Art KL-itique

Walking past antique furniture then ascending a flight of stairs into the gallery, one is greeted by 45 glass plate photographs made with early photographic processes. Encased in black frames and leather folders, these pictures are relatively tiny as compared to contemporary art photography, yet the images’ shiny surface and dark-on-dark presentation evoke an irresistible aura. The exhibition wall text describes K. Azril Ismail’s creations and salutes historical figures, “(t)hese pictures are hand-crafted, one of a kind, image-objects, with the lending hands of the great giants of photographic pioneers: Louis Daguerre, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Frederick Scott Archer, alongside with (John) Herschel, (Thomas) Wedgwood, (Carl Wilhelm) Scheele, (Humphry) Davy, (Nicéphore) Niépce, and (Hippolyte) Bayard.” Skull, Warrior, Bird and Guide Book (Table Study) (2012) [picture from weiling-gallery.com] With reference to the four photographic processes employed here, Wikipedia infor

In the previous blog post about the ILHAM Contemporary Forum, I wrote that “(c)oncluding what is contemporary is an impossible task, largely due to the different time ranges inherent in the making of exhibited projects.” I have been looking at it the wrong way, it seems. For the re-hang (week 14 of the 20-weeks long show), the revised exhibition text states that ‘Forum’, not ‘Contemporary’, is the pivotal keyword. My involvement in the programme also got deeper beyond an exhibition visitor. I attended the “ Meet the Curators ” forum when facilitator Lee Weng Choy and the seven project curators, talked about three topics – ‘Representation’, ‘Exhibition’, and ‘Contemporary’. In the same week re-hang took place, I was informed that my essay competition proposal was accepted; I then submitted a 2,000-words essay titled I See Efforts in Curating, but Whose Process is it? in the exhibition’s final week. Installation snapshot of: [l] Lim Kok Yoong – Operasi Cassava 3.0 (2013); [r] Vid