Modern Malaysia Art – An Introduction
The modern Malaysian nation state is a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural entity. It is also a post-colonial nation where traditional religious beliefs and values constantly overlap with modern, secularistic influences. Malaysia is a complex nation made up of multiple, overlapping cultural realities. Malaysia’s heterogenous population of about twenty one millions inhabitants includes the Malays, the Dayaks, the Kadazans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Bajaus, the Murut, the Orang Asli, the Eurasians, and other minority ethnic groups. The official religion of the country is Islam but freedom of religious worship is guaranteed by the nation’s constitution. The arrival of the non-indigenous peoples, namely, the Chinese and the Indians, in large numbers, took place during the 19th and 20th centuries. The story of a modern Malaysia art tradition has, as such, been characterized by multi-ethnic artistic engagements and endeavours. Its origins are traceable to the early decades of the 20th century. It may be rightly claimed that the excitement of modern Malaysian art lies in the fact that this relatively young artistic tradition has continued to mirror aspects of the diverse cultural realities and also the inevitable societal tensions that might be expected from this progressive, dynamic Southeast Asian nation.
"The Chinese Mills" Capt. Robert Smith 1818
It will be useful to look at the historical origins of the modern Malaysian nation state. The presence of non-indigenous peoples in this country today can be attributed to the 19th century British effort to bring in large numbers of immigrants into the country to help develop it. The Chinese and Indians, arriving initially as indentured labourers and later, as tradesmen and artisans, brought with them their own languages, customs and cultural forms. They thereby added a new, complex social dimension to the hitherto indigenous Malay-Islamic ambience of the place. It was during the 19th century that the British had also introduced a new Western-oriented educational model through the newly-started English language schools. The consequence of this development was the introduction of new modes of cultural perception that had slowly but systematically changed the country and its people. The new Western-derived educational model, founded on pragmatic, scientific and individualistic underpinnings, resulted in the introduction of modernizing influences. By the early 20th century, the place had been transformed by the growth of the new, urban town centres. New kinds of imported architecture had emerged, heralding a new way of life and a new modern era in the nation’s history. There was a new urban environment and culture, quite distinct from that of the earlier, unhurried, rural settings of the Malays and other indigenous peoples. And in this new urbanized environment, a new cosmopolitan cultural atmosphere emerged. Initially, these transformative developments took place in the so-called Straits Settlements which were the new centres of trade, education and social change. It was in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Singapore and Malacca therefore that the new modern art activity initially took root.
"Self Portrait" Yong Mun Sen 1941
For those who wanted to find employment within the colonial government service, the mastery of the English language became an essential qualification, achieved via attending the English language schools. Not everyone, however, went to these schools. The British colonialists, in their attempts to ensure their political dominance over the pluralistic populace, had also introduced a complex "divide-and-rule" educational population policy, whereby different language schools were systematically established for the different ethnic groups as well. A linguistically fragmented populace, separated by deliberate colonial political design, was the result. The overall British thrust was, nevertheless, towards modernising the country, in order to make it a viable contributor to British’s industrial ambitions. These modernizing processes introduced new modes of cultural perception. Ideas about the physical world changed radically. From the more traditional, religious and symbolic modes of perceiving and interpreting reality, a more scientific and rational appreciation of nature and reality emerged. A consequence of these modernizing developments was the emergence of a new kind of creative visual artist in this country. This new artists, initially imbibing the tenets of Naturalism, new ideas of artistic individualism as an experimental mode of self-expression, derived from the West, differed from the more traditional craftsmen of the place who functioned within strictly religious, symbolic and culturally-restricted systems and contexts. This new kind of secularistic, modern artistic activity was not restricted by religious or ethnic demarcations.
"Portrait of My Wife in Wedding Dress" O Don Peris 1933
Although the beginnings of our modern art tradition is dateable 1920s, the actual introduction of Western-type art forms into this country must have taken place much earlier. The Portuguese had initially introduced Christian-type imagery into the Catholic churches in Malacca. The Dutch who replaced the Portuguese in Malacca must have also brought into that historic town some examples of naturalistic landscape and portrait paintings for which they had become famous in Europe. What we actually have with us today, in our art museums, are the 19th century scenic topographical views produced by the British traveler-artists, employing an approach founded on the naturalistic “picturesque” treatment. Compared to the Indians, the Indonesians, the Filipinos and the Thais, who had began their modern art movements during the mid-19th century, Malaysians were late starters. Why was this so? A few reasons may be ventured. The British colonialists had not envisaged a political role for art here and they had not encouraged it. The local ethnic groups were initially also disinclined towards Western-type artistic expression. The religious Malay-Muslims were initially suspicious of Western education and cultural influences and did not readily take to Western educational influences and cultural forms during the 19th century. The Chinese and the Indians, having come here as poor immigrants, were more interested in their economic upliftment and certainly not in imbibing Western cultural forms. They were initially busy establishing their own cultural edifices and forms. It was only in the early decades of the 20th century that the conditions were right for Western-type art commitments. The emergence of small amateur art groups, by the 1920s, within the Straits Settlements, marked the humble beginnings of our modernist art commitments.
