The Star Online: Lifestyle: Arts & Fashion
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Arts & Fashion |
| Posted: 23 Jun 2013 01:32 AM PDT Portuguese visual artist talks about his upcoming collage exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. ABRACADABRA. A word of magic and wonder. Even the very mention of it transports the mind to a world of fantasy. It is a word imbued with power, impossibilities and archaic history. It was, after all, believed to heal ailments more than a thousand years ago. But all in all, a fantastical word. So, it only seemed appropriate that Nuno Moreira, an art director and photographer from Lisbon, Portugal, named his latest art exhibition ABRAKADABRA, a collection which he says is "mysterious, surreal, magical and funny." For three days only (June 25-27), the ABRAKADABRA exhibition will be open to the public at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac), Jalan Strachan, off Jalan Ipoh in Kuala Lumpur. In fact, Malaysia is the first country in the world to be graced with Moreira's latest collection. Currently based in Tokyo, Moreira designs book covers and CD artworks for a living. And while he says he enjoys the freedom to design visual wonders for publishers and musicians, Moreira laments that he still suffers from the all too usual compromises artists are accustomed to. It was these "constraints" that finally led him to venture into photomontage and collages, a style Moreira has adopted for his visual arts projects. Indeed, many of his rejected book covers sketches became a base for this particular collection. "I wanted to produce images I would feel personally satisfied without any compromises instead of working for clients all the time. I think our vision is very blurred nowadays with so much visual pollution all over the streets and bad programmes on television. "I believe that simple things make much more difference nowadays. In the case of these artworks when you start seeing the powerful impact that only two or three different images have when they come together, something new emerges," says Moreira of his collection in an email interview. The 31-year-old mused over the creative path he treads with collages, saying he never knows where all the cutting and gathering of images and shapes would lead him. "I don't like imposing a rational path but just letting the instinct play the main role throughout those moments. That's what keeps me working with collage, the unexpected element of surprise and not having a clear sense of what the final image will look like," Moreira shares. And truly, one cursory glance at his artwork and one can immediately notice the instinctual, irrationality of the pictures and yet somehow are visually enticing, drawing you into a world of endless possibilities. Take, for instance, the piece named Jewel Inside, one of the visual spectacles of Moreira's ABRAKADABRA collection. When you first beset your eyes upon it, the visual could very well be one of Lady Gaga's bizarre fashion statements. It features a woman in a white fur coat, her head bejewelled with diamonds and the tentacles of an octopus clasping her face. That could be one of the many interpretations but Moreira explains that the concept behind Jewel Inside is the idea of 'inside-out'. "The piece Jewels Inside came from my obsession with marine elements and the octopus in particular. I wanted to do something that had an 'inside-out' feeling. And by combining an octopus with fashion models you get Jewels Inside!" says Moreira, a fan of the German Expressionism for its intense contrast of lines, geometries and weird angles. Moreira believes the very experience of deciphering the meaning behind each artwork is enticing enough for one to check out the exhibition. "If you're into visual arts, be it photography, design, fashion or cinema, I think it will be interesting to come check the exhibition and compare my references and see where I get these ideas," says Moreira, adding that to truly appreciate the visuals, one has to continuously look at them from different perspectives. For that very reason, visitors will be able to purchase exclusive prints and postcards of the collection, so that they can take it back home, frame it and "continue seeing it from different perspectives." The visual artist asserts, "I want to make art available to everyone, independent on prices. Art should be democratic and visually and intellectually challenging." Promising ABRAKADABRA to be a surprising, magical and exciting visual journey, Moreira, whose next exhibition named State Of Mind will be held at Tokyo, concludes by saying "if you know what Abrakadabra means, you know what these images are about." > ABRAKADABRA – collages by Nuno Moreira is on at KLPac (foyer Pentas 2), Jalan Strachan, off Jalan Ipoh in Kuala Lumpur from June 25 to 27. Exhibition is open from 10am to 10pm. Free admission. More info: www.nmdesign.org. |
