Sunday October 4, 2009

Sculpting identity

By ANDREW SIA

An exhibition aims to show that sculptures are much more than space fillers.

CAN luxury shopping be mixed with pieces of rusty metal?

“This is probably the first time that a sculpture show like this is happening in a shopping centre,” says Liew Chin Chin, one of the co-organisers of the Passions exhibition at the Starhill Gallery mall in Kuala Lumpur.

Suhaimi Fadzir with his Heron and the Fish, a work that features found objects put together in a balanced way.

“This show will help bring art to the public, especially to people who don’t normally look at art. Sculptures are physical forms of art, the public likes to stop and look at them, take photos with them and even touch them,” she says.

On the pavement just outside the mall, passers-by occasionally glance at the rusty iron sculptures. One of them, Table, by architect-turned-sculptor Abdul Multalib Musa, features two corroded metal plates with patterns machine-cut into them.

Another rusty piece, entitled Biring, by Yusof Ghani, looks like a dragon in flight, but is actually a cockerel in a fight! This piece actually refers to the folk tale of how Besut province was lost by Kelantan to Terengganu because the respective sultans in those days of old were betting on a fighting cockerel called Biring Si Kunani, explains Azhar Ahmad, Multhalib’s loquacious marketing manager who does most of the talking as the reticent sculptor stands by.

On the top floor (called Muse) inside Starhill Gallery, we find Multhalib’s version of Biring: a series of S-shaped metal pieces welded together in twists and twirls to suggest the swishing, swirling feathers of a cock fight.

And how about putting various objects – a glass bottle, cinnamon sticks, chicken coop iron mesh and the levers of a car power window – on a canvas before applying paint and tar?

“I always use discarded objects in my art,” says sculptor Suhaimi Fadzir. His piece is entitled Heron and the Fish and it’s a morality tale about a picky, greedy heron who learns that a small fish in the beak is better than two larger, uncertain ones in the water.

Would you be curious if you came across Abdul Multalib Musa’s Table sculpture while shopping? This exhibition in a shopping centre hopes to expose the Malaysian public to the much neglected art form of sculpting. – Photos by S.S. KANESAN / The Star

At the cheeky suggestion that even school children could put together a work like this, Suhaimi replies, “People say the same thing about Picasso and Rembrandt. You have to understand how to put the materials together, to balance the hard and soft edges. I have taken about 20 years to get to grips with this.”

Yes, sculpture is subjective indeed.

“You may like it or hate it,” says Azhar. “But the important thing is that it stimulates a discussion.”

Yusof, who curated the Passions exhibition, comments, “Sculpture is different from painting. It requires the artist to think not of composing images but creating real objects.

“Sculpture is physical and deals with reality. It requires the artist to consider the materials’ plasticity, the laws of physics such as gravity and balance, and elements of real space such as light and shadow.”

Yet, in the contemporary Malaysian art scene, he says, “two-dimensional works are put on gold pedestals, and painters are admired and revered”, while sculptures are regarded as mere space fillers for art galleries.

He cites Abstract artist A.D. “Ad” Reinhardt who said, “Sculpture is something you bump into when you back up to look at a painting”, and attributes the lack of local appreciation for sculpture to a lack of exposure. Hence Passions, to raise the profile of this branch of art.

A mutant sea urchin? No, this is Kenduri at Noon, a work made from satay sticks and glue by young sculptor Haffendi Anuar. – ANDREW SIA / The Star

Yusof explains that the show will include works of diverse styles, using a range of materials, from metal and bronze to household objects and wire. And it puts together well-known sculptors such as Multhalib and Raja Shariman Raja Aziddin with painters who dabble in sculpture, such as Eng Tay and Yusof himself (who, for instance, in 2006-7, did several colourful Biring paintings of cock fights before sculpting 3D metallic versions of champion cockerels of late).

Apart from the more senior artists, there are younger artists mainly from Universiti Teknologi Mara, plus the American-trained Haffendi Anuar, who all provide “more daring and experimental works”, according to Yusof.

All this is a good initiative for our sculpture.

“The current state of public art (sculpture) in Malaysia is very poor,” laments Azhar. “We are still building replicas of big fruits, big vegetables, big cats and big prawns. It’s all very kitsch, banal, and it is not art.”

He adds that all this does “no justice” to the current crop of excellent local sculptors like Multhalib who have won global recognition (including at the international sculpture competition during the Beijing Olympics in 2008).

Perhaps the Government should consider investing in sculpture as public art. After all, it is useful as a tourist attraction, Azhar points out.

“You can take a photo next to the Louis Vuitton boutique and it will look like it could have been taken anywhere in the world. But when you take a photo next to landmark sculpture, it marks the place. In fact, we could say that the (Petronas) Twin Towers are a very big piece of sculpture, too.”

More importantly, sculpture helps to define our culture in a very strong, permanent, three-dimensional way.

“In Chicago, they have the landmark sculpture called The Bean by Anish Kapoor. Outside Karachi airport (in Pakistan), there is a huge piece by Amin Gulgee. And in Singapore, they have Momentum, a huge 18m sculpture right in the Central Business District. And of course, there is the Statue of Liberty in New York!” says Azhar.

“Our culture should not just be in museums. Public sculptures can say something about who we are, and inspire the younger generation to be more creative.”

‘Passions’ will be on display on the Muse Floor, Starhill Gallery (No. 181, Jalan Bukit Bintang, KL), till Oct 31. During this period, there will also be various talks. For further information, call Starhill Gallery’s concierge service at 03-2782 3855.