Art KL-itique

Organised annually by the Ministry of Tourism & Culture, the 1Malaysia Contemporary Art Tourism (1MCAT) festival is a ridiculous gimmick initiated by the previous minister, which government spend could be better utilised in other tourism initiatives like promoting KL heritage. Lousy art are publicly displayed in shopping complexes such as Pavilion and Starhill Gallery, while the galleries in "art mall" Publika collectively offer a dismal number of quality work. Main showcase "M50" is organised by the National Visual Art Gallery (NVAG), where despite occupying a decent space like White Box, fails the litmus test in its capability to curate and display a good art exhibition. These embarrassing events stem from a need to fulfil pro-government objectives spelled out in the marketing brochure (in Bahasa Malaysia): Anurendra Jegadeva - I is for Idiot [Picture from news report] 1. Meningkatkan kesedaran tentang persejarahan dan pembentukan Malaysia. (Raise aw...

Note: Picture captions below are interpretative titles by this blog author, and not the title of a particular artwork. There is only one art installation, it is called Fibrespace (2013), and these are photographs taken of it. [Ground floor] Antique furniture greets the visitor who sips on rich flavours from a single malt, the whiskey sponsor a necessity in realising this landmark event. Conceived and constructed by Claudia Bueno, the Venezuelan hails from a country associated with Optical artists Carlos Cruz-Diez and Jesús Rafael Soto. Claudia is known as a light artist, as I fear the worst with the dreadful images of Dan Flavin's fluorescent tubes and Bruce Nauman's neon words, floating in mind. Ascending the stairs, one is reminded of the fire that razed this building, before the reconstructed space became one of KL's most enchanting gallery space. Pulling thick drapes aside, darkness sets in. Tree branches seem to sprout from the ground, its cocoon forms weaving tow...

With a catalogue essay titled "The Figurative in the Figure" that praises the "clever selection" of the gallery owner, "...to counter the usual expectations we have of figurative art", one is bewildered when the author ends the essay by surmising that "The human form in figurative art and other approaches never ceases to amaze as it and the various trajectories pursued..." Assigning a title to a group exhibition is difficult, but when the works displayed include Yeoh Choo Kuan's abstract paintings and C.K. Koh's box-headed cartoon character, the figurative theme becomes a conceited falsehood. This lack of purpose is amplified in Choo Kuan's 'Mad Rush', a diptych that gives off a strong odour of oil paints and  aims to capture ephemeral feelings, which intention is better served in his two smaller grattage works.  Seah Zelin - Phase 3 (2013) Chong Kim Chiew's fanatical marks forcefully map a printed Malaysian i...

Straddling historical significance and fine art, Eric Peris' landmark series "Tin Mine Landscapes" is redeveloped from a digital format, numbering 23 images that survived the disintegration of the original negatives. As described in the catalogue introduction , "These landscapes have been lost to development, and thus ironically, continuing economic wealth has contributed to their erasure. The concept of Impermanence (or 'Anicca' as termed in Buddhism) has been explored repeatedly in this body of work and throughout Peris’ career." Natural elements are highlighted within harsh terrains, its social significance brought to bear by the occasional inclusion of human presence or product. Hung at the serene confines of the gallery's second floor, the 54" x 38" and 27" x 19" photographs absorb the viewer, its enigma overshadowing the pixelation seen in the larger C-Type prints. Earth - Mud Patterns: Sand Stands and Mud Clusters ...

Force-fitting an exhibition title, or curious theme to begin with? Common traits observed across this collection include vast airy spaces, the colour pink, and material objects - are these Love's characteristics? Cheong Kiet Cheng's husband-and-wife wonderland and Ruzzeki Harris' baby scans, proclaim romantic and fatherly love respectively. Respectful yet simmering with tension, is apparent in Sean Lean's portrait of his father, where the sitter's frank pose is over-painted with broad white strokes. Delphine Gomez's collages depict a yearning for European life, its soaring verticality crystallising a nostalgia that comes across as more personal, than the mishmash of black stencilled objects in Anisa Abdullah's collage. Perhaps love is measured in its most primitive approach, as depicted by Cheng Yen Pheng with unwavering panache, where a feminist undertone lie beneath her work's erotic forms. Cheng Yen Pheng - Airball no. 14 - The Unbearable Lightn...

