Malaysian Art

در گام های نخست تاریخ زندگی بشر و هزاره های پیشین که انسان برای رفع نیازهای مادی و معنوی خود می کوشید تا    مواد متنوع طبیعت را به دست آورد و به آن صورت و معنا دهد، هنرهای صناعی ساخته و پرداخته شد.

امروزه نیز که در دهه دوم هزاره سوم میلادی روزگار میگذرانیم و جهان به کلی نسبت به گذشته متحول و متفاوت شده است، هنرهای صناعی کمابیش جایگاه خود را حفظ کرده است و بسیاری از کشورها به دنبال اهداف اقتصادی و فرهنگی در جهت اعتلای بیش از پیش آن می کوشند.

ایرانِ ما نیز با انبوه افتخارات تاریخی خود در هنرهای سنتی و همگام با دیگر ملل پیشرفته، میتواند در مسیر ایجاد شکوه فردایش به احیای هنرهای صناعی ارزشمندش بیندیشد. امیدواریم این گام کوچک، تلاشی هرچند اندک در این مسیر باشد.

In the past fifteen to twenty years, the Malaysian market-oriented art world has evolved and expanded. Within this evolution and expansion, many interesting trajec-tories took place not in tandem with the promulgation of the Malaysian market-oriented art world. Thus, this article serves as an attempt to trace changes in the Malaysian art scene not based on the establishment of the 'art world', but the coexistence of alternative art practices since the late 1990s that occurred within the same period. Therefore, this article will discuss several alternative courses that surfaced since the establishment of several alternative art groups, collectives and spaces in Malaysia. These initiatives later led to various public programmes organized by such groups and spaces. Examples of the aforementioned public programmes include art talks, workshops, exhibitions, exploratory works and even art festivals in an effort to involve the public in community-engaged art projects.

""This paper discusses the shaping of modern art identity in Malaysia during the 1950s and 1960s. It frames or investigates the development of modern art in terms of Malaysia�s plural society. While writings by Malaysian art historians such as Redza Piyadasa highlights that Malaysian modern art only in terms of its linear development, this paper attempts to discuss the early development of modern art in Malaysia as being influenced either directly or indirectly by the political and social conditions of Malaysia, therefore shifting ways of investigating Malaysia art in a wider context of Malaysia�s cultural and plural studies. Focusing on Malaysian fine arts in the 1950s and 1960s, this paper suggests the ways that Malaysia�s early form of plural society had influenced the early modern art development among artists in groups such as the Nanyang, Wednesday Art Group (WAG) and Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung (APS).

Keywords: modern art, plural society, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Wednesday Art Group (WAG) and Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung (APS) ""

In Malaysia, there is a question in term of intellectualism activities in the context of visual epistemology. Therefore, this paper revealed the problems that linger in the Malaysian contemporary visual art scene. In fact, Malaysian contemporary artists appear to have insufficient intellectualism values and less discourse activities. The lacks of scholars in the field of visual arts create a gap in the visual arts scene in Malaysia. The question of this study was to uncover the main problems in Malaysian visual arts that led to the problem of art intellectual development. In addition, this paper presents the awareness of the valuable contributions in the intellectual development that able to enhance the communication in the art object.

AbdullahAriff(1904-1960) is oneofthe earliest Penang artist active in producing illustrations  and art  worksduring  the  early  20thcentury  Malaya.  He  was  a  self-taught  artist  andsubsequentlyan  art  teacher  at  the  local  Anglo-Chinese  School, Penang.  He  was  one  of  the  earliestlocal membersof  the  Penang  Impressionist, an  art  groups  consisting  of  mostly  wives  of  English  officers  and  expatriates.  As one of the early Malayan painter who had exhibited in the United States, United Kingdom andFrance  during  the  1950s,Abdullah  Ariffwas  accordedthe  title ‘Father of Modern Art in Malaysia’ by Zakaria Ali through an exhibition held at that National  Arts  Gallery  under  the  same  title. Working  as both  illustrator and artist, this paper willexaminethe cosmopolitanism of AbdullahAriffthrough his background and works he produced.