"The Rich Land" Abdullah Ariff 1960
The unique, intra-ethnic dimension of the story of Malaysian art was already obvious I its beginnings. Among the more significant pioneer artists who began the movement may be included Yong Mun Sen, a Sarawak-born Chinese, settled in Penang, O. Don Peris, an immigrant artist from Sri Lanka, who had studied in Paris and initially come to Singapore and later settled in Johor Baru, and Abdullah Ariff, a Penang Malay school teacher teaching art in the Penang Free School. There were others but these three artists should suffice to illustrate the multi-ethnic beginnings of the new modernist art tradition during the pre-War era. There was no support system for artistic activity in those days and our pioneering artists had worked in relative isolation and exhibited in school halls and the various community halls. The earliest efforts were marked by attempts to record the salient features of the place and its peoples. Landscape paintings, portraiture and still-life efforts had featured in the early days. The favoured mediums were oil painting and watercolour painting. Naturalism was the preferred idiom initially. A new involvement with easel-painting commitments had been put in place.
"Still Life With Jugs" Chia Yu Chian 1967
By the late 1930s, influences from the School of Paris, such as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Fauvism were gradually introduced. The role played by the Chinese immigrant artists during this time was especially significant. Many of these Chinese artists had arrived from mainland China, where a historic social and cultural revolution had taken place, inspired by the May 4th Pai Hua literary movement of 1917. There was a new acceptance of the spirit of modernization and realism in literature and art in mainland China. The artists had come here to teach in the newly expanded Chinese language secondary schools as art teachers. One of these early immigrant artists, Lim Hak Tai, started the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art (NAFA) in Singapore in 1938.The Nanyang Academy was the first proper fine art college to be started in British Malaya. The medium of instruction was Mandarin hence, Chinese Mandarin-educated school leavers from mainland Malaya as well as Sarawak and British North Borneo, went to study there in large numbers, after the Second World War. It was in the years after the Second World War that the significant contributions of the Nanyang art movement would be made. During the 1950s, the Nanyang art movement witnessed the rise of many significant artists such as Cheong Soo-Pieng, Georgette Chen, Chen Wen Hsi, Chung Chen Sun, Lai Foong Moi, Cheah Yew Saik, Tan Choon Ghee, Tew Naitong, Chia Yu-Chian, Khoo Sui-Hoe and others. Several graduates of the college proceeded to Paris and London to continue their studies and later returned home.
"Tropical Life" Cheong SooPieng 1959
The Nanyang artists’ contributions, among the most sophisticated at that time, revealed interesting experimental attempts to grapple with the questions of cultural and artistic identity. The fusing of Chinese technical influences and pictorial influences and the depiction of Chinese, Malay, Indian, Dayak and even Balinese subject-matter, reflects conscious attempts made o produce artistic forms reflective of a multi-ethnic cultural milieu and also, to the larger Southeast Asia contexts. Their eclectic, multi-cultural approach can be seen in the works they have left behind. A case in point was the distinctive Chinese-derived pictorial formats and the stylised figure types created by the late Cheong Soo-pieng, during the 1950s, derived from the region’s tribal "hampathong" sculptures and stylized Balinese wood carvings. The Nanyang artists had set the groundwork for more serious questions to be asked regarding artistic identity in later decades.
"Rice Fields, Trengganu" Yeoh Jin Leng 1963 
The distinguished Malaysian critic and cultural historian, Krishen Jit, has suggested in the book Vision and Idea: Re-looking Modern Malaysian Art (1994) that a good way of understanding cultural issues in Malaysia would be to adopt an approach that demarcates our post-colonial history into the pre-May 13, 1969 period and a post-May 13.1969 period. He had suggested that the May13, 1969 event may be viewed as a watershed in the history of post-independence Malaysia. It was a traumatic period when the new nation state lost its innocence and began to painfully grapple with the more complex issues of nationhood and national cultural identity. The pre-May 13 period had marked the gradual rise of Kuala Lumpur as the new administrative, economic and cultural capital of Malaysia, a process which had initially began during the early 1950s. The emergence of two significant art groups in Kuala Lumpur, namely, the Wednesday Art Group founded in 1952 and the Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung in 1956, signaled a new major venue for artistic activity. Kuala Lumpur became artistically significant with the formation of the NATIONAL Art Gallery of Malaysia by the Malaysia government in 1958, one year after independence. Post-independent Malaysia was then still an agrarian, under-developed nation, selling her natural resources to the world. The country had not yet embarked on the road towards industrialization. Malaysian artists were, understandably, still beset by the post-Merdeka euphoria and idealistic visions. And this earlier sense of idealism is clearly detectable in the approaches of the artists who began to exhibit within the new Kuala Lumpur art scene and elsewhere at that time.
