We were recently in Taipei and have concluded that despite the four-and-half hour flight time, grim weather and so-so food, the trip to Taiwan was definitely worth the time (and money) in order to catch Cai Guo-Qiang’s solo ‘Hanging Out in the Museum’ at the Taipei Fine Art Museum. As photography was strictly not allowed, it is quite impossible to describe the power and epic scale of the artist’s elaborate installations and gunpowder projects presented in this retrospective exhibition. Nevertheless, Rachel managed to sneak a few shots when the guard was not looking. (Please see below for scenes from the show, and apologies to TFAM for breaking rules!) The artist’s attention to detail, precision and the power of his underlying messages are literally mind blowing! The exhibition was divided into two parts: “Dramatic Time Condensed” on the first floor explores Mr. Cai’s tendency to “counteract time, so that movement and dramatic movement –which are only possible in time– are condensed into still objects”, while the second floor, titled “Contradictory, Changeable Gunpowder”, traces the development of Mr. Cai’s gunpowder exploits from early paintings with gunpowder to the blowing up of his ’sketches’. A comprehensive collection of video documentation also provide further understanding to Mr. Cai’s pyromaniacal ‘drawing’ process and gunpowder performances , and these range from earlier works such as the “Project for Extraterrestials” series (made during the 1990s) to the recent opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“Head On“, an installation with 99 life-sized wolves, fabricated from sheepskins and stuffed with hay and metal wires, barreling in a continuous stream towards (and into) a glass wall, is definitely a Rogue favourite. Loaned from Deutsche Bank’s collection, this work is a critique of the German reunification. We found the artist’s statement “invisible walls are the hardest to dismantle” –describing the German condition – very apt for Malaysia too. All in all, we spent between three to five hours at the museum (twice!) and found ourselves quite reluctant to leave. To quote our travel companion Mr. Lau,  “Cai Guo-Qiang has single-handedly beat 5000 years of Chinese history” as he held our attention far longer than the National Palace Museum exhibition –5 hours as compared to 1 hour– displaying treasures from the Chinese world. We heart Cai Guo-Qiang : )

Please don’t miss out on this show if you are in Taipei, the show closes on 21 February 2010 (closed on Mondays and CNY).

The Taipei Fine Art Museum

Cultural Melting Bath : Project for the 20th Century

Rent Collection Courtyard

Rent Collection Courtyard

Head On

Inopportune : Stage One

Reflection - A Gift from Iwaki

Lucky Draw Prizes

Rachel was particularly excited about the Lucky Draw at TFAM. The prizes are: (Week #1) A pair of return tickets to Hong Kong; ( Week #2) Tea with Cai Guo-Qiang and a signed exhibition catalogue; (Week #3) TWD $ 20,000 (approx RM 2,200) Voucher from Eslite Bookshop; (Week #4) 1 iphone 3GS; (Week #5) A pair of return tickets to New York to visit Cai Guo-Qiang’s Studio and tea with the artist at the Empire State Building. WOW!!!

To make the trip even more worthwhile, we also caught Takashi Murakami’s print show at Arki Gallery near the Taipei Main Station, which will run until April 2010. We were impressed by the Taiwanese audience’s enthusiasm for art! There were at least 3 rows of people in front of any artwork at any one time when we visited Van Gogh’s exhibition at The National Museum of History. We also had to return to MOCA Taipei twice before we had the opportunity to enter the museum as we could not bear the 2-hour ticket queue outside the museum on our first visit. Rachel managed to squeeze in time to catch the ‘Visual Attract and Attack’ at MOCA Taipei (after the 2nd attempt) and here are pictures of some of the works on show.

The 2-hour queue outside MOCA

The Queen of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Yang Moa-lin

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Yang Moa-lin

PixCell-Elk by Japanese artist Kohei Nawa

A sculpture by Takashi Murakami

Movement Age by Chen Zhiguang

Superheroes in fetus stage by Alexandre Nicolas

Baby Hulk

Baby Wonderwoman

Malaysia Boleh! It was a lovely surprise to see Chan Kok Hooi artworks here too!