This paper discusses on the impact of thematic approaches taken by Malay artists in Malaysia since the 1990’s.Malaysian art has become increasingly diverse in terms of its approach, subject, theme and media. This growing artistic diversity is discussed within a postmodern framework and is representative of a shift in tendencies away from a purely Malay/Islamic-centred artistic tradition to a more postmodern approach that is inclusive of Malaysia’s emerging middle class. Since the 1990’s, works produced by Malay artists have taken a more critical perspective aligned with the postmodern situation or situasi percamoden in accordance with Malaysia’s leapfrog into modernization. Through their works, Malay artists raise concerns and issues pertaining to the consequences of development and modernization, and explore themes ranging from social problems, environment and urbanization, and contemporary issues thereby employing postmodernist approaches in their art. What is obvious is, that Malay artists are concerned with the immediate and near future, rather than looking back or glorying the past. These artistic tendencies epitomize the challenges, divergences and even connections of perspectives that define the growing Malaysian middle class especially in the context of the construction or even deconstruction of Malaysian society.

Multiculturalism is under constant debate as to how it is linked to developing inclusive identity in the facades of public buildings: yet it must be rooted in overall local identity. The richness of this multiculturalism elements is reflected in the various motifs applied in the traditional public buildings. Influences of this Multiculturalism will also be discussed in this paper. The paper reviews a series of composition analyses of the motifs in the building components and elements of palaces, an aristocratic house and a mosque in Malaysia in order to study the composite elemental vocabulary based elements and the links to the local endemic Malay identity and traditional decoration motifs from the selected building elements; such as wall and ventilation panels, door leafs, staircases and balustrades are extracted n studied morphologically. Case study taken from Balai Besar Kedah, (1896) Istana Jahar (1887) Kota Bharu, Istana Bandar (1903) Kelang, Rumah Panglima Ghani Melaka and Masjid Tengkera Melaka (Malaysia). The motifs are broken down into constituent multicultural components and elements to show vocabulary and usage of colour which also reflect the symbolic meanings behind these motif compositions. The basic understanding of these elements are shown to reflect the multiculturalism richness and vocabulary used in these decoration motifs.

Artworks in the form of " installation art " have become a widespread artistic activity in the current art world. In the context of the Malaysian art, the term has been initially used to describe a few artworks produced during the period of the 1990s (despite being mostly categorised as mixed media). This paper examines the evolution of installation art in the Malaysian art scene and discusses several early works that can be proposed as the early impetus towards installation art in Malaysian artistic practices. Clear historical outlines and assertions on the evolution of installation art demand a different nature of investigation. However, this paper is only limited to examining three concurrent domains or significant turning points in order to give a more lucid insight into the evolution of installation art as an artistic practice in Malaysia. The three domains that this paper will elucidate are (1) the two-dimensional and three-dimensional engagements or contestations during the 1970s, (2) Young Contemporaries Award (YCA) as a platform for installation art engagements and subsequently, (3) emergence of site-specific installation art projects during the late 1990s.

In this article, I propose alternative art historical approaches for comparisons of Southeast Asian art. I discuss the art of Amron Omar (b. 1957) who,  since the 1980s, is widely regarded as one of Malaysia’s most accomplished figurative artists, and Indonesia-born performance artist Melati Suryodarmo (b. 1969), who came to international prominence in the early 2000s. Through the unlikely coupling of Amron’s and Suryodarmo’s art, I explore how each artist – differently, but also similarly – negotiates the discomforting tension between the body and the self. In connecting the two artists, I also attend to unexplored methodological discomfort in developing contemporary Southeast Asian art history. This article challenges such epistemic discomfort, purposely invoking uncommon alignments to explore their generative potential for new readings of Southeast Asian art history and, therefore, help expand existing approaches and methods for engaging with Southeast Asian art, regionally.

In Malaysia, the implementation of the National Culture Policy in the early 1970s reiterated the ethnic preference policy of the National Economic Policy (NEP). As a result, the subsequent 1971 National Culture Congress (NCC) and the Islamization Policy undertaken by the government in the late 1970s had great influence on art practices in Malaysia, especially during the 1980s. These policies could be seen as an official attempt to shape the Malaysian identity, especially in terms of visual art in post-Independence Malaysia. The first part of this article will discuss the indirect consequences of the 1971 National Culture Policy and several Islam-centred policies since the late 1970s and how several assertions were made through a few writings about Malaysian art: that only certain modern art forms, aligned with the rhetoric of national agendas, were produced and exhibited in the late 1970s until the mid-1990s. This paper will problematize the assertion by discussing some disjuncture and inconsistencies in relation to this narrative of Malaysian art. Thus, this paper will argue how, despite the general perception that the National Culture Congress (NCC) and the Islamization Policy had great influence on art practices in Malaysia, a deeper examination of exhibitions revealed that art-making by most artists still depended on the artists' own endeavours and own modern artistic practice. Nevertheless, as this paper will also highlight, this period is an important attempt in decolonializing modern art in Malaysia by ways of state and institutional support, albeit its limited success.