"Woman Pounding Rice" Mohd Hoessein Enas 1959
The involvement was still largely with the idyllic and the pastoral even if new formal approaches were being projected. The nation’s tropical landscape, with its luxuriant vegetation, became a veritable symbol of nationhood. The land was celebrated as is witnessed in the accomplished earlier landscapes produced by Syed Ahamd Jamal and Yeoh Jin Leng. The humanity portrayed then was one that existed within an idyllic, happy world of daily chores, happy children’s games, joyous festivals and seasonal fruit seasons. And this was reflected in the works of artists such as Mohamad Hoessein Enas, Dzulkifli Buyong and Chuah Thean Teng. Our visual artists had, nevertheless, continued to address the question of artistic identity, a tendency that had begun with the Nanyang artists. As was to be expected, in a situation where there was, as yet, no officially prescribed definitions about what the national culture should be, the artistic approaches were open-ended, varied and eclectic.
"Paper Boat" Dzulkfi Buyong 1964
The rallying artistic call, during the pre-May 13 days, was centered around the aesthetic search for a distinctive Malaysia art form. This broad-based search for a "Malaysian-ness" had, in fact, started during the 1956s, when local anti-colonial intellectuals and university students at the university of Malaya in Singapore, during the pre-independence period, had asked the vital questions: "What is Malayan culture?" and "What is Malayan identity?" These were indeed complex questions but nevertheless very relevant considering the country’s pluralistic cultural realities. The artistic assumption during the 1960s had therefore been that artists should arrive at a distinctive "Malaysian" style of painting, immediately recognizable as "our own" art form. Formal experiments and the use of past cultural references, Malaysian, regional and even pan-Asian, had featured prominently in the artistic experiments.
"Fishing Village" Chuah Thean Teng 1956 "Spirits of the Earth, Water and Air" Patrick Ng Kah Onn 1958 
Some interesting attempts were indeed made by the multi-racial artists at that time. Batik painting, initially introduced by Chuah Thean Teng, was deemed a move in the right direction and was hailed as a significant formal breakthrough. It spawned a number of technical exponents who included Tay Mo Leong and Khalil Ibrahim. Batik painting had certainly allowed for a sense of artistic continuity with the craft traditions of the Malay and regional past. Similarly, Nik Zainal Abidin’s interesting efforts at depicting the Wayang Kulit stories on two-dimensional surface, was an attempt to employ iconography derived from a wider Malay and regional source. Patrick Ng’s ambitiously complex metaphysical work Spirits of the matter, stylized Thai and Balinese dance movements and Balinese decorative effects. Syed Ahmad Jamal’s initial introduction of abstract expressionist influences into local art scene in 1959, was marked by interesting syncretic attempts to fuse Chinese and Western influences as is noticeable in his highly calligraphic work, The Bait. Abdul Latiff Mohidin's effort to arrive at a notion of artistic identity, as reflected in his expressionistic Pago-Pago series, was to create tropical biomorphic imagery by juxtaposing various plant shapes derived from the tropical flora as well as utilizing iconic built forms, derived from the region. Ibrahim Hussein’s pop art inspired figurative work, Why Are You Like That?, produced during his New York sojourn, had, however, tended to reflect a more cosmopolitan, mass-culture frame of reference, unique at that time, in Malaysian art developments.
"The Bait" Syed Ahmad Jamal 1959
What was discernible from these art works was the new degree of technical and ideatic sophistication that had emerged within the art scene. There was also, in many instances, the new employment of international artistic frames of reference in the works of some of the new abstract artists. Abstract Expressionist pursuits had begun to feature within the local art scene. The art scene had become more sophisticated with the emergence of properly-trained artists returning from Western art colleges in Europe and the United States. The emergence of the New Scene artists in 1969, advocating a non-personalised, neo-Constructivist art orientation marked another aspect of the new international abstractionist commitments. These varied, amorphous artistic approaches clearly marked individualistic preferences and personalized definitions of artistic priorities. And the spirit of modernist art experimentation had allowed for these varied individualistic approaches. Looking back at the period, one notices too that whereas many of the support systems vital for more serious artistic activity were already falling into place during the 1960s, there was still the general absence of serious art critical activity and more serious polemical debate within the art scene. Art writing, largely attempted on a journalistic and reportorial level, for the most part, had not seriously highlighted or addressed the more serious issues related to the young nation’s more complex, social-political and social-economic contexts.
"Pago-pago" Abdil Latiff Mohidin 1964 
The obvious difficulties of arriving at a commonly recognizable artistic solution or a Malaysian “style” of painting was perhaps only to be expected, bearing in mind the inherent complexities of this multi-ethnic nation. Still, as modernistic experiments, these artists had contributed significantly to the on-going evolution of the relatively young modern art tradition. Their artistic experiments had been made, however, with little reference to the larger, more complex, real world existing outside the art museum and art gallery contexts. And it was a Malaysian world heading towards an intra-ethnic explosion by the late 1960s. If anything, one is able today to note the essentially apolitical approach of Malaysian art movement as a whole, at that time. Ethnic tensions were already emerging in the young post-independent nation during the late 1960s. Hence, when 13 May, 1969 racial riots took place, our visual artists had actually been caught by surprise. What finally became clear to the more serious artists now was that the young Malaysian nation had indeed been built on very fragile foundations!
