers an impressive list of experienced artists to execute the festival programs, from socially engaged individuals to senior art lecturers, and even out-of-town artists last featured in a February exhibition at the Sabah Art Gallery. An ecological theme is a great choice to engage youth who are now more conscious of their environs, and the rewards of such engagements are evident on the many happy faces seen on the Facebook event page. The feeling of hope grows stronger after seeing the list of institutional supporters. In a mural nearby, cartoon figures disembark from paper boats to cohabit an island with a spray can / light tower at its centre. Art is a useful approach to articulate ideas, and it should be an imperative that our children are taught just that.

Snapshots from Tapi Project [pictures on right from ArtSemble’s Facebook page]

“Romantisisme keabadian saat persekolahan itulah barangkali apa yang sebenar-benarnya diinginkan oleh mereka. Rasa keselesaan berteman itu, didorong lagi ke arah aktiviti yang berteraskan konsep komuniti dan pemberdayaan seni sebagai salah satu aktiviti utama, berjaya membuahkan hasil yang positif. Peluang seperti inilah yang jarang diberikan kepada kita sewaktu kita kecil. Ia berhenti di tahap sekolah rendah kemudian paradigma pendidikan beralih fokus kepada kemajuan akademik semata-mata dan tidak lagi mengambil kira kepentingan kooperatif dan semangat setiakawan untuk menjayakan sesuatu program.”

- Anak Dagang, Atas Nama Keselesaan Berteman, Seni itu Hidup dan Terus Berlangsung, 9th August 2015, The Daily Seni

Mural [picture from GRAFFITI – 080815 photo album on Gerakan Seni’s Facebook page]

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Habitation and Elsewhere: Image as Instrument 居所與他方：影像測量計劃 @ Lostgens'

August 21, 2015, 3:21 am

≫ Next: Facets of Art Show Platforms

≪ Previous: Gerakan Seni 2015 @ SMK Bandar Baru Sentul

Stepping straight into a narrow space, a screened documentary shows interviews with people of distinctly different ethnic and social backgrounds, telling a story of friends living together on an island called Mengkerang. Excerpts from historical documents (including a ‘prequel’ of Sejarah Melayu) are printed on wooden boxes lining the corridor, as scenes of a large rock, tombstones, a flag’s shadow, and children playing football, are glimpsed out of the corner of one’s eye. Only when I read a bigoted statement made by the former deputy prime minister, that this whole set up falls apart as a sham, ironically triggered by a fact which I am certain was true (as learned from news reports). Truth reveals itself via an audio-visual sensory hierarchy – the memory of a read story, triumphs over a video narrative playing in front of me right now. Gamelan beats ensue.

Installation snapshot of A Day Without Sun in Mengkerang (Chapter 1) 棉佳蘭一日無光（第一章) (2013) [photo from Au Sow Yee's Facebook page]

“Perhaps we may re-boost the resistant momentum of images with the after-image in our consciousness”, writes Au Sow Yee in describing her works in “The Mengkerang Project”. Exhibited and re-titled as “Habitation and Elsewhere 居所與他方”, other abstruse terms appear in its catalogue essays, such as Documentality 纪录性, Utterance of Moving Image 影像的口气, and The Syntax of Memory 记忆的语法. Looking at the main screen – a compilation of footage from classic Malay films and British Pathé newsreel – ‘Sang Kancil, Hang Tuah, Raja Bersiong, Bomoh, the Missing Jet and Others’ compounds one’s helpless feeling at the convoluted messages this video installation projects. The voice-over folklore echoes the first exhibit with its multiple narrative threads, but feels further disjointed due to the misalignment between moving picture and sound.

Snapshots of Sang Kancil, Hang Tuah, Raja Bersiong, Bomoh, the Missing Jet and Others (2015)

Distrust is sowed at this stage, as my pessimistic self can only imagine the invisible migrant worker narrators in ‘Pak Tai Foto’, as voice actors. Songs sung in the individual’s local language are charming, and the relatively slow-moving diptych creates an uncanny feeling of suspended time, which helps re-set the context of this exhibition. The power of spoken word is a formidable one, as it forms mental images quicker than visual association, which supplements the previous realization of how truth manifests within the audio-visual hierarchy in a gallery setting. Despite the symbolic references to the creation of national identity, Sow Yee’s project demands further research (post-production for the art exhibition viewer?), and its artistic presentation is sufficient to trigger one’s curiosity to find out more about her source materials.