(RN & AO)

The “WORK” exhibition was launched last saturday to a large crowd. Many thanks to all the participating artists who came early and all the guests that came to support this project!

Please visit the WORK exhibition page for more details on the project.

View of Zakii's and Kow's artwork

View of I-Lann's and Fuad's artwork

View of Siew Ying's and Jai's artwork

View of Hamir's, Fuad's artwork and Ramlan's sculpture

View of Ramlan's sculpture

View of I-Lann's and Fuad's artwork

Portraits of the artists by Tara

The participating artists, Tara Sosrowardoyo and RogueArt

The early birds...

Boss #1 & Boss #1 giving speeches

Raja Shahriman's sculpture and Tara's little room of portraits

The peak of the opening with crowds even on the 1st floor

The crowd spilling out of the house to the street...

RogueArt is proud to host 23 Reasons We Still Need Superman, a traveling video art festival devised and curated by Tim Crowley. This presentation is an extensive overview of video work from the last 15 years. In true Myspace/ Facebook fashion, the selection is both personalized and intentionally un-private, customized and compartmentalized yet available to all. It targets the interest of artists in investigating how images operate and construct our understanding of the world. They explore aesthetic concepts, everyday narratives, and sociopolitical realities and utopias. While some artists use the video to challenge our assumptions about the mimetic nature of the medium, the curatorial focus of 23 Reasons We Still Need Superman will be the relationship between performance and video, what reaction the works create in the audience and the subject matter as a catalyst for dialogue. Contemporary reality is an assemblage of whatever grabs our attention and we want these works to play part of the contemporary reality collage of the viewers, to form an alternative kind of map.

The opening of the video art festival is this Friday, 15 January 2010 from 7-10pm at 19 Jalan Berangan. The screening will also continue on Saturday, 16 January 2010.

Supported by Timeout KL and 19 Jalan Berangan.
The video art festival will continue its travel to Beijing, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

It’s been an eventful September and October. The regional Art Market seems to have picked up, with a successful Sotheby’s Southeast Asian sale in Hong Kong, coloured by some supersize prices for people to talk about, and a couple of near sell-out shows at home in Kuala Lumpur. So people who are into the Art Market should feel a little more comfortable.

Chong Siew Ying, Jumping Dog in the Village (KIAS, Valentine Willie Fine Art, KL)

Natee Utarit, Alice in Ordinary Land (Tales of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Richard Koh Fine Art, KL)

While I’ve wondered if 2009 might be a good year for galleries to keep a low profile, I’m pretty pleased to have caught a few great exhibitions these past two months.

Painting may remain predominant in contemporary regional practice, but when faced with such a proliferation of “up-and-coming” young painting talents (at times questionable), it’s good to be reminded why we continue to put faith in the medium. Phuan Thai Meng’s Made in Malaysia exhibition at VWFA KL in September was impressive - beautifully painted, carefully considered, with a strong and clever socio-political undercurrent. It’s really heartening to see this artist come into his own with a first major solo show of such sophistication and punch, a formidable talent bearing bountiful fruit.

Phuan Thai Meng, Artificial Fountain

Phuan Thai Meng, Rewards

During Raya break in Manila, I managed to find my way to the opening of Geraldine Javier’s Butterfly’s Tongue at West Gallery in Quezon City. Harrowing, exquisite, extraordinary, Javier has once again outdone herself in this ambitious show. Fascinating species of beetle glow darkly on rich floral embroideries in gilt frames, placed like referential insets on paintings about sacrifice, wonder, Pre-Raphaelite romance, madness. The show resounds with the mystery and romance of craft, manmade, natural, insidious, violent, while casting an interesting light on the mythical narrative of painting. Someone liked it so much that it has now moved across Metro Manila to Manila Contemporary in Makati for another run.