"Why Are You Like That?" Ibrahim Hussein 1969
The May 13, 1969 intra-ethnic riots between the Malays and the Chinese had indeed marked a wake-up call for Malaysian artists. And two works produced in the immediate aftermath of the May 13 event, aptly illustrated a new kind of artistic imagery never seen before. Ibrahim Hussein's somber work titled May 13, 1969 (1970) featuring a blackened-out Malaysian flag and the tragic number "13" inscribed below it addressed the riots. The other work was Redza Piyadasa's installation, also titled May 13, 1969 and produced in 1970. It featured an upright, life-size coffin, draped standing on a delicate reflective mirror. These two disturbing works, inspired by the traumatic racial riots, clearly heralded a new, somewhat belated artistic consciousness of the pertinence of contemporary socio-political contexts and a new possible role for art, which was to address more directly the more complex societal issues besetting the young nation state. The prevailing interest in abstract art and conceptual art concerns by many leading artists, at that time, had, however, discouraged a more serious confrontation with the deeper, intra-ethnic, societal issues for quite some time to come.
"49 Squares" Tang Tuck Kan 1969
An immediate consequence of the May 13 riots was the National Cultural Congress which was convened by then governing National Operations Council at the University of Malaya in 19171. During this historic Congress, it was suggested that the nation had to have a common unifying culture and national identity in order to hold it together. It was also decided that affirmative action for the indigenous peoples was a necessary prerequisite, to correct the existing economic disparities between the races. After much deliberation and debate at the Congress, it was decided that the nation had to officially lay down the basis of an official national culture. It should be founded on Malay core values, Malay cultural forms and the Malay language as official national language. This must be the unifying basis for the construction of a common official national cultural identity. The other cultures could exist but on an unofficial basis. The resolutions were passed at the Congress and they were presented to the government to be implemented as soon as possible. The implications of this historic decision was that it altered the cultural contexts within which the nation has operated in ever since. The government had introduced a politically-defined cultural vision and more importantly, it now reinforced the hegemony of the Malay nationalistic forces. The mass narrative would henceforth be founded on a Malay-centered discourse and dominance. The implementation of the Malay language in the universities and schools was thus speeded up and there was now an officially prescribed and politicized definition of national culture that would be given priority and adhered to at all official national functions. And this policy has been use ever since then.
"May 13" Redza Piyadasa 1969 
How did this new policy affect the visual artists and the art scene in the post May 13 era? Perhaps, the one group of artists that as most directly encouraged by the new official, politicized vision of national culture and identity were the Malay artists connected to the ITM School of Art and Design, The art school had been started only in 1967 as part of the effort to upgrade educational opportunities for the Malays and the other indigenous peoples. The Mara Institute of technology (presently UiTM), was an integral part of the nation’s new experiments in social engineering. The ITM art school was filled with Malay staff and students for the most part and it was here that the new Malay-centred artistic vision found its strongest adherents and its manifestation. It was here that some of the more interesting Malay-Muslim experiments began to happen. We may be reminded that for the Malay intellectuals and creative artists, the new officially-sanctioned cultural policy was, understandably, a real emotional need now for the Malay intellectuals, including artists, to rediscover their cultural roots and highlight their notions of “Malay-ness”. We may also notice here the shift from an earlier artistic search for a broad-based multi-cultural Malaysian-ness to a new notion of Malay-ness, as the new defining cultural paradigm. This new shift in emphasis inevitably caused the emergence of a new Malay-dominated force within the Malaysian art scene. This new Malay-centred artistic energy found its initial impetus from an important exhibition curated by the painter Datuk Syed Ahmad Jamal at the University of Malaya called Rupa dan Jiwa, which was staged in 1974. In this exhibition, for the first time ever, all manner of Malay artifacts and visual arts, were brought together from all over the country, analysed and presented authoritatively as a coherent, distinctive cultural manifestation of the Malays. A book on the exhibition was published as well. The richness and complexity of Malay art and design was impressive and undeniable. It was certainly an eye-opener. It was, especially for the Malay artists, a revelation and it set off the beginnings of a strong, Malay-Islamic revivalist art movement within the local art scene. These Malay-centred proclivities had began initially in the late 1970s and lasted well into the early 1990s, before its motivating impulses began to diminish.
"Rebab Player" Mad Annuar Ismail 1991
The Malay-Islamic art movement affected not only the artists connected to the ITM art school but other non-ITM Malay artists as well. Their growing sense of their Malay-ness was further re-inforced when the government, in introducing and implementing the New Economic Policy's affirmative action policy, had demarcated the peoples of this nation into two distinctive groups, namely, the indigenous natives, now to be called the Bumiputeras and the non-indigenous immigrants, now to be called the Non-Bumiputeras. This was the new scenario following in the wake of the May 13 event and a new sense of a cultural schism had inevitably begun to creep into the art scene. These new developments marked a more difficult phase indeed, signalling also the beginnings of ethnic tensions and ethnic self-consciousness within the society-at-large.
