Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info

Sumber Asal Berita :-

The Star Online: Lifestyle: Arts & Fashion

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:24 AM PDT

Two artists with Malaysian roots are flying high in the international art scene.

H.H. Lim and Simryn Gill, two high-profile contemporary artists partly based in Malaysia, will be featured in the 55th edition of the Venice Biennale this year.

The biennale, held traditionally at the sprawling Giardini and Arsenale fairgrounds in the Italian city, will run from June 1 to Nov 24.

While this is not the first time Malaysians have participated in Venice, it will be a first in showcasing under country pavilions – Lim as part of a 11-member cosmopolitan team that includes six Cubans in the Cuban Pavilion, while Simryn has the luxury of the whole Australian Pavilion at the Giardini to herself!

Lim, 55, was born in Alor Star but raised in Penang and since 1976, when he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, has been working and living in Italy. Simryn, 54, was born in Singapore but raised in Malaysia – in Port Dickson, Negri Sembilan – and is now based in Sydney, Australia.

While Simryn divides her time between Sydney and Port Dickson, Lim has more recently been spending more time in Penang, having opened Izu Zone Fine Arts in the heart of George Town.

Chicken-rice foodies opposite his Campbell Road premises must have had their curiosity piqued by the display on his premises of a mock-vintage American car stood on a high pedestal. The blades of a ceiling fan whirrs sleepily into a specially marked slot on the car's side door.

Interestingly, Lim and Simryn both got back onto the Malaysian art radar at about the same time: Lim was invited by the late Datuk Ibrahim Hussein, or Ib, to the inaugural Langkawi International Arts Festival in 2000 and Simryn staged her Dalaman solo exhibition at Galeri Petronas in 2001 with an installation of 258 colour photographs that represented a nostalgic rediscovery of her roots.

Since then, both artists have hit the high notes in accumulating a savvy international profile.

For her part, Simryn has taken part in the highly prestigious exhibitions of contemporary art Documenta 12 and 13 in 2007 and 2012 respectively besides exhibiting at the Tate Modern in London in 2007 and the 2009 Sharjah Biennale in the United Arab Emirates.

She has been spending more time in her beachside Pork Dickson home of late when not at her Sydney base or travelling elsewhere on projects.

Lim startled the upper crust guests of the Westin Excelsior hotel in Rome in 2012 (to mark Malaysia's 55th Merdeka celebrations) with his Il Toscoro Nascosto (Hidden Treasures) installations, which were also given play at Tang Contemporary Art in Bangkok in 2011. In 2010, he celebrated his blockbuster Gone With The Wind massive installations at the prestigious Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

Lim's other notable credits include the Speechless exhibition in Taipei on the universal power of sign language (2002); Pazienza (Patience) in Salerno, Italy, in 2002; the Words Project in Milan and Guangdong, China, in 2006; and the ConcentrAzione chess-play performance with Yang Jiechang in Milan, Italy (2011).

In the Salerno exhibition, Lim played the protagonist fishing futilely with the hook of his fishing rod dangling above water in a large aquarium dominated by a live carp (symbolic of a dragon). A video projection of a fixed scene simulated the passing of time, very much like Empire (1964), Andy Warhol's deadpan eight-hour roll of the Empire State Building in New York. The act is reminiscent of a Chinese fable of the strategist Taigong famed for catching no fish.

Lim has also been featured prominently in important publications in Italian on world art and his works are in the collections of the reputable National Modern Art Museum of Italy and the Rome Municipal Fine Art Museum.

While national pavilions dominate the biennial, participants have been selected on their individual talents and performances. Which is why, in this 2013 edition, Lim gets to flex his muscles under the Cuban flag and China's dissident artist Ai Wei Wei comes under the aegis of the German Pavilion.

Lim's work for the Venice Biennale is called Cest la vie. Playing on his signature cage concept, a cactus will be barricaded inside a steel-and-iron cage measuring 120cm x 120cm x 180cm. "The iron cage is not a prison but a mechanism to defend (whatever is inside) from the outside. The cactus, with its prickly spines, is one of the strongest plants and can survive in extreme conditions," Lim tells me at an interview at his Penang gallery before leaving for Rome recently.

"It is a search for extreme freedom," he says, adding that the spirit of his work also fits in with the "spirit and struggles of the Cuban people and nation which is fighting against isolation."

On another level, he sees the walls as a modern-living reality with people becoming increasingly polarised from one another, even neighbours.