Geraldine Javier, The Perfect Blossom

The Perfect Blossom (detail)

Also while in Manila I made my first visit to SLab (Silverlens Lab) which was exhibiting Tears, Cuts and Ruptures: a Philippine Collage Review, cutting across influential veterans like Roberto Chabet and Gerardo Tan to young artists like Poklong Anading and MM Yu. We tend to forget the subtle pleasures of collage and assemblage, and these Filipino artists possess the wit, bravado and that eye for the esoteric that make the old-fashioned cut-and-paste well worth poring over.

Down in Singapore for the art fair, Agus Suwage’s CIRCLE at STPI made my trip - Suwage’s sensibility really seems to have gelled with the project, playing off the wide range of technical possibilities of print and paper and the strategies of reproduction, as well as the whole high-end glamour element of STPi (Suwage used his controversial work Pink Swing Park - and his original model for that installation, Izabel Jahja - as a springboard for the project). Very cool, very yummy, very desirable.

Agus Suwage, Self Dot 1

Agus Suwage, Rain Dot 1

(BY)

Oops. Yet another post about Indonesia. You must be wondering what is the matter with us Rogues. Apologies for going back on our word but it is simply beyond our control as Indonesia’s bustling art scene is far too exciting to avoid. We were away again in Jogja several weeks ago to catch Agus Suwage’s 20 year survey exhibition, “Still Crazy After All These Years”. It was an exhibition we could not miss as this show presented a rare opportunity to view a number of Suwage’s most important works from local private collections as well as from the artist’s personal collection.

Locally known as Agus Suwage’s birthday show –the artist had just turned 50 earlier in April, “Still Crazy After All These Years” is one the most comprehensive solo exhibitions the region has seen so far.  News about this project’s grand ambition (and hefty price tag) to bring together over 100 works from different parts of Indonesia as well as making the necessary improvements to the exhibition space had spread through the grapevine for over 6 months, putting further pressure on Suwage’s exhibition team and curator to put together perhaps the most amazing show Indonesia has ever seen.

And what is the verdict?

This show is definitely worth the trip. It is truly impressive and cleverly planned, charting the artist’s development in a clear and concise manner. The works were laid out chronologically according to major themes, taking the audience through Suwage’s 20 year journey as we witness his artistic explorations and personal obsessions. From early self-portraiture to address a wide spectrum of issues from society, politics to the personal, to the artist’s agile appropriation and reinterpretation of performance art documentation, his love affair with music, and lately ruminations of Death, the show reflects the artist’s consistency, the breadth and depth of his focus, his incredible wit and playful mischief.

On opening night, Suwage played host to nearly 2000 guests and well wishers from Indonesia and beyond. Despite several black-outs and the unexpectedly huge turn out –front of house was forced to turn away people at midnight, “Still Crazy After All These Years” has earned its place in contemporary Indonesian art history as a landmark exhibition.

Here are among RogueArt’s top picks from the exhibition (in no particular order):

And Rachel’s personal favourite:

Also, we would like to give a Rogue thumbs up to exhibition curator Enin Supriyanto and salute the formidable Titarubi and the rest of the team at iCAN for a fantastic a job well done! (AO)

“Still Crazy After All These Years”
(Selected works : 1985 - 2009)
curated by Enin Supriyanto
4 - 31 July 2009 at Jogja National Museum
Jl Amri Yahya No. 1

Find out more about the exhibition at www.agusuwage.com

We’ve just received our e-invites to Agus Suwage’s solo exhibition in Yogya and we would like to encourage anyone who is popping by to Yogya within the month of July to make a point to catch this show at Jogja National Museum. I heard from the grapevine that it is going to be one of the most amazing shows ever to be mounted in Yogya!!