Installation snapshots of Pak Tai Foto (2015)

There is no nostalgia – the inside of Foto Pak Tai is really old. The small lane beside it houses red-lit rooms where migrant workers pay monies in return for sexual pleasure. Video captures in ‘A Day Without Sun in Mengkerang (Chapter One)’ are taken from a road trip, sometimes with an iPhone, hence the eye-level horizons. The original Hikayat Sang Kancil cartoon lasted only one episode, and was not aired until five years after its production. Distant tracking shots of a person from behind always invoke suspicion, this camera technique used to film Chin Peng in Baling, a place incidentally also associated with the wonderful legend of Raja Bersiong. Women were trained by the British to fight communists. The Missing Jet does not refer to MH370. Warrior scenes influenced by Ben-Hur and special effects (a king transforms into a dragon) in a 1968 Malay film is particularly hilarious.

Snapshots of Sang Kancil, Hang Tuah, Raja Bersiong, Bomoh, the Missing Jet and Others (2015)

Sow Yee’s method is complex – this challenge perhaps understated due to the perception that video is a contemporary medium – and ambitious. She attempts to exorcise personal questions of identity, while maintaining an academic rigour to track the history of moving images. This disconnect is evident in the commentaries by Taiwanese writers, who are not familiar with the local language and landscapes hence a focus on the immediate output. At FINDARS, Yap Sau Bin compares her project with other Malaysian artists who dwell on the subject of geography and identity, but the politics of images is a topic not broached. In this contemporary age of appropriation, the emphasis placed upon the image seems outmoded at first, yet Sow Yee’s research-based presentation highlights the subconscious impact of images, a notion worth meditating upon.

Video record of talk by Yap Sau Bin titled "Conversing/Locating/Weaving an Imaginary Non-Landscape (Or Seascape?)", held at FINDARS on 2nd August 2015 (part 1/3) [from Kien Yeo's YouTube channel; Parts 2 & 3 are on Community Arts Projects: Cultural Exchange Operation Facebook page]

The artist situates the project firmly within a space-time domain, reminding the audience in her exhibition opening, about “The forgotten? The hidden? The imagined?” Differing narratives do not tell a single truth – à la Rashomon and its linear storytelling – but the truth lies within an oscillating mediation between then and now. Sing Song-Yong writes, “…one of the attractions of Mengkerang lies in the separation and out-of-alignment of images and voices as well as the complex sounds, complex tones, and even the heterogeneity of the languages expressed in this work.” Translation is a problem, but it is a delightful problem to tackle, as Sharon Chin reflects, “…translation is a way to understand something twice (…) It’s like overlaying the same image on top of another, and they don’t quite match (…) Translating images is a way to understand them again and again.”

Video record of exhibition opening talk by Au Sow Yee, held at FINDARS on 2nd August 2015 (part 1/2) [from Kien Yeo's YouTube channel; Part 2 is on Community Arts Projects: Cultural Exchange Operation Facebook page]

After a first viewing, I found the best place to stand and appreciate the installations together. At a corner of the gallery, bathed in light and sound emitting from all four screens at once, the excessive stimuli triggering a continuous flow of mental images. The obscure terms start to make sense – memory as syntax, utterance of moving images, documentality… Where do I currently inhabit? I am in an exhibition space of an art activist collective, in an old building near the next major street demonstration, in the capital city of a country embroiled in political corruption, in a region where its people contest identities but seen by the West as the next economic 'tiger', on a blue and green planet (as we are told) amidst a dark solar system. Just like the zoom-out-from-street-level-to solar-system effect seen in Hollywood films. CUT!! NG!

A Day Without Sun in Mengkerang (Chapter 1) 棉佳蘭一日無光（第一章) (2013) [from Au Sow Yee's Vimeo page]

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Facets of Art Show Platforms

September 3, 2015, 8:21 am

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≪ Previous: Habitation and Elsewhere: Image as Instrument 居所與他方：影像測量計劃 @ Lostgens'

Gallery hopping in the Mont Kiara / Solaris area on a weekend afternoon, it is interesting to note the differing approaches of private galleries at this upmarket locale, in the absence of memorable art. Isolated destinations are the norm, and public walk-ins are rare. An exception is “Facets” showing works from an all-women collective at White Box. Lisa Foo’s leafy installations are typically great to interact with, but ill-suited in a white box environment, although ‘Grooving with the Wind’ is a charming welcome sight. Multi-media creations by Jasmine Kok feature sinuous lines and attractive colours, her best works being stone and ceramic sculptures that recall a primitive celebration of the female form. In a society eager to proclaim man as god, this contested shape is beautifully represented in the V-shaped “Sensuality Dress” series, and ‘A Cut’ cut from Ipoh marble.