"Gunung Ledang" Syed Ahmad Jamal 1978 
What is interesting about the Malay-Islamic art movement referred to above,was that it was motivated by politicised, ideological considerations rooted in the new post-Cultural Congress governmental policies. There was an undeniable ideatic cohesiveness and a sense of purpose about this new revivalist Malay art movement which differed from that of the earlier 1 960s artistic efforts discussed earlier. There was also now an attempt made to intellectually explicate the Malay cultural and artistic issue in a number of Malay-Islamic centred seminars and in a number of significant essays that were published. The movement seemed more ideologically centred and had a definite ideatic core. And, the movement had two distinct phases. The initial phase had been marked by a conscious search for Malay "roots" and a Malay essentialism or flavour. The artists initially returned to the Malay and Southeast Asian world and appropriated influences from both Malay and regional sources. Malay cultural forms are, as is well-known, connected to the overall history of the region. Examples of this earlier Malay-centred commitment are evident in Amron Omar's Silat paintings; Ruzaika Omar Bassaree's Dungun Series – Window, Mad Annuar's wood arving Rebab Player; Syed Ahmad Jamal's Gunung Ledang series; Mastura Abdul Rahman's ornately decorative, aerial perpective views of the interiors of traditional Malay houses; Tenhku Sabri's vertical wood columnade sculptures evoking sensibilities of the region and Ismail Zains's decorative abstract paintings. The Malay revivalist attempts constituted, in any case, a rich and rewarding foray into the Malay and Southeast Asian past, consciously undertaken, in the search for Malay-centred artistic influences and a Malay artistic essentialism.
"Interior No 29" Mastura Abdul Rahman 1987
The second phase of the Malay-Islamic revival in art, beginning from around the early 1980s, was marked by the introduction of distinctive Islamic values and a marked Islamic overtone. The art historian, Zainal Abidin Ahmad Shariff, has suggested, in his essay published in the book Vision and Idea – Relooking Modern Malaysian Art, that this new Islamic dimension had been partly inspired by the successful Islamic revolution in Iran of 1978 and the emergence of the Islamic state there. The Malaysian government's Islamisation processes, begun in the early 1980s, had also given an added impetus th the Islamic dimension that appeared within the Malay-centred artistic movement. The projection of Islamic culture and civilization now became the rallying cry within the larger Islamic world as well as and many Malay-Muslim artists linked to the ITM art school responded emotionally to new impulses, which saw the introduction of radical new ideas about an Islamic religious world-view being introduces. A larger philosophical debate ensued. Should Muslims reject the Western materialistic philosophy and Western idea of modernism? For the Muslims intellectuals, Western modernism was now viewed as essentially hedonistic, not moralistic but decadent and had thus to be rejected. It was seculistic and individualistic in orientations and not religio-centred. In short, the Western-derived modern artistic and literary movements, founded on humanistic individualism and self-expression, therefore also needed to be rejected. Art's real function was to highlight the worship of Allah and his divine laws. Only religiously inspired art forms were valid for Muslims. For the local Malay writers the new rallying call had now become the search for a Sastera Islam (Islamic literature) and for the Malay artists it was Seni Islam (Islamic art). The idea of an Islamic "renaissance" gad became the new catch phrase. It was clearly linked to a new, globalised Islamic resurgence. The first calls for an Islamic state by certain extremist quarters, began to appear in this country around the early 1980s.
"Oppositions" Ahmad Khalid Yusoff 1993
And this was the case with some of the ITM artists who embraced the new Islamic consciousness. There was now a rejection of the underpinnings of the modernist movement in art and the Western-derived idea of modernity and secularism itself. At the ITM art school, figurative art was now discouraged and a new prescriptive, abstract approach to art making, founded on Islamic religious and design principles, began to be encouraged, in earnest. The ubiquitous Islamic Jawi script inevitably featured. And this Islamic consciousness was reflected in the works of Sulaiman Esa, Ahmad Khalid Yusof, Raja Zahabuddin Yaacob, Hamdzun Haron, and others. In retrospect, it may be stated that the Malay-Islamic approach adopted by the Malay-Islamic visual artists toward creativity, had been founded on the fabrication of cultural forms that owed their sudden appearance to the new ideological and politicised considerations rather than to any natural, historical, evolutionary processes that had taken place here. It was, in essence, a self-conscious revivalist art movement attempting to evoke the past glories of the Arab-Islamic past. That these abstract Islamic works had emerged within the secularistic confines of the ITM art college, and exhibited within the secularistic contexts of the art museum and the art galleries, rather than in the contexts of everyday-life religious contexts, is a moot point that is worth considering, in hindsight. The movement, nevertheless, had reflected the new politicized sentiments that have emerged within sections of the Malay-Islamic community in this country since the 1980s. The on-going, strident calls for the formation of a theocratic Islamic state by the Islamic Pas political party and other local Muslim fundamentalists, marks the most extreme manifestation of these new Malay-Islamic political impulses within the country. It is posing serious political problems that the present, more liberalised UMNO-led, multi-ethnic Barisan Nasional ruling coalition is having to downplay.