Agus Suwage: Crazy After All These Years
Exhibition runs from 4 to 31 July 2009
Jogja National Museum
Jl. Amri Yahya (Gampingan) No. 1
Yogyakarta, Indonesia

We’ve recently returned from a quick trip to Yogya and Beverly had her first experience of attending a typical Yogyakarta art exhibition opening (with lewd comedy skits and artists singing and dancing). The said exhibition was “Rai Gedheg” (meaning “Shameless” in Java) at Bentara Budaya (23 June - 3 July) and will tour to Jakarta, Malang and Surabaya. Again, the artwork that I like “Lelah” by Agapetus Kristiandana has something to do with my collection of pigs… ☺. I was very amazed with the detailing - right down to the cardboard paper that the artist used to display the sculpture.

A typical art exhibition opening party in Yogyakarta

“Lelah” by Agapetus Kristiandana

“Seperti Chaplin” by Hedi Hariyanto

We heard that Bob Sick and S Teddy D were having an opening on the 24th but we were already leaving so we decided to preview the exhibition at Taman Budaya when we popped over to Malioboro the next morning. It is a pretty amazing showcase – Bob Sick made new paintings, S Teddy showed some of his old objects with new sculptures. I especially liked General, “Platoon, better you die? Ok!”.

General, “Platoon, better you die! OK?” by S Teddy D

“Show me the way to the next bridge” by S Teddy D

“The Farmer’s name is Hulk” by Bob Sick

“Black Gold” by Bob Sick

L-R: “Lady Coffee”, “White Lotus”, “Black Buddha”, “Meja Hijau” by Bob Sick

Opening night

The opening of Personal Effects, our first exhibition project for 2009, on 30 May was a roaring success. We were really happy to see so many of our friends from the art world and beyond come to the show. Thanks all for your support. Thank you especially to the exhibitors for being so forthcoming. I hope in the end they rather enjoyed having their prized possessions on display.

Jalaini Abu Hasan & Jaslena Amir setting up

Hayati Mokhtar, with Attachments

The first floor was a great crowd-pleaser, especially with the younger guests - they really took to Su Ann Wong’s shrine “The Dolphin is My Goddess” and Chang Yoong Chia’s clever shadow play “Shadow of Flora and Fauna”. Wong Hoy Cheong’s “Free Coffee” was also very popular, attracting such luminaries as Datuk Syed Ahmad Jamal and his wife Datin Hamidah.

Free Coffee, served in person by Wong Hoy Cheong

Su Ann Wong, The Dolphin is My Goddess

Iqbal Pakhruddin with Shadow of Flora & Fauna

We apologise now for not having many photos of the night - sadly, while the crowd was wonderfully respectful of the fragility and preciousness of the exhibits, my camera went missing at the end of the night. If you came for the opening, please do post any nice images you may have!

For more about the show, and to download the PDF catalogue, go to our Exhibitions Page.

BY

We made another pilgrimage down to Singapore’s NUS Museum a couple of weekends ago (yes, I am a bit late) for the opening of Ahmad Zakii Anwar’s new solo exhibition, Being. We were part of a sizable Malaysian contingent, all patriotically heading down to support one of our art world heroes.

Reclining Figure 1

In the ten large-scale charcoal drawings which make up the exhibition, I think it would not be too much to say that Ahmad Zakii seems to have elevated the tradition of the nude drawing to some higher plane - a physical sublime, or a spiritual classicism. This male figure, standing, seated, reclining, seems a contemporary answer to that extraordinary human being presented by the Renaissance masters, a sort of David for today, of different proportions, much as the artist himself would resist such grand comparisons.

Standing Figure 12

Standing Figure 14

Throughout Ahmad Zakii’s work, we are aware of an inherent spiritualism, an interest in humanism, in Islamic, especially Sufi teachings, and Eastern philosophy. For me, though, it is in this new body of drawings that his ideas find their most precise and powerful expression to date. It is as if each taut sinew, shadow of muscle, burnish of hair, and protruding vein pulses with what drives man’s life, and also with what destroys it. The poses, or ’self-presentations’ seem to reference yoga positions, and even, as mentioned by Patrick Flores in the catalogue, “Zakii’s fascination with epic heroes in ersatz western films”. Man here, as expressed purely by his body, is heroic, fragile, awkward, beautiful….

