Victor Chin » Exhibitions

The Business of Art

Victor Chin — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:25:42 +0000

The Malaysian art scene has been opening up to many new vistas in the last few years. There are many more art galleries in Kuala Lumpur and in other towns, especially in Malacca and Penang.

One of the big stories in Kuala Lumpur was auctioneer Henry Butcher’s first art auction in August. Then there is the fourth International Art Expo Malaysia 2010. This art fair is on at the Matrade Exhibition & Convention Centre till tomorrow.

Sim Tiak Choo is the organising chairman, and his son, Sim Pojinn, is the project director of this art sale. The Sim family and their associates are the prime mover behind these two art marketing events (of course with the support of the National Art Gallery and other related agencies).

He is no stranger to the local art market. He and his wife, Mary Tang, have been buying and selling art for over 38 years and they operate through their City Art Gallery, in Kuala Lumpur. Their main area of interest is in dealing with older Chinese brush paintings from China and some from Malaysian artists. However, they are now into a wider range of art products and other commercial opportunities from the region.

A chance to see another world

Victor Chin — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:51:43 +0000

The Orang Asli’s customs and way of doing things may seem “strange” and often given the derogatory label “primitive or uncivilized” by many even today.

This is simply because many of us are not familiar with their cultures. The Orang Asli too, in return, would look at city folks and wonder why we go about doing things the way we do.

However, if we were to take the effort to get to know some Orang Asli, as friends and fellow citizens, we might perhaps see that their way makes perfectly good sense in terms of their own culture and environment.

There are three main tribal groups found in peninsular Malaysia – Negrito, Senoi, and Aboriginal Malay. They are divided into 18 sub-ethnic groups all with their own languages and customs.

Their communities of about 148,000 people make up about five per cent of the total population in Malaysia (compared this to the sizable 17 per cent of the Indigenous population of Sabah and Sarawak). Most of them prefer to live in the forested areas but many younger ones are making their way into the cities.

Summer holidays with Hua Hin’s artist

Victor Chin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:19:24 +0000

Hua Hin, Pattaya and Phuket are three major seaside towns in Thailand. Pattaya and Phuket are by far more popular with visitors who enjoy more than just the beaches and sun but also can’t do without the nightlife of the go-go bars, which the Thais do so well.

However, there are a growing number of both Thais and foreigners who prefer a quieter tropical seaside atmosphere, especially the elite and those of retirement age, and they choose to be in Hua Hin.

This fishing village was abandoned about 250 years ago during the fall of the Ayutthaya period and in 1845 it gradually came back to life. This may be because it’s near to Bangkok, just 281 kilometres south. The scenic location and its climate are ideal for Bangkokians to get away for the summer from heat in the city.

By the 1920s, the elites descended into this province. A specially built gingerbread style railway station was built to welcome the Thai royalties. The Thai King, Rama VI, in 1923, was the first King to build what is now known as “the longest golden teak palace in the world” the Maruekhathaiyawan Palace, on stilts, by the sea not far from Hua Hin.

Making a life in art on Langkawi

Victor Chin — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 02:02:56 +0000

The Langkawi art group meeting at their regular home for inspiration and aspiration.

Langkawi island is not as well-known for its artistic and cultural heritage as the Indonesian island of Bali. It also has a long way to go to catch up with the tourist industry of Phuket which is a little to the north of the Andaman sea. But what these three islands have in common is their 550 million-year-old geological heritage, their surrounding seas and unique tropical landscape and weather.

However, neither Bali nor Phuket (so far) have been awarded the geopark status by Unesco. Langkawi was given the world geopark award in 2007. With joint research between LESTARI of UKM and LADA, the island’s ecotourism concept fulfilled all the international requirements of a geopark.

Artists from all over the world have been making their way to South-East Asia, especially Bali, for over 60 years and many never left. One of the most famous early European artists, Walter Spies (1895-1942) was living and working in Ubud, Bali, from the 1930s till his death in 1942. He and his artistic friends helped put Bali artists and art in the Western art market.