"Tomb Stone" Hamzun Harun 1992
The present day Malaysia that has just entered the new millennium is indeed a far cry from the Malaysia of the pre-May 13 era. The nation has been successfully industrialising since the 1970s and Vision 2020, an idea inspired by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, marks the target date for possible arrival at fully industrialised nation status. Malaysia is today the eighteenth largest trading partner of the United States of America and is being held up as a rare model Islamic country that is fast making the transition into the post-modern globalised economic culture, There has arisen a substantial multi-ethnic middle class population. Malaysia is an international success story which is the envy of the other Islamic nations. There is intra-racial harmony and a tolerance of the nation’s multi-cultural religions, values and forms. How have these radical socio-economic developments affected the local art scene and our other more serious artists in recent years? What are some of the more serious issues that artists are tackling these days? It may be useful to dwell a little longer with the Malay creative artists. Clearly the rise of the new urbanised, consumerist, supermarket culture here in recent years, has affected the older, traditional way of life. These new cultural developments have affected everyone, irrespective of race or religion. It has signaled a new kind of altered cultural environment and has introduced a notion of a new urban identity that has largely overtaken the earlier, laid-back Malay rural contexts and its concomitant sentimentalised visions of a monolithic Malay cultural identity.
"My Father And The Astronaut" Ibrahim Hussein 1969 "Between Two Servings" Din Omar 1992
For the new Malays of today, it has been marked by an especially
drastic shift environmentally. And, interestingly enough, not all Malay artists have tended to turn back the clock and return to a religious world of the idealised MaIay-lslamic past or the Arab-Muslim cultural past. The new Malay confrontation with the technological age has indeed been a complex transformative process, as it is for everyone else in this country. The inevitable implications of this larger, new global cultural reality was, in fact, initially hinted at by the artist Ibrahim Hussein in his prescient painting My Father and the Astronaut, 1970. The old, shirtless Malay peasant (his father) is juxtaposed standing against the ultimate symbol of the modern machine culture, an American lunar astronaut. Similarly, Ismail Zain in 1983 had hinted at this new Malay dilemma in his aptly-titled The De-tribalisation of Tam binte Che Lat. An old Malay woman from the kampung, pictured in the foreground, is surrounded in a new urbanised middle-class home environment, amidst the trappings of the new cultural life-style of her children, that she now co-habits with uncomfortably. It is a world of new dislocating realities for the older Malay generation. The noted photographer Ismail Hashim has also often commented on the changes happening within the local Malay rural environment. His Pemajuan, 1986 is a statement on the disappearance of the authentic rural kampungs, as a result of new developmental and modern housing projects. The image of this particular kampung, stripped bare, has to do, ironically, with the creation of a new golf course in Penang. The social dislocations have also been commented on by the younger Malay artists as well, often with humour and sometimes with acute pain. Omar Din’s Between Two Servings, 1992 alludes to two culinary habits in the new Malay world nowadays, namely, that of the nasi lemak stalls and older habit of eating with hands and the contrasting fork and spoons and sleek wine glasses of the new coffee house culture of the new, posh hotels and the new middle-class Malay life style. The impact of the global popular mass-culture and pop culture on the Malay psyche has been commented upon by the late Ismail Zain in his computerised print showing the Erwings of the TV Series Dallas, posing before a traditional Malaccan Malay house. Raja Shariman's depictions of the Malay Silat warrior, as portrayed in his metal sculptures, are depersonalised, dehumanised entities, nearer to the cyborg world of the science fiction movies than to the older, flesh and blood, feudal world of the legendary Malay warriors Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat. The new urbanized realities of unmarried mothers, abandoned babies, abused children, drug addiction, and the problems of young disaffected Malay urban youth, in more recent times, has been commented upon realistically and powerfully by Bayu Utomo Radjikin and other Malay artists. These works project another view of the contemporary Malay socio-cultural dilemma. Malay cultural identity is oviously not monolithic. Like the other ethnic cultures in this country, it is undergoing radical changes as a consequence of rapid progress. The issue of defining cultural identity is obviously getting even more complex for all Malaysians, including the visual artists, as they all arrive at the new portals of the wired-up and computerised, post-modernist Global Village of the new century. And, an essential part of this new post-modernist, globalised cultural paradigm, ironically enough, is that it is founded on the new, more challenging notion and recognition of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural realities!