…. before I try to write a gushing review, I urge you to try to catch this show. The drawings are particularly breathtaking as they are presented here, in a museum setting with much room for pause and meditation. The exhibition ends 7 June.

Also on at NUS 9-31 May, Spacing Identities: J Ariadhitya Pramuhendra which looks like it could be interesting.

In Singapore, I also spent a very enjoyable afternoon at SAM (Singapore Art Museum), and came out determined not to do any neighbour-bashing for at least a month. It reminded me of leisurely winter weekends in London and Paris in my ‘youth’, where I could seek refuge from the dark and the cold in museums and galleries and happily while four hours away looking at interesting, beautiful, clever and educational things, both strange and familiar.

SAM has very adequate air-conditioning as a reprieve from the equatorial heat. I began with the star exhibition of Wu Guanzhong’s donation of 113 works to SAM which covered rooms on three floors - finding it quite wonderful that this mainland essayist, theorist and oil painter began working in Chinese ink only at the age of 55, and  with such emancipated gusto.

I then thoroughly enjoyed the “PC” show on exhibit (PC - Permanent Collection) - Earth & Water: Mapping Art in Southeast Asia, which created a pretty compelling narrative of seas, rivers, river-crossings and land from early pioneer, modern and contemporary regional works in the collection. It was a good opportunity to revisit some key favourite works bagged by SAM as well as get a peek at some new acquisitions. I was glad to see Jakapan Vilaseenakul’s Mid-Life Crisis installed - it seems particularly resonant now with its slow but cunning crocodiles and watchful crows. PC works were also used in a modest show called Threads, exploring the use of fabric and fibres in art making, where I said hello to Mella Jaarsma’s exotic skin costumes. It’s good to know that the region’s creative output is not disappearing entirely into cold storage or secretive private hands. Thank you SAM.

There was also a show documenting a performance festival “Ket-Noi” for Singaporean and Vietnamese artists held at SMU (Singapore Management University) last year, during the Post Doi-Moi. I ended with a visit to the show of another Malaysian art hero: Latiff Mohidin: The Journey to Wetlands and Beyond, which featured a very important collection of this great poet and painter’s drawings recently donated by a Singaporean collector to SAM. A book comes out soon. It is a fortunate institution that can put up two major donations on exhibition at once.

We made a last stop at the Christian Lacroix exhibition at the National Museum, and this is where we really thought - “Oh why can’t we have this in KL?” A show which would be at home in the V&A, exploring that fabulous fashion icon’s work with opera, ballet and theatre, complete with flying tutus, in a pretty grand museum space. If you’re heading down to Singapore, this is a must-see, especially if you have young dancing daughters, or sons with creative flair.

Costumes for Carmen

Exhibition View

As begrudging neighbours we like to think that Singapore pours all this money into the arts, but they can’t force creativity out of their nation (just look at all the Malaysian content, patriots will say). I now beg to disagree - the children of Singapore get to grow up enjoying weird and wonderful modern and contemporary art from Southeast Asia, and even China and India, and the wild influential creations of someone like Christian Lacroix first hand, presented as spectacle but with all sorts of educational collaterals. They get culture on tap (and it’s mostly free, and undersubscribed) and they will grow up enriched. We can’t boast that now, can we? We can only cross the causeway for that occasional fix.

(BY)

Richard Lau’s Headlight 1 (The Scream)

Richard Lau, Headlights made with fused plastic

Fabian Tan’s Electrolyte Series made from old computer parts and wire lights

We have been busy working on TLS09 (The Light Show 09) over the past few weeks. This is RogueArt’s first exhibition project for the year and we’re really proud to have had a hand in its making.