To provide a broad context for the collection, this essay briefly introduces the geography and cultural history of the region and the concept of Island Southeast Asia as a cultural entity. Also known as insular Southeast Asia, the region inconveniently crisscrosses many contemporary political boundaries. Its heartland lies in Indonesia, and indeed the Richman Collection is particularly rich in objects from Borneo and Sumatra. The same mountain chain that forms Sumatra's backbone dips under the sea as it crosses the unmarked border between Indonesia and India, then emerges farther north as the Nicobar and Andaman archipelagoes. Regional affinities also extend north of Indonesia throughout Southeast Asia's other great archipelagic nation, the Philippines, to the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan, and even to such mainland peoples as the Jorai of Vietnam and the peoples of the Naga hills in Assam, India.

Island Southeast Asia is the term increasingly used for the region that, in the earlier literature, was referred to as the Malay Archipelago, Indonesia, or Malaysia, in the broadest sense of those terms. The term Malay Archipelago was inadequate because Malays are only one of the region's hundreds of ethnic groups, and because Indonesia and Malaysia have now been adopted as names for nations. Island Southeast Asia has thus been increasingly accepted as a term for this culture area, even though it includes related mainland peoples as well. The region comprises one of the five standard parts of Oceania (the Pacific islands), the other four being Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, and Australia. The dual aspect of its identity is aptly expressed in its name, sprawled as it is within Oceania's island realm and yet historically in continuous contact with events and influences from the Asian mainland. The region minimally includes the modern nations of the Philippines, Indonesia (except Irian Jaya), Brunei, and the eastern part of Malaysia (Sarawak and Sabah).
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Note: the full book is out of print but available online from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Art_of_Island_Southeast_Asia_The_Fred_and_Rita_Richman_Collection

This chapter regards a certain aspect of Malaysian art history regarding modern abstract painting. It is divided into three main sections. The first situates Latiff's artistic philosophy and identity in the context of the academy, in this case the Academy of Fine Arts in West Berlin, Germany. His work is placed in context of some of the conditions in which artistic practice developed in post-war West Germany, including a recuperation of German Expressionism banned by the Nazi's. The second section deals with the label of Abstract Expressionism/ist in relation to Malaysian painting. This entails a brief discussion of these terms in their Western cold war context, and further transformation in Malaysia. The final section further differentiates Latiff's work in dissimilarity to many accounts of his work. Here, I articulate some of the salient features of his aesthetic approach and philosophy of the art making process

In the Islamic history of the Malay Archipelago, the Persian's contribution in terms of the artistic repertoire influence towards the shaping of the Malay's Islamic art has rarely been discussed by scholars. This is troubling as much of the Persian land (Iran & Iraq) from the 10 th until early 13 th century was inhabited by the Turkic people from Central Asia who were heavily influenced and thoroughly 'Persianised'. Therefore, the art historical method was employed in this study to analyse the artistic connection between the Malay Archipelago with the Turco-Persian Dynasties in Iran. The findings indicate that there is a strong artistic connection with the Turco-Persian Dynasties, namely the Ghaznavid Dynasty (977-1186CE), Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (1077-1308CE) and the Candarogullari Beylik in Kastamonu, Anatolia. Although a small fraction of the Ghaznavid and Seljuk Islamic art survives, their influence can still be seen in the Islamic art used to adorn the Mahmut Bey Mosque in Kastamonu which is slowly deteriorating in time. The Mahmut Bey Mosque is a vital piece of evidence as the surviving Islamic art used to adorn the mosque is a combination traditional Turkic art with the the Seljuk and Ghanavids forms of Islamic art, in which influence of previous religion practiced by the Turkic people such as Tengrism and Buddhism are also evident. These influences were then brought to the Malay Archipelago where it is then acculturated in the existing Malay art culture, particularly in woodcarving and masonry of early Islamic tombstones.

