Art KL-itique

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 Excerpts from historical documents (including a ‘prequel’ of Sejarah Melayu ) are printed on wooden boxes lining the corridor, as scenes of a large rock, tombstones , a flag’s shadow, and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 F...

In a country with an outdated education system – where science & math subjects are promoted as superior over the arts & humanities – the perception of art as a key to understanding one's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 seni teaches 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 colo...

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 v...