The idea for TLS09 was conceived in 2008 and it is the brainchild of Carolyn Lau, Farah Azizan and Lisa Foo, well known architects and designers from Kuala Lumpur. Inspired by the idea of upcycling –transforming discarded materials that socially and aesthetically hold little value into objects of greater use and value, TLS09 is a modest project with strong ambition. It brings together a group of TLSers –architects, artists, designers, theatre lighting designers and film director, in an exhibition centered around lights, light-related objects and installations. This show balances the tactile joy of craft and ‘vocational school work’, an appreciation for aesthetics, beauty and wonder with an underlying aim to be ‘greener’ and to think about the way we live and consume.

Carolyn Lau, Nourishment 4, made from milk and juice cartons

Carolyn Lau Nourishment 1 & 2 made with Yakult bottles and Nourishment 3 made from used cat food tins

Farah Azizan, Short 1, Metal oil drum, old soda bottles, mild steel 40W fluorescent ring

What I love most is the unexpected and inspiring ways in which materials and form have been reinterpreted and re-presented. It is a case of less is more as some of the most successful works in this show are motivated by simple and playful imaginations. Each TLSer brings with him/her a unique flavour to this diverse and colourful palette. From the zen zone of re-experiencing space through light to the longing for the nostalgic past, from the repetitive processes of gathering, cutting and assembling at home to hardcore industrial steel welding and plasma cutting, these works reveal a little about the TLSers distinct sensibilities and temperaments, their predilections and interests. They also encourage us to take a little time out to consider the potential and possibilities of the most mundane objects surrounding our everyday lives.

Opening night was choc-a-block on April 16th at the Annexe Gallery, Central Market as guests from theatreland and beyond showed up in droves to catch TLS09’s stellar line up as well as “SEVEN SKINS”, a dance performance choreographed by the formidable Aida Redza, featuring Anne James, Foo Chi Wei, Hailizan Mahmoon (Aida’s mum who graciously performed the Terinai) Shafirul Azmi Suhaimi, Suhaili Micheline Ahmad Kamil, Sukarji Sriman and Aida’s good self with music by Hardesh Singh.

(from left) Sukarji Sriman, Suhaili Micheline and Shafirul during Seven Skins performance in Loh Kok Man’s installation Light/Thought

Anne James interacting with Lisa Foo’s Lancelets, a headgear and selendang made from PET bottles and LEDs

We apologise for our scarce documentation of SEVEN SKINS as our cameras were blocked by the back of audiences’ heads. To make up for it, Nazim Esa has put together a wonderful video documentation of the dance as part of TLS09. Do check it out if you are keen to watch the performance. (AO)

Zainah Anwar and Carolyn Lau

Richard Lau

Bernard Chauly’s Muzium Lampu installation (detail)

Lisa Foo

Farah Azizan

Ahmad Fuad Osman

Carolyn Lau’s kitchen cabinet installation with Hangovers 1-7 on cabinet top and Tin Kosong inside

Bernard Chauly’s Agar-Agar LED glowing object from Muzium Lampu installation

Fabian Tan, Gu-light 4, Abandoned timber pallet, glass marbles, fluorescent lamp

Mah Su Sim’s Assorted Light Sculptures made with recycled PET bottles

Jazmi in front of his Strawmap interactive projection

TLSers are: Bernard Chauly, Carolyn Lau, Fabian Tan, Farah Azizan, Jazmi Izwan Jamal, Lisa Foo, Loh Kok Man, Mah Su Sim, and Richard Lau.

TLS09 runs from April 16 – May 3, 2009 at The Annexe Gallery, Central Market, Kuala Lumpur

The exhibition continues at Galeri Tenaga from May 7 - May 23, 2009

Galeri Tenaga is located on the Ground Floor of Wisma TNB, 19 Jalan Timur, Petaling Jaya. (Opening times:  10am – 5om Mon To Fri, and 10am – 2pm on Sat). Tel: 03-22966364 or 03-22966682 or 03-22966847

This project is made possible with the support of Krishen Jit-ASTRO Fund

With thanks to Galeri Tenaga, GDP Architects and Balai Seni Lukis Negara

Check out more images of TLS09 here and here