Jasmine Kok - [l] A Cut (2009); [r] Sprout (2010)

In the exhibited paintings, nude figures dissolve into abstracted designs, and full-frontal faces depict a challenging individual stance. Gallerist Artemis Art does well to distract the audience and steer away from potential controversy, also successfully showing original works by dedicated emerging artists. The same cannot be said about “Platform II”, the group exhibition for young artists held at upstairs neighbour Galeri Chandan. The influence of Malaysian art teachers manifest in an obvious manner, from figurative paintings where scale is not a concern, to found object constructs that denote singular and uninspiring references. Two graduates curate this group exhibition, another sign of direction-less initiatives by galleries who, now think that having curators and printed catalogues are the way forward to establish professionalism.

Yante Ismail - Desire (2015)

Perhaps the ambitious gallery is building a pipeline of future contributing resources, since it is also taking part in two art fairs overseas at the same time. More commendable is its last project “#Art4ManekUrai”, which utilised sales of artworks to fund house-building efforts for a flood-stricken family, even following up and reporting on its construction status. Held at Segaris Art Centre on the same floor, “ArtAid15” is another charity show, its static nature of contributing to a good cause synonymous with a gallery that peddles luxury collectibles to specific local audiences. Few kilometres away, The Edge Galerie adopts a similar business approach, via overt comparisons of established artists with investment-grade stocks. The artist is trumpeted as cultural icon, a tough proposition when looking at glittery but boring paintings by former Anak Alam member Ali Rahamad.

Noor Mahnun Mohamed - Spiral (2015)

When a scam of an auction is held downtown – where Giclée prints are priced at five figures – local art auction pioneer Henry Butcher collaborates with UOB to exhibit works by past winners of the bank’s annual art awards. Painting and its limitations are on full display, from watercolour depictions of jetties, to messy abstracts and realistic figures, to the intentional blanks on Ng Swee Keat and Tang Yeok Khang’s canvases. Interesting older works include surreal drawings by Shirley Wong, whose juxtapositions are thematically political yet fun to look at. Exhibited this year in Singapore, Minstrel Kuik’s charcoal illustrations project a personal empathy for female movie characters, the portraits effectively amalgamating facile fictional stereotypes with dramatic self-realisation. Gallery hopping in an affluent neighbourhood, I ask – what is corrupt, in art?

Wong Shirley - Portrait for Long Hair (2013)

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Logging In 記錄·登入 @ Nando’s LOT 123

September 7, 2015, 11:03 am

≫ Next: The Flower @ Wei-Ling Gallery

≪ Previous: Facets of Art Show Platforms

Eight young artists register semantic interpretations of the domain, where visitors are guided upstairs a fast food restaurant via stickers, into a gallery space with three metal constructs. De Ming Wei’s enlarged ideograms probably looked better on a computer screen, as other less successful visual expressions include documentations of people traversing within Singapore MRT stations, and a bizarre container of test tubes with a dangling 10 ringgit note inside. Strong emotional attachments either make or break an artwork, Krystie Ng’s hand-sewn “Love and Hurt” series having displayed both sides of the spectrum, albeit the exhibited ones here are less alluring.

Installation view of “Logging In”

Yau Sir Meng continues to take apart her favourite topic – the Malaysian education system – as an endurance performance, the repetitive write-and-erase actions turning personal reflections into a nihilistic act. An opposing approach is Chua Hui Ming’s ‘Fun’, two tables with iron powder and varying sizes of magnets, that encourage the audience to move their hands and create abstract expressionist pictures of their own, not unlike in a science museum. Energy levels are polarised when squatting down to watch Lam Shun Hui’s ‘丫’, a remarkably subtle and enchanting video. Nondescript street scenes are juxtaposed with tree branches, the panorama revealing visual symmetries that hint at subconscious notions about natural beauty.

Video screenshot from Lam Shun Hui - 丫 (2015)

Digital icons are stuck below artwork labels and printed at the bottom of catalogue pages, these tiny interventions by Huan Jia Jin inciting one’s curiosity. The subtly imposing and even subversive intent to guide and encourage discourse, follows a similar set up of how social media platforms are advertised on websites. Presenting icons on a horizontal printed strip, however, prevents one from clicking to find out more, thus transforming the icon from an information link to an imagined statement. Going with the perception that contemporary art is always open to interpretation, the artist’s offer to trigger conversation is an irresistible one, although the walkie talkies on hand are unneeded contrivances. Time to log into Facebook for more information about the exhibition.

Label snapshots of Huan Jia Jin - ∞ (2015)

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