His work will be displayed at the Venice National Archaeological Museum in Palazzo Reale (Piazza SanMarco 17) together with those of the other participants – Wang Du, Liudmila and Nelson, Maria Magdalena Campos and Leonard Neil, Sandra Ramos, Glenda Leon, Lazaro Saavedra, Tnel, Hermann Nitsch, Gilberto Zorio, PedroCosta, Ri Chafes and Francesca Leonge.

In the past, Malaysians only got to take part in theme-orientated or private institution-sponsored exhibitions at the Venice Biennale.

The first Malaysian to have his works shown on the hallowed grounds near the fabled San Marco Square was Datuk Ibrahim Hussein (1936-2008) who was part of the international showcase of America's Smithsonian Institution. In 1997, Zulkifli Yusoff's installation, Don't Play During Maghrib, got a belated cameo (the transporter carrying the work ensemble was misdirected) as part of the thematic show, Recent Works From The Islamic World: Modernities & Memories, at the Zenobia Institute.

Wong Hoy Cheong's Relooking, a mock absurd theatre set cum video installation reversing historical truth, was part of the Hou Hanrou-curated Zones Of Urgency spectacle in the 2003 Venice Biennale. Wong's work is currently being featured in the Guggenheim Museum's first UBS MAP Global Art Initiative exhibition called No Borders: Contemporary Art For South And South-East Asia (New York, until May 22).

Singapore, which has had a pavilion at Venice since 2001 will skip the 2013 edition, while Indonesia, whose citizens have been taking part individually, will take up a country pavilion at the Arsenale for the first time.

The Venice Biennale, dubbed the Olympics of the art world, is helmed this year by Massimiliano Gioni, who took over from Bice Curiger after a disappointing 2011 edition. Gioni is a former art magazine editor and director of the 2010 Gwangju Biennale and the 2006 Berlin Biennial.

Photography redefined

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:23 AM PDT

It is not just point and shoot here. The Subject of Dreams II exhibition shows how the presentation of photographs can make a world of difference.

IN a world where just about anyone can pick up a camera and capture pretty pictures, where does that leave photography as an art form?

Eleven artists are determined to venture beyond conventional boundaries to explore this idea.

"We hope to challenge the general perception that photography is something that just anyone can do. We want to promote photography as an art form, to show that it can still be something special and unique," says Pelita Hati managing director Raja Annuar.

He adds that they are interested in examining just how far the limits of photography can be stretched,

"It won't be 'just another photography exhibition'," he emphasises.

No, it is one designed to turn heads and touch hearts, and make you question what photography really is.

"To do this, we have to inject something out of the ordinary into the exhibition. Visitors to the gallery can expect to see photography being presented in rather unconventional ways. We have images printed on canvas and wood, there are lightbox displays and since we want to get very creative with the presentation, there are some photographs displayed in such a manner that they will look almost like installation art," Raja explains.

The title of the exhibition, Subject Of Dreams II, carries dual significance.

Firstly, these photographs are works that the participating artists have always wanted to exhibit.

"For many of them, it is a dream come true to showcase such works. They are making their dreams a reality," Raja shares.

Secondly, it can be taken more literally, in that the 88 works on display might just offer a reflection of a fragment of our collective subconscious, our fears and desires, and all the stuff that dreams – or nightmares – are made of.

Their dreams, or our dreams – could it be that they are all the same?

For this exhibition, the photographs on display are not so much an instinctive art form, but rather more concerned with aesthetics or conceptual forms.

"Some of the photographs are surreal, others are nostalgic, mysterious or even creepy. Some are really beautiful. But the one thing that each and every photograph shows is the painstaking effort the artists put into capturing each shot, and presenting it in a way that best suits their purpose," says Raja.

Showcasing works inspired by nature, the human body, communities, society, architecture, urban living, beliefs and value systems, Pelita Hati's second installation of Subject Of Dreams photography exhibition might be many things.

But above all, Raja hopes that it will help reassess the potential of photography as an art form, and with this awareness, ignite an interest in photography even in the uninitiated.

There are plans to make Subject Of Dreams an annual affair.

"It will always be a photography exhibition, but the list participating artists might be different, and also, hopefully, the techniques and media used. After all, if we want to promote photography as art, we have to keep coming up with new and innovative ways of looking at things," Raja concludes.

> Subject Of Dreams II is on at Pelita Hati, No.8, Jalan Abdullah, Off Jalan Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, from Apr 20 to May 18. Opening hours are from 10am to 6pm (Monday to Saturday). Visit ww.pelitahati.com.my or call 03-2092 3380/03-2282 9206 for more information.

