I was unsure if the orange ‘long A4’ piece of paper, printed with black and stuck haphazardly on the partially covered walkway door was, perhaps, a temporary traffic control sign - “warning trouble ahead”, “caution attention” or even “road closed ahead” maybe. It was none of them, as it turns out. It was the only indication that the Wei Ling Contemporary (art) gallery had moved to its new premises.
I pushed the door open. It was raining. Malaysia has decided to have a winter. With no other signs to follow, I trudged along the damp, leaf strewn, path past a three dimensional sign which read “ravity” (the “G” was missing) and scanned to see where the newly re-nascent contemporary arts gallery was hiding. It was all so very soto voce, minimalist, down played. I dashed through a door to avoid undue exposure to the chemical laced rain that now falls in some parts of South East Asia.
Wei Ling has gone for the gallery as “temple of art” approach. A large, and a largely unencumbered, space with white painted walls hushes the voice, encouraging reverence. You could almost hear the church organ playing somewhere off in the pew lined distance, only there were no pews, just space, and no audible organ only the melody of the rain.
I was prepared. I had come to see an array of works by Malaysian artist, and former student of Lim Kok Wing, Ivan Lam. The exhibition, extending from December 1st to March 1st at the Wei-Ling Contemporary (a brand new space) is titled “Twenty”, it is a retrospective of sorts. This faux winter does seem to be the season of artist retrospectives. A gigantic billboard had hailed the exhibition, literally from the rooftops but, inside, signage was distinctly lacking. It did seem that you needed to be among the cognoscenti to know of the exhibition’s existence, even upon entering its doors.
Many exhibitions now have a panel of some sorts, albeit on ridged plastic or exhibition ‘mounting board’, proclaiming what the exhibition is and who is the creator, and maybe curators are. In the brand new Wei-Ling gallery there was no such sign. Now you can take this many ways. Either the minimalism was to now include a lack of communication too, or that Ivan Lam is so ‘famous’ in his Warholian 15 minutes that he needs no introduction or, finally, the whole ensemble was all done in a bit of a rush - the move, the party and oops we are open to a public who need not necessarily know of our existence, need they?
Lack of visual communication is endemic in Malaysia but, on the whole, art galleries have been getting better, though there are still problems with badly cut, or badly positioned art object labels. But, at least, there are labels now. In the past, in Malaysia’s prime gallery, labels would fall to the floor, or be completely non-existent. The-times-they-are-a-changing however, some galleries still fail to recognise that poor display does effect audience’s perceptions. If art is communication, then what are art galleries? Are they simply a (in)convenient wall space, there simply to hang, or screw the works onto? If art is ‘language’ how are the translations made? Or is there an assumption that we all have Douglas Adams’ “Babel Fish” in our ears, and those who haven’t are not worth inviting anyway?
To not have the name of the artist, Ivan Lam, at all prominent within, or without, the Wei-Ling gallery, was either an absurd arrogance on behalf of those hosting the ‘show’, or a complete failure in communication. One which, I for one, hope is rectified sooner rather than later. As a frequent visitor to the gallery when it was downstairs at the Gardens Mall, in its new incarnation I was made acutely aware that this gallery was now demonstrating all those overt signs of eliteness, and residence of the cognoscenti that ‘Contemporary’ art exudes in buckets.
We cannot continue to decry the lack of interest in art, not just in Malaysia, but in the world at large, when we make no attempt to even adequately communicate to the public what we have, who it is that is making it, the when and the why. The lack of adequate signage is a problem, at this moment, for the Wei-Ling Contemporary gallery. While I might be able to comprehend the haste in which everything has been done, that haste should not have communicated itself to the gallery’s visitors.
Finally, it is an irony, is it not, that the one artist who has concerned himself with communicating, in an Esquire magazine (Malaysia) interview with Rachel Jena said - “You take that [the commercial side of things] out, and you’re an idiot.”
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