Imagination's Catalyst

Umbaizurah Mahir @ Ismail’s ‘Toys’ (Gerabak)

It wasn't Jim Morrison’s Love Street, but Jalan Duta Kiara, and “this store where the creatures meet” was The Edge Galerie and an exhibition of fascinating sculptures from the Pakhruddin and Fatimah Sulaiman Collection. But creatures there were. In that intriguing show contemporaneousness rubbed shoulders with surreality, three, or was that four, dimensional expressions and a monstrously darkened cubicle, enlightened only by torchlight.

If you were to ever spare a thought for Malaysian sculpture, and there is every reason why you should, the tortured metal ‘warriors’ of Raja Shariman might spring quickly to mind, but little else. A casual observer of the Malaysian art scene might be forgiven for thinking sculpture just did not fit in with the proliferation of Abstract Expressionist canvases, twee kampong scenes and seemingly endless paintings of fishing boats. But they would be wrong.

Certainly since Independence, sculpture has been an emerging part of Malaysian art making. Anthony Lau’s Spirit of Fire (1960) and Syed Amad Jamal’s The link (1963) being but two fine examples. The beauty of “For the Imaginary Space; selected sculptures & installations from the Pakhruddin & Fatimah Sulaiman Collection” is not just in the works put on show, but for the idea of demonstrating that Malaysian artists, inclusive of Raja Shariman (Raja Shahriman Bin Raja Aziddin), do produce meaningful dialogues in more than two static dimensions.

The first impression of the Edge Galerie, having sauntered through those magnificent doors, is of some radiantly white Jentayu (mythic bird), with its wings spread in perpetual welcome. Enmeshed in those outspread wings are the Sulaiman sculptures. In the Edge Galerie’s central space, its red brick walls is the Calder-like ‘mobile’ Centrifugal (by Abdul Multhalib Musa), hanging by five early steel sculptures from Zulkifli Yusoff (Yang Arif, Pemerhati, Sherif Masuk Penjara, Milang and Kebodohan). Perhaps those sculptures are a prelude to those by Raja Shariman. The scene becomes stage-set for our imagination, and the sculptures its catalyst.

Initially I had to fight some Pavlovian, or was that foraging, inclination to turn into the righthand gallery, and nudged myself into the equally valid lefthand gallery space. The left gallery is the slightly smaller of the two and, like its twin wing, painted a white which enables visitors to reflect upon its many presented objects.

Azman Ismail’s, primarily brilliant red, Ku Genggam Merdeka (Hold me Independence), nestled on the white tiled floor of that left hand gallery as an introduction, perhaps, to the various dialogues and narratives explicit or implicit in the works there. In my line of sight was Ramlan Abdullah’s Monument of Freedom, spiking up towards the gallery ceiling. Like many of the sculptures in those two galleries there was an abruptness of steel/iron, which, like the aforementioned Monument of Freedom, made me check my sensitivities. I experienced an uncanny viciousness from the metal sculptures, an unease akin to an extreme Dadaist experience, an unsettling power relationship in which I was the subjugated. Didn’t Matisse say “The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.” (Jack Flam; Matisse on Art)

From unnervingly spiky steel (and glass) to Ahmad Shukri Mohamed’s glass-fibre eggs (Incubator Series: Muse) and back to Umibaizurah Mahir @ Ismail’s The Sky House, ceramic and mixed media (very reminiscent of the American surreal artist Joseph Cornell’s assemblage boxes), there was a healthy variety in that left hand gallery collection. But even more so in the next.

For me, the most striking exhibit was the wooden display shelves, rooted by blocks of concrete, which formed the ‘case’ for Umbaizurah Mahir @ Ismail’s ‘Toys’ (Gerabak). Why intriguing, because of the incipient humour of those pieces. I was reminded both of the Spanish Surrealist Miro, and the English Surrealist Desmond Morris in their playfulness, only made tangible, ceramic with wheels and metal flowers. And so to the creatures….

Throughout the exhibition there was an undercurrent of risqué politics, but none more so than in the installation created to house Sharon Chin’s ‘Monsters’. Entering into a cubicle draped with black fabric makes you reach for the variety of torchlights, to hand, just outside. Seemingly, the ‘Monsters’ are a ghoul, a headless ghost, a gargoyle, a unicorn and a manticore. Or that is what we are encouraged to believe until, that is, we read the list of Malaysia’s banned books printed behind silhouette figures in what appear to be open books, and realise just who the real monsters are.

The whole exhibition of sculptures from the Pakhruddin and Fatimah Sulaiman Collection, is both visually intriguing and encouragingly thought provoking. In fact, it is just what any good exhibition should be.