"The Abuse Victim" Bayu Utomo Radjikin 1994
What is becoming clear about the Malaysian art scene today is that it is a very much more complex and sophisticated scene, when compared to that of the immediate post-National Cultural Congress period of the 1970s. There are many local art colleges today, so many trained fine artists, many serious art books and art critical publications, many commercial art galleries and many art patrons and art collectors. The works of our artists are also being collected by foreign museums and people outside the country. Our more serious artists are now also winning international awards. What seems interesting is the emergence, since the early 1990s, of a new generation of younger Malaysian fine artists. These younger artists have been exposed to the new, more radical methods of art teaching that have been introduced in the art colleges. Their perceptions clearly differ from that of the older generation of artists, educated during the Sixties and Seventies. These new artists reflect new creative approaches. Post-modernist ideas have permeated art colleges everywhere in the world and altered the very idea of the artist. Syllabuses have been dramatically overhauled in art colleges and a multi-disciplinary, comparative approach of cultural and liberal studies has been substituted. And, the very notion of artistic activity has taken on new meaning, as a consequence. Not the least of these is the consideration of historical, societal and linguistic influences as vital ingredients of the art making process. The earlier mythification of the artist as a uniquely inspired self-centred genius, has been debunked today. All historical and cultural myths are subject to re-questioning today. The new artist must now understand the nature of cultural discourses and the way cultural signs and mythic values are manipulated by hegemonic power groups. Discourse rather than style has become the big defining word in artistic activity today. Artists must intervene in the value-making process and in the re-defining of socio-cultural contexts. And, if necessary, the creative artist should attempt to deconstruct entrenched cultural systems in order to liberate thinking processes. A more conceptual approach has, as a result, emerged within the local art scene today, challenging previous definitions of what art and artists should be about. A more socially committed artist has clearly emerged in this country since the early l990s, employing provocative, confrontational and re-questioning approaches in his creativity. Similarly, the new interest in multi-dimensional artistic installations and electronic video presentations signal new, significant areas of artistic exploration and expression.
"Sing A Song For Ah Kong And Ah Ma" Liew Kungyu 1994
The emergence of these new younger generation artists during the 1990s has also signalled a new, healthy, regenerative return to figurative art concerns and realism. Abstract art impulses, which had dominated the art scene for so long, are now on the decline. Younger artists are looking at the real world, dealing with it realistically and also re-questioning it. Given the nature of the multi-ethnic reality of the contemporary Malaysian situation, it is only to be expected that alternative artistic perceptions and re-definitions of the issue of national cultural identity will emerge. And these perceptions may not be in tandem with politically dominant officially-sponsored Malay-Islamic perceptions. They may be reactionary and in Opposition to the officially prescribed idea of cultural identity and an officially politicised version of Malaysian history even. Marginalisation will and does encourage reactions on the part of those artists who feel ethnically marginalised. And this has happened in recent years with the emergence of a significant number of younger non-Malay artists who have consciously projected non-Malay themes and issues in their art works.
"Kdek, Kdek, Ong" Hasnul Jamal Saidon 1994
The beginnings of this impulse is traceable to the early 19905 and after. It was initially connected to the Malaysian Institute of Art, (or MIA) a private art school set up by the Chinese community. The MIA art college is filled with a Chinese staff and Chinese students for the most part. The presence of the newly-returned U.S. trained artist, Wong Hoy Cheong, at the MIA, during the early 1990s, as a teacher, proved consequential to the search for a more assertive Chinese-ness. This search for a Non-Malay point of view may be viewed as a counterpoint to the Malay-Islamic impulses. Wong’s initial major work, a video installation produced in 1990 untitled Sook Ching dealt with the atrocities of the Japanese occupation, suffered by all Malaysians. The artists’ attempt to construct a more composite, multi-ethnic history was very obvious. All the races were featured in his video installation. Old men and women, of all races, recounted their painful experiences. It projected a historical narrative that was multi-ethnic in its orientations. All Malaysians had suffered. All Malaysians are the real heroes of modern Malaysian history!
"Sook Ching"Wong Hoy Cheong1990
Wong Hoy Cheong's Migrant Series produced during the mid-1990s was a tour de force, consisting of more than fifteen large black and white paintings documenting the rich history of the Chinese community in this country. It was clearly the younger Chinese generation's call for a reconsideration of modern Malaysian history itself. The Migrant Series had highlighted the drama of the Chinese diaspora and the indelible Chinese contributions to the building of this modern nation. It highlighted the contributions of the "Others". Other younger Chinese artists belonging to his generation have also reacted to the overt Malay-Islamic tendencies and the sense of being marginalised by the new politicised processes. They have made attempts to project the Chinese point of view. Examples include Kung Yu Liew's Hungry Ghost Festival and Chengbeng Festival. Tan Chin Kuan's To Know Malaysia Is To Love Malaysia depicts a Kafka-like, haunted, depersonalised landscape of images featuring the faces of young alienated Chinese youth. The painting's title was taken from a popular Malaysian tourist campaign jingle, boasting a happy, multi-racial Malaysia. The emergence of angst in the works of the younger artist is telling. Leong Chee Siong'’s Who are We, Where do We come from and Where are We going? is another recent work by a younger Chinese artist raising questions about identity in this country. The artist appears in the work, standing alongside another marginalised figure, an Orang Asli. The stream of life separates the two. Both figures confront the viewer's eyes frontally. Sylvia Goh's nostalgic recreations of the vanishing Baba-Nyonya world are founded on her own rich memories drawn from her own life experiences . Eng Hwee Chu's feminist painting titled Black Moon is a subtle statement of two kinds of Malaysian womenhood. Her tee-shirt clad self portrait, in the pose of undressing herself, is juxtaposed against a fully veiled, woman clad in black, in the background, seated just behind her. It is a poignant, younger female artist’s view of the country’s complex ethnic and religious cultural problems today.
