An artwork titled 'Code 9384' (charcoal on canvas, 2023) from Lim’s new exhibition 'The Gaze Of Sleepwalkers' at Wei-Ling Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: The Star/Glenn Guan
Contemporary artist H.H. Lim’s last piece in his latest exhibition, The Gaze Of Sleepwalkers, now showing at Wei-Ling Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, is a video of the artist balancing on a basketball.
There are two videos running concurrently. One shows the Rome-based Lim successfully balancing himself on the ball while in the other, he slips and falls.
This video/performance art piece titled Enter The Parallel World, made its debut in 2001 and originally featured the video of the artist balancing on the ball successfully for almost half an hour.
This time around, Lim has resurrected the video but with the addition of the failed attempt and he explained why in a recent interview at the gallery in Brickfields.
“After many years, about 15 or 20 years later, I realised that this video (of me falling) is so important. I thought I failed but then I realised that the failed one is stronger,” said Lim.
In this new series of 13 paintings, installation pieces and number system, Lim draws a parallel between the human condition and the surrounding ecosystem. Photo: The Star/Glenn Guan
“(When I fell) it was spontaneous; it’s called accidents. It’s interesting because the mind learns the lesson from the accident, so you get better. This one the mind teaches you to be better while the other video, the mind cannot teach you.
“So, this parallel world is what happens to all of us. Sometime you do a good job and sometimes you fail. You will realise that that is not failing. That is the strongest moment that you really get into. That’s the real one, real you. Real you.
“This is what I realised many years later,” added the 70-year-old, who has lived in Rome since 1976, travelling and working between the Italian city and Penang.
This video of his performance art holds a special place in his heart as it was based on a piece of advice Lim’s mother gave to him as a young man about to leave home in Penang to study art in Italy.
“Most of this philosophy comes from my mother. I said, ‘Ma! I’m going away so, what am I going to do? Balance yourself!
“So I had this word ‘balance’ in my mind and how do I interpret it. And then I thought, ‘Ah ok, I’ll stand on top of the basketball and maybe that represents the balancing.
A view of Lim's 'Lucy 2' (charcoal on canvas, 2023), which is part of his new exhibition 'The Gaze Of The Sleepwalkers' in KL. Photo: The Star/Glenn Guan
“This performance I turned it into video and I still think about it. I remember it fondly. It teaches me a lot. Every time I look at it I’m finding some secret inside it you know.”
A monochrome view
Lim’s latest exhibition is only his second in Malaysia; he debuted in 2014 at Wei-Ling Gallery with The Beginning of Something, but his output as an artist is nothing less than prolific over the past 20 years.
As a multi-disciplinary artist, he showcased his diverse works worldwide. Most notably, he represented Malaysia in 2019 at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia as well as Biennale events in Albania, Prague, Dakar, China, Thailand, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
His works are also regularly featured in shows in Europe.
Lim’s The Gaze Of Sleepwalkers features 13 artworks, an installation, and the aforementioned video performance.
The first thing a visitor will notice is the charcoal on canvas art pieces depicting wild and domesticated animals on the foreground while the background is curiously littered with a trail of four-digit numbers, technical drawings, geometric shapes, mathematical formulas and magic squares (numbers in 3x3 or larger squares which when added, equals the same number whether added vertically, horizontally and diagonally) among other things.
A video still from Lim’s 'Enter The Parallel World'. Photo: Handout
Lim, who has not lost any of his youthful attitude, spoke about how time has simply flown by and things have changed, so much so he hardly realised it himself.
And because of this, he equates himself as a sleepwalker through the passage of time.
“You don’t even realise time has moved so fast. I consider myself the lucky one. All the way I’m a sleepwalker. All the way,” he said.
“The subject of this exhibition you know, artists have to find the subject first. And then you have your surrealist, your impressionist, your abstract but mine is more involved with whatever happened around me.
“When I made this project its because in the last three, four, five years is crazy. The world is going crazy! from Covid, the war and then Gaza, it’s never ending.
“In this situation, all of us are very similar to sleepwalkers; you are awake but you can’t do anything. You don’t see, you don’t hear anything but it’s there. You are living inside it,” he pointed out.
A certain hierarchy
In this show, there are no grand statements. Lim is subtle with his symbolism. The animals in his drawings have a hierarchy whether one realises it or not.
Some are predators: the tiger for example, which sits at the top of the food chain, is fearsome to behold compared to its prey and yet, tigers are the ones in danger of going extinct.
A close-up detail of artwork titled 'Code 4956'. Photo: The Star/Glenn Guan
Then there is mankind, and in the modern world, quantity or numbers have become the most dependent upon method in the way we communicate and understand the world.
The scientific method for example, relies heavily on quantitative descriptions and solutions.
“The animals use their senses, they have a heightened sense of smell like dogs and dolphins can communicate with each other over long distances. They are more sensitive than us.
“But mankind uses codes, solutions. We use numbers if we want to build a house. Then we use numbers for medicine, numbers for war, numbers to build nuclear but unfortunately, we go too far.
“We are in a situation we can’t control, it’s so fragile. The numbers can end everything. It can end us.
“So this exhibition (asks the question) ‘where are we going? Wake me up. I don’t know. I don’t see. I can’t do anything but I’m inside.’
A recurring motif, a money sack, is Lim's commentary on societal values. Their understated presence prompts visitors to ponder the incessant demand for resources in a world increasingly divided by disparities. Photo: The Star/Glenn Guan
“So this is actually a way I use to produce my art language,” said Lim.
And then there are paintings with phrases and questions like “Wake Me Up, Why Does Art Tolerate You?” and “Immortality Is Dying”.
“I create a lot of this perplexity; the words came out daily and usually we talk to ourselves at home. I don’t know if you talk (to yourself) but I always do,” he said with a laugh.
Finally, we are looking at the installation called 9999K, featuring big, colourful bags of money. It represents the financial system which we are bound to.
“This is where they bring us inside this world whether you like it or not. This work is called 9999K, like the gold. This is the goal of where we are going, this complicated system.”
Lim is quick to point out that this exhibition is not political in any way. Rather, he considers this a dramatic attempt at art and as he admitted earlier, he is sleepwalking through it all.
The Gaze Of Sleepwalkers exhibition is showing at Wei-Ling Gallery, 8 Jalan Scott, Brickfields in Kuala Lumpur till March 30. Visits by appointment only. Call 03-2260-1106 or email siewboon@weiling-gallery.com.