Following on from his previous exhibition "The World is Flat" , Chang Yoong Chia continues his stamp collage commentary on colonialism in "Immortal Beloved" . Turning his attention from queens and empires to the personal story , this collection reflects deeply upon the commoner and their cultural identity, as juxtaposed against renown world leaders whose achievements are in itself propaganda material. Acting like a resourceful museum creator, the artist ambitiously creates narratives from paper memorabilia, instilling his artistic license into brown letters and wrinkled stamps. These source materials are also framed and exhibited alongside the specific work it inspired, giving respect to an obsolete object that augments the message to respect history.  My Dear Motherland (2013) A letter from a Chinese teacher to his emigrant sister in Malaya, flanks 'My Dear Motherland' and its companion piece 'My Dear Motherland: New Village'. The superb...

Characteristics of Chris Pole's paintings are obvious to see: devoid of living beings, hyper-realist depictions of natural elements, stencilled word, and an oddly familiar perspective. But it is the flattened surface of man-made structures, that render his works modernity, and a "children toy block" effect. As a 6-week tourist and resident artist in Malaysia, 'Translation' and 'Navigation' captures the spirit of the exhibition title, where iterations of colour and shape illustrate beautifully the architecture of Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman and the National Mosque. An unintentional satire emerges in 'Submerge', a painting of Lake Titiwangsa with the Istana Budaya and National Art Gallery in its background, imbuing a double meaning of sinking culture to the local viewer. Submerge (2013)

The roads of Kuala Lumpur is a battlefield. Driving a car with manual transmission is like wielding an obsolete weapon. Highways without tolls become swampy jungles, full of potholes and unsightly obstacles. We risk certain death each time we step into our vehicles, yet KL-ites spend 10% of our working lives on the road, while enduring stress and masking patience. Driving as an action, has become an extension of human body function, as we control cars with sensory perception and physical movement. Young artist Eddie Choo Wen Yi exploits this daily experience, and turns this notion of indirect control on its head.  13062013 Thursday Morning: Home - Batu Caves (One way) P/S: I have nothing to say Traffic: Not so good Speed: Shifting gears 1, 2, 3 and keep repeating the same thing all the long way Having devised an apparatus that draws while her car registers movement, the artist creates drawings supplemented with driving conditions such as departure point, destination, ...

Salisbury Cathedral is celebrated for its early English Gothic style, a sturdy base with soaring apses, that became a blueprint for future medieval churches. Helaine Blumenfeld's "Messenger of the Spirit" pays homage to this wonderful building, exhibiting 20 sculptures that invoke the spiritual in this still-functioning church. Helaine's marble and bronze works take after fabric, twisting and flowing as if suspended in wind, creations of lightness in the most hardy material. Figurative fragments form the design of angels, where even the relatively shorter 'Souls' in the courtyard, present a strong verticality that soars towards heaven. Describing 'The Space Within', the exhibition booklet provides a poem that suggests, " Where do we find that space within ourselves? " Helaine Blumenfeld - The Space Within (2007) Few painters work actively with resin and enamel paint as a medium, and nobody manipulates it as well as Hamidi Hadi . An ...

The perfect representation of the exhibition title, Wong Hoy Cheong’s ‘Buckingham Street and Its Vicinity’ greets the gallery visitor, a lithographic map that combines London and Penang in a whimsical reflection of Malaysia's colonial past. Hung next are large landscapes of the tropical rainforest, depicted in a serenity akin to a tourism advert, without the cheesy tune. Sabahan Yee I-Lann captures the contradictions of urbanity in the “Kinabalu" series, where contemporary images are fused with rural vistas to superb effect. The large panorama draws one into cool pastures, with the majestic mountain looming in its background, each picture commenting on specific issues of modernity. Wong Hoy Cheong - Buckingham Street and Its Vicinity (2002) From Ismail Mat Hussin’s batiks to Maamor Jantan’s watercolours then Ismail Hashim’s black & white photographs, the middle section is devoted to remind city dwellers that the rural kampung still feature prominently in many Mal...