Payung Man brings his umbrella wherever he goes; abandoned train tracks, a deserted, misty field, the rooftop of a dilapidated building or perched at the top of a flight of stairs.

Meor Hasmadi Hamzah's Payung Man is portrayed deep in contemplation, with a touch of mysticism.

"Photography is a tool used to express ideas. By combining surrealism art and photography, my images are able to escape from reality into a dream world. The Payung Man will bring viewers into his dark and gloomy world, where he searches high and low for that something that is mysteriously unsolved," he says.

Who could imagine that driftwood could be transformed into the kind of art that Hakimi Halim has crafted?

His digital prints on wood and mixed media capture "an aesthetic experience through indirect interpretation, beyond what we see in a photograph or the surface of an artwork".

He intentionally avoids a linear point of view in his works and believes that all forms of art is a journey of discovery. His works speak of seeking knowledge in a new way, after multiple rounds of trial and error, and after exhausting all hypothetical and imaginary situations.

Armed with a lightbox and duratrans film, Firdaus Herrow creates magic in blue with light and shadow.

"Space collapses while the lights that I install appear as intrusions and interventions. This combination renders the forms abstract in its expression," he says.

Firdaus shares that the light in his works can be interpreted as our inner awareness. It is through enlightenment and universal values such as love and global pluralism that ultimately leads to peace of mind, and peace for the world.

Ashraf Saharudin's World Of Paranoids mirrors the entrapment of the human race within a world of their own making.

"They crave to see beyond what they know, and yet fear the unknown. They believe that nothing can compare with the creations of their world. In turn, they become their own obstacle to progressing in life," he writes in a description of his digital works on canvas that show someone – or something – trying to claw his way out of the photograph, his face frozen in a silent scream.

There are sketches, diagrams and hurriedly scribbled notes on Mohd Azlan Mohd Latib's works. A diagnostic cardiac radiographer by day, he would like to share through his photographic works that photographs are not one dimensional.

"Life doesn't have one surface. I feel that the world needs more than just a pretty picture and I love to challenge people to think beyond the obvious. I want people to confront their mental processes of comprehension, judgement, memory and reasoning, as opposed to emotional and volitional processes," he says.

For Faizal Joy, his approach is simple: "I just want to take 'beautiful' photographs, or at least try to," he says.

With not much knowledge of photography, he bought a 35mm film camera from a friend, and then realised that through the camera lens, it is a whole new world out there. That was more than four years ago. At this exhibition, his subjects range from deceptively simple everyday images of cats and butterflies to artistic conceptual shots – a faceless man, a woman shrouded in shadow, a dead tree.

"This is not a statistic," says Nazaruddin Abdul Hamed of his works featuring Ali Long, whose story with leprosy started about five decades ago. The artist attempts to portray in his works the life of a man, without prejudice, and to look beyond his affliction.

"Ali's story might have started 50 years ago, but the history of leprosy is a curse that dates back to the times of the Pyramids and the city of Pompeii," he shares.

Ahmad Jaa offers a look at what he calls "abstractions of urban fragments" – shots of everyday details and objects in an urban setting that often go unnoticed.

He says, "They reveal my perception towards small details, colours and negative spaces that open up the imagination. It is a physical and spiritual journey that is expressed in a form of photographic visuals that leads me to experience a sense of calmness, purity and serenity. It also conveys that we should hold tight to the essence of life in this temporary world we live in."

It's interesting that both the jagged edges and circular forms in Syafiq Abdul Samat's works have the same origins – sound and light. The artist came up with an application he named Hingarmera, to create generative visuals using predetermined sound and light inputs. The light provides the "ink" (colour and pattern), while the sound is responsible for motif distortion.

"The louder the sound, the bigger the distortion. The resulting effects look like a combination of a slit-camera and waveforms," he says. Hingarmera is derived from two Malay words: Hingar (noise) and kamera (camera). "I have always been fascinated by noise. Noise can be random, sometimes loud, and often with layered pitches. Too much silence makes me feel dead. Thus, I have to confront the noise and tolerate it, rather than isolate myself from it," he explains.

Hanif Omar's works are the most colourful of the lot, boasting bright colours and symmetrical forms. Life forms are presented as seen under a microscope, almost straight out of a Biology textbook. Each of his works immortalises a moment in real time and in real life. "The patterns are results from an experiment and photo microscopic techniques. Lines and colours create visual texture. We colour our own lives, but are we on top or at the bottom? A person can be influenced by various factors, but when is it going to happen? Symmetrical life…" he writes.

Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Ahad, 14 April 2013