Dear friends and colleagues
I am in Malaysia, but only in spirit. In reality I am still looking at the same mountain in the Philippines as last week and the same laptop, still writing the same book. As you can see from the snap, the mountain is always changing, clouds or mist blowing over and round it, its colours changing with the light.
But I am thinking of a small exhibition of art from Malaysia I curated in London late last year and some of the issues that such a venture raises. Malaysia is really not so obscure a country, although it mainly seems to get into news nowadays when its planes crash :-(. It has all the ingredients of an art world like yours: serious artists, art schools, galleries, ambitious collectors, a critical discourse. Like every country it has its own peculiar institutions and problems: race, arabisation, a plague of palm oil trees. Like every country it has shared problems: globalisation, urbanisation, censorship.
From the beginning art was, as in other ex-colonial countries, very important as a medium with which to nation-build: its National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur (KL) was founded in 1958 – within a year of independence. But, though artists in Malaysia and other South-East Asian nations have a real pride and commitment to their particular nations they do not want to be seen just as Malaysian artists, rather as artists who work in Malaysia.
As I pointed out last week, national exhibitions, that is to say exhibitions of artists from one nation state alone are not currently perceived as cool. In an age of curators it is far cooler to base a show on a theme or concept, be it theoretical, ideological, poetical or whatsoever-ical. But if the curators never visit a country like Malaysia and the international art magazines do not write about them how do the artists there ever get to be known about and included in these theme or concept shows?
If the mountain won’t go to Mohammed… then Malaysian artists have to come to London or some other metropolis in the hope of being seen. Therefore when I was contacted by people organising an exhibition (entitled Diversity) sponsored by a Malaysian trade organisation to curate it I was happy to accept. It was of course a pleasure working with the artists. Many of them were well established, key figures in the Malaysian scene. Mine could be described as a relatively conservative selection: there are some other younger, interesting artists working in media and more conceptual modes, but as this was also meant to be a “selling” exhibition and the best-known artists in Malaysia are unknown in the UK anyway…
Diversity, installation shot
It was perforce in a rental space and, quite apart from the problems of working with temporary screens, it is not easy to get people to such a venue, for it lacks a track record of any particular kind of art. (Though as it was 200 metres from the National Gallery I was able to visit the late Rembrandt show on a regular basis which was a very great treat!)
Yee I-Lann, Ahmad Zakii Anwar, Shukri Mohammed
What struck visitors first were the two very large drawings by Ahmad Zakii Anwar. Many people saw a kinship with Chuck Close – though this does not come across in reproduction. Seen in reality, a compositional grid is still evident and the texture of the compressed charcoal rubbed by hand into the paper becomes visible. Very subtle, very sensitive. I can think of few
Zakii
Jai, Dalang
Nearby were three dark paintings by Jalaini Abu Hassan, better known just as “Jai”. Known as a charismatic teacher Jai has long been seen as a star within Malaysia. His use of bitumen is characteristic and has been much copied in Malaysia. Dalang is the Malay term for puppet master – the man who not only manipulates the shadow puppets but narrates the story. It is a common metaphor for mastermind out here. He came to London earlier partly to see the Kiefer show at the RA. I found that very disappointing. I will be doing a studio visit to Jai in KL soon and will ask him his opinion then. And, of course, I will report back on what he is doing at greater length.
One thing you learn when you live in South-East Asia is that religion is not in decline as it currently is in the West: Islam, Christianity and Buddhism are all undergoing a revival. Once when I asked a Singaporean artist whether she had seen another fellow artist, she replied, ‘O yes, I saw him at our last bible class.’ This never happened to me in London! But the artists if, as they often are in Malaysia or Singapore are religious, and sometimes in Indonesia, are never sectarian: most take it as a given to be open to all religions. The Balinese artist I Made Wianta put it me recently as, ‘I go to church, I go to mosque and I go to temple. I always want to find out something that I don’t know yet.’
This interest in the figure and painting, of course, can make art from this region sometimes seem old-fashioned to people in London or New York. In Malaysia figuration has an added edge for in an increasingly hardcore Muslim state, nudity and life drawing are effectively banned. Those artists who want to draw from the live model go instead to Bandung to do so – Indonesia may be the largest Muslim country in the world but it is also perhaps the most relaxed. Life drawing as a result has become a radical practice in Malaysia! (BTW, as my exhibition was sponsored by a State organisation no nudity was allowed in it.)
I showed ten plates from a set of fifty plates by Yee I-Lann originally made for an exhibition in the Van Loon museum. (2 only reproduced here) As that was where the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) used to sit and decide how to maximise their investments she wanted to put some images of ordinary Indonesians and Malaysians where their colonial masters once met. Printed in the blue and white not so much of Ming but of Delftware, the images were also strangely bereft of women, perhaps a wry comment on Malaysia today.
Yee I-Lann
In any exhibition it is interesting to see which art the visitors like best. The work of Chong Ai Lei, clearly appealed. She has always painted young women in urban life in moments which could be moments of indecision or moments when the penny drops and they realise something. People could empathise with her images of young Chinese women, hair flying wildly about. Who has not bounced up and down on a bed with pleasure, or shaken one’s long hair? That the four paintings were called Hairstorm also suggested at possible trauma. If the strength of I-Lann’s work was its conceptual complexity, the strength of Ai Lei was its immediacy.
Chong Ai Lei, Hairstorm, 2014
That is enough for today: I will not say anything more of the other artists (Ahmad Shukri Mohamed, Kow Leong Kiang, Umibaizurah Mahir@Ismail, Heng Mok Zung and Juhari Said) as I am sure I will be working with them some time in the future and can write more about them then.
A question that may be raised by some readers is whether some of this work is old fashioned. When one goes to another region do you assess the works by the standards and expectations you have in London (or wherever your base is) or by the standards and expectations of the country you are visiting? I think you need to have a balance between the two. We are learning to accept that there were alternative modernities; we have to realise there are also alternative contemporaries.
I go to Manila in two days time and my next letter will be from there.
With all best wishes, have a good Tuesday,
Tony