I believe the psychological disposition towards an aesthetic preference, for the representational or the abstract, stems from an individual's life experiences. The practical businessman pines for concrete symmetry and material perfection, while the educated corporate embraces ambiguous concepts & intrinsic beauty. Education is formative towards an individual's aesthetic preference, but we cannot deny how some paintings look better than others even to the untrained eye. These basic characteristics of visual arts - composition, colour, forms, texture, continue to occupy my central belief that a universal aesthetic exists. What I need to work out, is the factors that appeal to me, perhaps because of nostalgia, or other personal interests like philosophy or interior design. Hamidi Hadi - Beautiful Day (2011) Art critic Hans Hoffmann believed, that "...burdening the canvas with propaganda or history does not make the painting a better work of art. Such burdening, i...

Visiting the National Art Gallery to view 5 different exhibitions, turned out to be an awful experience. Poorly lit spaces, cold as a refrigerator, wrong or incomplete labelling, and bad curatorial efforts, leave me lamenting the sorry state of affairs at this public institution. While the Huang Yao retrospective and surrealist show deserve its own postings, the remaining exhibits do not. "Penglipurlara" presents old story books, a cartoon, a mute wayang kulit  video, and a blog post projected onto the wall (?!). Viewing the exhibits at the same time was a tourist couple, who sounded like they enjoy art, but definitely not this - there was no English explanation available, not even a translation of the Puteri Gunung Ledang or Peristiwa Merak Emas  fables. Liew Yoon Thin - Running Script 行书 (2013) Upstairs, the Chinese calligraphy exhibition "Warisan" hangs 136 scrolls. Without categorisation or any explanatory texts in the crowded space, the event makes t...

The majestic Petit Palais aka Musée des Beaux-Arts, exhibits many objets d'art that are breathtakingly beautiful, also displays paintings & sculptures from significant French artists. Jean-Honoré Fragonard's bistre wash landscape , is a drawing that contains all the free-spiritedness evident in his paintings. The superb portrait of Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard by Paul Cézanne, conveys a serious individual that was adept at his business, and respected by his peers. Exhibited in a large room dedicated to the commoner, are Fernand Pelez' oil paintings of poor people. Displayed side by side on a single wall, individual groups of figures occupy multiple canvases, an empathetic work that sees contemporary parallels with local artist Kim Ng's "City Dweller" series. Fernand Pelez - La Bouchée de Pain (1904) Only in Paris can an established art institution hold an exhibition as bizarre, and receives a positive response.  "The Ange...

Commemorating its 20th anniversary, Galeri Petronas commissioned Zulkifli Yusoff for an art installation that celebrates the National Oil Company's core values - loyalty, professionalism, integrity, and cohesiveness. Displayed in the gallery's only well-lit corner, are 10 panels with protruding globes that adorn the walls, and 6 recessed kawahs (an oversized kuali ) lying on the ground. The artist's signature strips of repeating words, are glued onto these objects in circular loops, further layered with grid-like motifs. Possessing a rocky texture and lava colours, the globes are made of resin, and symbolise the hasil bumi of petroleum and natural gas. A unified past on a kawah Interpreting the visionary narrative projected through these objects, the kawahs symbolise the past , where Merdeka!  is repeated literally. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad's proclamation to solidify independence, via the harvesting of natural resources, was a rallying call that...

Although not a fan of black & white, Eric Peris' photographs offer a contemplative view into a historical locale, that reminds the city boy in me, of a laborious industry that lies not far away. Horizontal planes that depict the elements of earth, water, and sky, are apparent in these 20+ year-old pictures, showing a desire to maintain a compositional balance. The exception is an interior shot of a  kampung house in Kedah, where sunlight streams through rectangular windows, to illuminate glossy floor planks. The poetic prose that accompanies each picture, marks the photographer as one who empathises with nature, but does not romanticises it. I do not expect an accomplished and celebrated artist to switch styles, but it is tempting to imagine these photographs coloured, especially if tinted by Eric Peris' hand. Langgar, Alor Setar, Kedah, 1984 "Windows bring to light, a kampung's landscape, Yet, each reveals all" "First showers quench not,  Ri...