Contemporary Artists of Malaysia
by Daniel L. Collins in Pasadena

ARTWEEK newspaper, January 14, 1989, No.5

It has taken only three decades - since Malaysian independence in 1957 - for contemporary artists in Malaysia to discover, digest and, in many cases, discard the lessons of the Western avant-garde. The "international style" emanating from Western media and culture centers is seen to be at odds with the fundamentals of Malaysian cultural identity, yet many Malaysian artists still operate under the burden of a modern art tradition that is largely imported.

Most observers would acknowledge that a similar situation can be found throughout the third world. Among those countries formerly within the economic and political spheres of influence of Western military powers and among those countries currently linked politically or economically to the West, it seems that a cultural imperialism continues to affect the character and direction of local artistic communities and to impact the day-to-day life of third-world cultures.

An exhibition of contemporary Malaysian art currently at the Pacific Asia Museum provides a unique opportunity for examining some of the assumptions that inform our understanding of international practice. Organized by PAM curator David Kamansky and cosponsored by PAM, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines, the exhibition - representing forty-one artists through a variety of two-dimensional media including painting, batik, weaving, collage, drawing and papermaking - is a virtual compendium of current studio practices in Malaysia. However, the issues it raises in regard to the cultural climate of Malaysia in particular and the third world in general are as provocative as the works themselves.

Although it is beyond the scope of this review to treat these issues in any detail, it is clear from the exhibition that, for Malaysian artists, it is only in the resistance to dominant Western conventions that there is hope for an art that speaks without apology of a general "Asian" or specifically "Malaysian" cultural identity. Syed Shahruddin Bakeri's Fabric in Red, Blue and Green (1982), for example, evokes the traditions of Malaysian batik without sacrificing formal invention or sophistication. This large vertical wall hanging alludes to the rich calligraphic heritage of Malaysia while echoing the love of patterning found all over Asia. Chew Teng Beng has made both a scholarly and esthetic study of the possibilities inherent in locally grown fibers such as banana and papaya. His Siew-Siew (1978) reflects his command of the abstract idiom, but here this "international language" is embedded in a distinctly Malaysian ground.

In a category apart is the delightful triptych Separate Realities (1975) by the late Zulkifli Dahalen. Using nothing but black enamel on glossy white boards, the artist limns a humorous Dionysian vision of village life in which his figures are literally stripped of the clothes that would indicate their relative status.

Despite or because of the electric political situation - a situation in which ethnic Malay Muslims, Chinese Buddhists and Hindu Indian nationals seem unable to agree on Malaysia's future - most Malaysian artists have avoided blatant ethnic and religious imagery and searched instead for motifs and methods that reflect the mixture of Malaysia's cultural heritage. One sees in particular works the influence of the various calligraphic traditions, the ubiquitous presence of nature - particularly landscape - patterning as a design principle and batik painting and dyeing. Individual works alluding to the traditions of Chinese watercolour painting, Islamic architecture and Hindu temple sculpture hang side by side.

In Malaysia as in other developing nations, the largely Western character of contemporary art is partially explained by the policy of sending proimising young scholars abroad for their formal education (increasingly, however, this practive also produces a percentage of scholars and artusts who react against Western culture). More insidious is the fact that local cultures and artists are not given the opportunity to assimilate foreign practices naturally, due to the speed and pervasiveness of media and technology. Particularly in the arts, a ubiquitous international style (that carries with it a distinctly Western code of values and assumptions) is so pervasive, so overpowering, that local practice is not enriched but rather submerged or even obliterated.

Happily, the empty esthetic mimicry of Western conventions so characteristic of many developing nations is slowly being replaced in Malaysia by alternative visions that look to Eastern sources rather than to Western exampoles. A few artists have succeeded in forging a uniquely Malaysian art, but almost no one has succeeded in investing contemporary art with the same significant role that traditional arts and crafts have occupied in Malaysia's cultural past. As the rich craft traditions become the playthings of tourists and Ministers of Culture and survive simply for their value as consumer goods, a vacuum is left that could conceivably be filled by innovative contemporary artists.

Included in this California exhibition is work by Ismail Abdul Latiff, Awang Damit Ahmad, Syed Shaharuddin Bakeri, Dzulkifly Buyong, Cheong Laitong, Chew Teng Beng, Fatimah Chik, Choong Kam Kow, Chuah Thean Teng, Chung Chen Sun, Zulkifli Dahalan, Mohd Hoessein Enas, Sulaiman Esa, Yusof Ghani, Shafie Haji Hassan, Ibrahim Hussein, Khalil Ibrahim, Syed Ahmad Jamal, Sui-Ho Khoo, Lee Kian Seng, Lim Eng Hooi, Lim (Toya) Khoon Hock, Long Thein Shih, Ismail Mohd Zain, Abdul Latiff Mohidin, Ng Buan Cher, Amron Omar, Fauzan Omar, Azahari Khalid Osman, Redza Piyadasa, Anuar Rashid, Nirmala Shanmughalingam, Sharifah Fatimah Syed Zubir, Tan Joseph, Tan Tong, Tang Hon Yin, Tay Mo-Leong, Syed Thajeudeen, Wong Hoy Cheong, Yeoh Jin Leng and Ahmad Khalid Yusof.
 

Daniel L. Collins was a Fulbright Fellow at the Universiti Sains Malaysia during the 1987/88 academic year. He teaches sculpture and contemporary art theory in Arizona.
 

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