Malaysian crime fiction in Malay is still under researched, with the main stages of its development yet to be identified. This article aims to partially close this gap by addressing the period before World War II. The study uses the comparative method, applied synchronically to determine the extent of Western influence on Malay crime fiction at a particular time; and diachronically, to outline the historical evolution of the genre. The analysis demonstrates that in the 1920s, the influence of Western crime fiction resulted in borrowings and imitations of foreign plots. Action took place predominantly abroad and the riddle formed the core of the narrative. In the 1930s, the genre had evolved to depict local realities, and the stories became politically engaged and coloured by Malay nationalism. The focus in the narratives shifted from the riddle to the socio-political message of the author. Consequently, by the 1940s, Malay crime fiction rapidly lost its generic features, and this brought about the subsequent decline of the genre in Malaysia.

I consider the ways in which Yee I-Lann’s art revisits the colonial
archive in an attempt to affect our understanding of its geographic, social and historical implications. Stitching together concerns about time, space and feelings, Yee I-Lann’s work addresses Southeast Asia’s history of colonial practices through her method of ‘speculative photomontage’, creating speculative moments to suggest new meanings within past and present contexts. In so doing, her work opens up the single photographic moment in time by recontexualizing and recombining signifiers of memory, landscape, personal, and social histories, emotional and political affiliations through her photomontage process. The visuality of her approach facilitates alternative – and affective – ways of seeing the ripple effects of histories and geographies.

In this primarily visual essay, I consider the ways in which Yee I-Lann’s art revisits the colonial archive in an attempt to affect our understanding of its geographic, social and historical implications. Stitching together concerns about time, space and feelings, Yee I-Lann’s work addresses Southeast Asia’s history of colonial practices through her method of ‘speculative photomontage’, creating speculative moments to suggest new meanings within past and present contexts. In so doing, her work opens up the single photographic moment in time by recontexualizing and recombining signifiers of memory, landscape, personal, and social histories, emotional and political affiliations through her photomontage process. The visuality of her approach facilitates alternative – and affective – ways of seeing the ripple effects of histories and geographies.

https://brill.com/view/journals/jim/12/3-4/article-p529_12.xml

Illustrated and illuminated manuscripts of the Dalāʾil al-khayrāt from Southeast Asia are an invaluable resource for our understanding of the painting tradition of this region. The many copies now kept in various institutions attest to its popularity, while the lavish treatment often given to manuscripts indicates the high regard local communities had for this text. The types of images featured are similar to those from other parts of the Islamic world, yet these images, as well as the decorative illumination, also reflect local artistic styles. This paper examines a selection of Southeast Asian manuscripts of the Dalāʾil al-khayrāt dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, situating them both within the broader context of manuscript production and usage, and the pietistic landscape of the region.

From 2007 to 2012, Bersih, a coalition of non-governmental organisations calling for reform in the Malaysian electoral system, held three rallies that gathered hundreds of thousands in Kuala Lumpur. These protests are largely deemed a people’s movement and a sign of transition from an authoritarian to a more democratic social political order. This paper examines the significance of the Bersih protests by considering how artists engaged with these events and the artworks they created in response. I focus on three figures, A. Samad Said, the National Literary Laureate and official spokesperson of Bersih, the artist Sharon Chin, and activist Fahmi Reza. The latter two respectively devised performance and visual pieces for the rallies that were subsequently featured in art institutions, the former at the 2013 Singapore Biennial and the latter in the Klang Valley. In their own ways, these artists invited fellow protestors to reflect on their relationship with one another as they participated in collective action, and on their relationship with authority figures. Their artistic interventions complicate the idea that Bersih reflects the rise of people’s power by implicitly questioning the hierarchical models that governed the protest’s terms of participation. Moreover, given that their artworks were situated both in the street and in cultural institutions, these artists incite conceptual questions on the relation between art and politics in analyses of political movements and contemporary art. Going beyond notions of art as political propaganda, or as reflecting the political ideologies of the times, these artists ask, how might the process of constituting collectivity be thought not just in political, but in aesthetic terms as well?