| Awaken your vision at Obscura Festival of Photography Posted: 23 Jun 2013 01:40 AM PDT Obscura Festival of Photography brings the best of Asian photography and beyond to Penang. EVERY other person has a camera these days. Owning one isn't quite like it used to be, and anyone with a keen eye can produce stunning images. But only a certain breed get it right consistently, or as Obscura Festival of Photography director Vignes Balasingam put it, "Photography as an artform still belongs in the realm of dedicated practitioners." The Penang-held Obscura, the first festival of its kind in this part of the world, aspires to parade the best of Asian photography to the world and bring the best works from around the globe to Asian audiences. It is being held at China House on Lebuh Pantai and Victoria in Penang till June 30. According to Vignes, the festival is trying to be a catalyst for dialogue, understanding and progress in the region through the sharing of photographic projects, discussions and an exchange of ideas. "It also seeks to bring some of the region's and world's finest practitioners of the art to Malaysia to help nurture the next generation of photographers, curators and editors as well as to raise the public consciousness in photography as an instrument for change and channel for art," he revealed during a recent interview. Doing this for the first time, there was naturally a learning curve for Vig and his team to overcome, but the fruit of their labour has been encouraging, even if it took three years. "It's a culmination of research work since 2010 of festivals in the region as well as smaller initiatives organised by myself and my friends between 2010 and 2012. The Festival in that sense is a culmination of these smaller exhibitions, workshops, talks and other photographic initiatives from that period, now manifesting itself as a larger festival," he added. Obscura's inaugural show will see works from the likes of Pablo Bartholomew (India), two-time World Press Photo winner, Pulitzer Prize winner and National Geographic contributor Maggie Steber (USA), Agence Vu's Ian Teh (Britain), visionary street photographer and educator Che Ahmad Azhar (Malaysia) and contemporary artist, Yanming (China). The exhibition will also be hosting a series of works by younger Asian photographers who will be exhibiting their material under the Asia by Asians theme, including Bharat Choudhary (India), Jannatul Mawa (Bangladesh), Rony Zakaria (Indonesia), Andri Tambunan (USA), Sanjit Das (India) and Suzanne Lee (Malaysia). In addition to the print exhibitions, the festival has curated eight slideshows for the festival, which feature more than 200 photographers' works from around the world. Throw in master class workshops and Obscura becomes the one-stop centre for all things photography-related. So, what's with the name of the festival then? Well, "camera obscura" is the precursor to the camera as we know it. Like what we learned in science at school, it can either be a dark room or a box which passes light through a tiny hole and projects the image inside on a screen upside down, with both colour and perspective intact. "Camera Obscuras were large rooms from which the world was projected into darkness, inverted. So, the name is really a throwback at the history and innovation of the camera," Vig related. Obscura – which is part of the ongoing George Town Festival 2013 – might only be into its first year, but Vig already sees the potential and hopes his sentiment is echoed by the viewing public. "The Festival will always be here to acknowledge new talent and help play a role in the development of photography in Malaysia and Asia. Hopefully, the festival will continue to grow and invest itself in promoting the best of photography from Asia and around the world. With our growing partnerships globally and locally, I am certain the festival will become a regional and local event to look forward to." > Obscura Festival of Photography, held at China House on Lebuh Pantai and Victoria, George Town, Penang, ends on June 30. For bookings, e-mail contact@obscurafestival.com or visit www.obscurafestival.com for more info. |
| Posted: 23 Jun 2013 01:35 AM PDT One of the world's most important contemporary artists has a new exhibition in Berlin that the Germans are hoping the whole world will visit. SITTING in a Berlin gallery over a cup of tea, Anish Kapoor is clearly at home in a city that is staging one of his largest ever shows. The British-based artist, 59, says the exhibition, entitled Kapoor In Berlin, is the best show he has yet put on, which may have much to do with the fact that he feels Germany demonstrates a huge degree of respect for the arts – in stark contrast to Britain and much of the rest of the world. "Germans have a rather healthy respect for the arts and artists," he says, adding that "in Germany, it seems that the intellectual and aesthetic life are to be celebrated and are seen as part of a real and good education, whereas in Britain, traditionally – certainly since the Enlightenment (in the 17th and 18th centuries) – we've been afraid of anything intellectual, aesthetic, visual." One of the most highly regarded sculptors in the world, Kapoor is keeping much of the vast show, which covers more than 3,000sqm at the Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall, under wraps. But he does reveal that around half the works were created especially for the show. It was, he explains, his concerted effort to stop it from becoming a retrospective, the idea of which he is keen to resist as long as he is alive and working. "I don't see the reason to be doing a retrospective," he says. "Let somebody else do a retrospective for me. There doesn't seem any reason to dwell on what's been