Shadow Play

Rhythm of the 21st Century -Monologues of Raja Shahriman, Galeri Petronas, KLCC
29th October 2009 to 24th January 2010.

Galeri Petronas, at KLCC, is currently (at the time of writing) holding an extensive exhibition of Raja Shahriman b Raja Aziddin’s more recent work, including the paintings and sketches which help form a body of knowledge regarding his contemporary dynamic black metal sculptures.

The gallery visitor will see that Raja Shahriman’s sublimely martial black painted metal sculptures, in their concreteness, exist somewhere between the German H.R.Giger’s alien grotesques and those mythological sculptures of the British artist Michael Ayrton. It is between the menace of Giger’s fantasy grotesques and the forceful beauty of Ayrton’s mythological sculptures that Shahriman’s figures are allowed to exist, beautiful, but deadly, bullet bandoliered, starkly creatures of violence and destruction, extant in a poignant anti-war epiphany.

Yet Raja Shahriman’s forms, differing from those of H. R. Giger, replete with cartridge belt spines and masks, which render them terrifyingly anonymous, seem to represent, more accurately, the frighteningly vicious nature of man, against man, in brutal warfare. And, although Raja Shahriman’s constructs, to some extent, bear a mythos and a weight similar to those of Michael Ayrton – Ayrton’s minotaurs, or figures of Daedalus, show a gravitas and groundedness not apparent in those of Raja Shahriman, where cold steel is twisted to depict nightmarish warriors of evil.

There is an undeniable uncanny grace to Raja Shahriman’s sculptures’ lethal poses. At times, they appear as ferocious manga ninja, frozen in violent combative acts, twisted black metal shards and spikes piercing into the visitor’s subconscious, bringing, perhaps, the minutest of shivers down spines composed not of braces of bullets, as are those of Raja Shahriman’s figures, but of fragile flesh and bone. At other times, those figures resemble warmongering metal automatons; contemporary Robocops; Star Wars Battle Droids or bizarre metal skeletons, constructed perhaps by Ray Harryhausen for some, yet, unmade film.

The obvious strength of the sculptures, their hard metal musculature, their surreal/art noveau curvatures, poise, bandoliers of bullets all combine to impose their obviously martial nightmare imagery onto the innocently unsuspecting audience, with great success.

While the actual weighty metal sculptures stand, rooted to their plinths, the interplay of gallery lighting throws (Jungian?) shadows onto the gallery floor, and across grey painted walls. They are impossible to miss. A discerning visitor might get the feeling that is where the real story lies, not with posed metal, but with stark, projected, contorted shadows.

Creative shadows cast from Raja Shahriman’s commanding sculptures, born literally of light and dark, creep as dark figures rising from Disney’s Night on Bald Mountain (Fantasia 1940), or Ring Wraiths from Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings (1978).

In Disney’s Night on Bald Mountain, a huge dark-winged figure rises from the mighty mountain, spreading shadow over a sleeping village, drawing souls into Hell. Once there, silhouetted figures cavort, dance until the winged figure gathers them up, once more, and then casts them down, into Erté-like smoke and Faust-like furnaces.

Raja Shahriman’s shadows give the appearance of cavorting, dancing, twisting, curling, bending to reveal the archetypal black soul of war mongering sculptures. A slightest movement of light, a tremor, shudder, has shadows squirming, shifting, and moving across the gallery, shape shifting in their own repressed delight of nascent evil.

Wandering the Galeri Petronas there is the shadow of the object – Wira Perkasa (Brave Hero), creeping, peeping over its plinth, seemingly ready to make an attack on the hero who stands profound, unaware that his legacy of violence forever ties him to the shadow, and to his spine of war. Then, again, with Kancah Kashmir (Kashmir’s Arena) (2008), but this time three subconscious shadows break out into the gallery, unnervingly piercing, thrusting towards the other plinths, stealthily feeling their dark way towards them, but, then, also towards the innocent visitor, writhing in some deathly surreal dance towards them.

Observing the dark of the shadows springing from objects they had once been bound to, is thrilling, but unnerving. The gallery dances to a very different dynamic. Objects posed for visitors while shadows free themselves to challenge, question and, ultimately like the gladiators they undoubtedly are, fight in the new arena of Galeri Petronas.

Like vicious wayang kulit (traditional shadow play puppets) rhino- horned shadows, thrown against grey walls, pierce into the gallery. Others stab, cutting into the space between plinths, between walls, floors and visitors - nowhere seems safe from the forms, formed from fractious footcandles of light.

Gejolak Api (Fire’s big flames) and Maharajalela (Rampage) stand, opposing each to the other in one small offshoot from the main gallery. Sculptural Daliesque hands/arms extend, one challenging figure towards the other, twisted shadows displaying root/tendril-like curvatures thrusting writhing towards each other.

A startled gallery visitor, seeing the combative challenge might expect an engagement at any moment, and the spewing of black metal amidst the dark gallery flames, yes; it was to come, but only in our enriched imaginations.

Further around the gallery, with some nameless victory won - the figure Panji Hitam (Black Flag) mightily raises a flag to strike into its own wooden plinth, no doubt symbolising an ending of warfare, its bandolier of bullets, so pronounced in the figures of others throughout the gallery, absent.

The formerly repressed shadow of Panji Hitam , however, reveals that the flag is no full stop to conflict. It is simply another weapon, for the blackness is throughout, regardless now, of whether there are, or are not bullets, for now any weapon will do, as the formerly repressed shadow becomes liberated. For humanity, long suckled on war and violence has become addicted to the trill, the power and, ultimately - the mayhem.

Raja Shahriman b Raja Aziddin’s work, exhibited at Galeri Petronas is a triumph, not just in the creation of the works themselves, but also in the craft of their display. It is the carefully considered display of these sculptures, especially, which enhances the poignancy of the works, with deftly placed lighting, which adds the extra dimension and final touches to the overall exhibition, and reveals the soul of Raja Shahriman’s works.