Around the same time, a younger generation Indian artist, J. Anurendra had produced stark images about the Indian condition. He has produced images of Indian festivals and also of a more stark picture of the poverty and social ills that have beset the marginalised working class Tamil community me of the most powerful figurative art works in the story of modern Malaysian art, to date. And they also include powerful images of that other usually forgotten half of our nation, namely, the East Malaysians. These new images celebrating the rich culture of the Dayaks especially, have come from Malaysian artists who have come to Kuala Lumpur from East Malaysia. Among these artists may be included Bayu Utomo Radjikin, Kelvin Chap, and Shia Yih Ying.
"Immunity" Zulkifli Yusoff 1993 The earlier strident Malay-Islamic artistic impulses generated by the ITM artists, in the wake of the National Cultural Congress period, are clearly already on the decline. Even the earlier strident calls for a Sastera Islam, by our Malay writers have become less heard today. Interestingly enough, a number of Malay Muslim artists, ex-students of the ITM art college, have turned to tribal, non-Islamic regional influences for their artistic sources and visual effects. Works by artists such as Dzulkifli Yusof, Fatimah Chik, Jailaini Abu Hassan and Mohd. Azhar Manan employ influences that are clearly rooted in the authentic, indigenous Southeast Asian cultural milieu. An artist who has persistently involved herself with the region and its political developments is Nirmala Shanmugahlingam. This is an area that needs to be investigated more closely by Malaysian artists as indeed the peoples of the Southeast Asian region have a commonly shared prehistory and have partaken of the various on-going civilizational exposures and cultural transformations that have shaped the complex, regional history of Southeast Asia. With the growing decline of the nation state as a self-contained, self-defining entity and the emergence of new ideas pertaining to alternative regional "centres" as the new zones of economic and cultural influence (i.e. the The United States, the European Union, Russia, the Asia- Pacific, Asean etc.,) such a proposition may not seem so far-fetched even, given the new realities of the shrinking, borderless Global Village.
"Vietnam" Nirmala Shanmughalingam 1981
编 按：入编《马来西亚国家画廊名家作品集》的画家是 Yong Mun Sen 杨曼生、 Tsai Horng Chung 蔡洪钟、 Abdullah Ariff 、 Lee Cheng Yong 李清庸、 Cheong Soo Pieng 锺泗宾、Jehan Chan Yee Bing 曾尔欣 、Lai Foong Moi 赖凤美、Lu Chon Min 李聪勉、Tew Nai Tong 张耐冬 、Georgette Chen 张荔英、Chia Yu-Chian 谢玉谦、 Anthony Lau 刘安东尼、 Tay Hooi Keat 戴惠吉、 Syed Ahmad Jamal 、Yeoh Jin Leng 杨仁龄 、Lim Eng Hooi 林英辉、 Mohd Sani bin Md. Dom 、 Johan Marjonid 、 O. Don Eric Peris 、 Goh Ah Ang 吴亚鸿、 Nik Zainal Abidin bin Nik Salleh 、Syed Thajudeen 、 Patrick Ng Kah Onn 吴家安、 Tengku Sabri bin Tengku Ibrahim 、 Abdul Latiff Mohidin 、 Fatimah Chik 、 Mastura Abdul Rahman 、Ahmad Khalid Yusof 、 Sulaiman Hj. Esa、 Noraini Nasir 、 Raja Zahabuddin Raja Yaacob 、 Haji Hashim Hassan 、 Amron Omar 、 Long Thien Shih 龙田诗 、Jailani Abu Hassan 、Kelvin Chap Kok Leong 瞿国良、 Bayu Utomo Radjikin 、 Zulkifli Dahalan 、 Mohamad Hoessein Enas 、Dzulkifli Buyong 、Samjis Mat Jan 、 Ismail Zain 、Ismail Hashim 、Nirmala Shanmughalingham 、 Zakaria Ali 、 Redza Piyadasa 、 Sylvia Lee Goh 、 Shia Yih Ying 谢薏莹 、Wong Hoy Cheong 黄海昌、Liew Kung Yu 刘康煜、Norma Abbas 、J Anurendra 、Eng Hwee Chu 杨慧珠、 Tan Chin Kuan 陈振权 、 Kok Yew Puah 潘国佑、Wong Woan Lee 、 Jolly Koh 许清发 、 Awang Damit 、 Sharifah Fatimah Zubir 、 Fauzan Omar 、 Tan Tuck Kang 邓德根 、Choong Kam Kow 钟金钩 、Lee Kian Seng 李健省 、Tan Hon Nyan 邓康贤、 Joseph Tan 陈湛仁 、Mad Annuar Ismail 、Raja Shahriman Raja Azidin 、Ibrahim Hussein 、Hasnul Jamal Saidon 、Zulkifli Yusoff 、Aznan Omar 、Wong Pek Yu 、Mohd Suhaimi
Kuala Lumpur Time