done. Rather, let's build on it and try and do something else. I'm trying to push my practice out there and to see, 'Can I do that? Will it go there?' "A good half of the show is new, and that's always a risk. But that's the sort of idiot I am." Kapoor In Berlin is a culmination of the artist's huge body of work of the past three decades, an extravaganza of colour, shapes and textures that its British curator, Norman Rosenthal, has called an "endlessly inventive theatre of sculpture". As Kapoor chats before the opening, around him bustling workers in hard hats glide up and down on cranes, spray pigment on to walls, and remove plastic covers from sculptures as the show takes shape. Later, we are given a sneak preview of the works, including the centrepiece of the show. Emerging from holes in walls and a trapdoor in the floor, conveyor belts rise skywards, carrying big rectangular blocks of viscous, wine-red wax. As the wax moves up, it produces a squelching sound before falling off the end of the belt and landing with a satisfying splat on the linoleum floor. Overseen by a huge crimson sphere suspended from a metal frame, Symphony For A Beloved Sun is a new creation that fills the exhibition hall's main atrium. Along with the other structures, it reveals the potential the show has to beguile the public, something Kapoor's audience has long come to expect of him. There is everything from a deflated whale, whose maroon mass spills across three rooms; to warty, cave-like innards fashioned from synthetic resin; huge geometrically fragmented mirrors; twisted stainless steel pillars; and a gigantic, slowly rotating wax bell. There is even an old British Telecom generator. Crafted from sandstone, alabaster, Kilkenny limestone and fibreglass are also the protuberances and orifices, mountains and tomb-like structures that have become Kapoor trademarks, including the subtle bulge in the wall called When I'm Pregnant, all of which reflect the long and complex history of Britain's most celebrated sculptor in a show he says is "private and public in a very curious, sometimes uncomfortable mix". Exhibiting at the Martin-Gropius-Bau hall, a neo-Renaissance pile in the centre of Berlin, is both a challenge and an inspiration for Kapoor, who has had to deal not just with its complicated, decorative interior, of late-19th-century ornate pillars and mosaics but also with the history that envelops the building: the Berlin Wall and the SS headquarters (of the Nazi secret police during WWII) are literally squeezed up against it, visible from the gallery's windows; and he makes deliberate references to them in his works. "It's a building with a curious, difficult history that is inexorably linked to the history of Berlin," says Kapoor. "That's very potent. You can't make a show here without some reference to all of that. And it certainly makes a show here so much more interesting." Symphony For A Beloved Sun is a nod to one of Kapoor's heroes, the late German sculptor Joseph Beuys, who exhibited in the same atrium space shortly after the building's postwar restoration, in 1982. It also strongly alludes to the industrialised, bloody mass murders of the Nazi era, according to Rosenthal. German critics have been quick to make the same connection to the favourite among Kapoor's fan base, Shooting Into The Corner – which has been given a room of its own – in which a cannon fires round pellets of wax into the far corner, staining the walls a blood red. "We're pleased to say the wax stains can be removed when smeared with margarine," says the Martin-Gropius-Bau's director, Gereon Sievernich, highlighting just one of the many challenges Kapoor's works are posing as he inspects a show that is still very much under construction five days ahead of its opening. Other practical headaches have included the transportation, by a convoy of lorries, of the huge pieces from Kapoor's London studio. Some had to be dismantled before they could be brought into the hall; others were heaved in on horizontal cranes after window frames had been removed. For Kapoor, the arrival of his works in the space for which they were conceived over a period of months, during which their creation dominated his life, brings with it a huge sense of achievement. "Getting things out of the studio is great, very exciting," he says. "It's only when they are in the real world that they have a life of their own." One of his own favourites among the new works – which he describes as a "mad, crazy idea – is the deflated PVC whale, called Death Of A Leviathan. It takes up an entire side of the building, and reinforces Kapoor's sense of responsibility towards tackling major societal issues. "It's a big deflated skin, like a huge dead whale, a Hobbesian reference to the state being a kind of Leviathan beast that gives its control to the individual," he says. "Death Of The Leviathan may imply the kind of death or deflation of the state, this present condition we seem to be in all over the world where the individual has to take responsibility for the things that the state once took responsibility for." – Guardian News & Media > Kapoor In Berlin is on at the Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall, Berlin, until Nov 24, 2013. For more information, go to tinyurl.com/m3md8k8. |
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