The last tiger show

Victor Chin — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:45:08 +0000

Hu-Kun, artist from China,’Taming the Tiger’, ink painting

The tiger, now an endangered species of wild life, mainly due to increasing number of poachers and deforestation, is found only in a few natural habitats. We are fortunate that in the Malayan jungle, in the 1950s (though they were already being hunted then), there were about 3,000 of these magnificent creatures.

Now it’s estimated that only 500 are alive (WWF sources).

Our nation’s emblems, crest and coat-of-arms, proudly carry the signs of the tiger. We also put the “tiger” in our car petrol tank. Many drink the “tiger” beer. And the Malayan Banking logo also uses the tiger as a symbol of strength and national pride.

In India, there are only 1,200-1,500 White Bengal tigers around. The Siberian tiger is down to 350-450 in the whole of Russia. Thailand and Vietnam have about 1,000 Indo-Chinese tigers. Sumatra has between 400 to 500 of their Sumatran creatures. The tigers in China are almost extinct except for those kept in their zoos.

Making art first, second & third

Victor Chin — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:20:31 +0000

Tan Hon Yin in his studio/house in Penang

Tang Hon Yin, 67, was a geography teacher and later a State Education Director, in Penang for more the 30 years. After school hours, his artistic passion was painting but now he does it whenever he likes. He is currently the chairman of the Penang Art Gallery.

For many years he has been producing paintings with Nature as the main subject. His first solo exhibition “Water Margin” was in 1983 in Penang. The collection was later shown in Kuala Lumpur in 1986. His latest series “Silk Road” was shown in 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.

Though he didn’t go to art school but through his many trips abroad, on his own initiative, he adopted two artistic parents, the American artists Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkom. They were his main inspirations. Tang admired the two artists for their use of colours and shapes and compositions.

Autism, no barrier to communication

Victor Chin — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:10:19 +0000

Ahmad A Khairuddin’s ‘ Cityscape’

A group of artists — all autistic — got together and held an exhibition recently to celebrate United Voice’s own building.

A self-advocacy society for people with learning disabilities in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, United Voice (UV) has been around since 1995.

After successfully raising more than RM1 million through various fund-raising events and donations, UV finally managed to purchase their own space this year.

The ground floor is their showroom and training centre where baking classes and craft making workshops are held while the first floor houses an art gallery.

It was in this gallery that the works of Nurul A. Rahman, Tan Seng Kit, Nadiah A. Jalil, Damiem Wong and Ahmad A. Khairuddin were shown.

Mountains and Artists

Victor Chin — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:02:33 +0000

Syed Ahmad Jamal, Between Haven and Earth

Nature has always been an inspiration for artists throughout the ages. Mountains, in particular, have inspired many regional landscape painters.

From China there has been a long history of artists who painted the many outstanding geological features of their physical geography. Some of these artworks besides depicting the shapes and designs of mountain formations in great detail also conveyed clear information of the various geological compositions of their landscapes.

One of the most well-known Japanese artists, Hokusai, from the Edo period, made colour wood block prints of a series of 36 views of Mount Fuji. The Great Wave of Kenagawa done in 1831 is one of Hukusai’s signature compositions of this collection of early postcards of Japan.

Cezanne paid homage to his boyhood home in Provence by painting the Mont Sainte-Victoire in Aix at least 60 times from 1885 to 1906. His devotion to a single hillock slightly over 1,000m in his backyard set the modern standard of painting and looking at European landscapes since the Renaissance.

Buy and sell…it’s all a game

Victor Chin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:52:48 +0000

Syed Ahmad Jamal, Langit & Bumi 1, 1982-1986, acrylics on canvas, 203x224cm

NOV 22 — The 3rd international art market or Artexpo Malaysia is on this week in Kuala Lumpur. This will be a good opportunity for anyone interested in the sport of collecting artworks. The organiser has also got the National Art Gallery Malaysia in as co-organiser.

Artexpo promises art objects “Old and new, East and West. Whatever forms, whatever styles, whatever media. Paintings, sculptures, prints, assemblages, installations, new media (digital art). Astonishing artworks from all over the world — Asia, Europe — Eastern and Western, the United States, Central America. A true united nations of art people from all over the world every November since 2007.”

This art marketing event like all trading networks has an anthropological history. Man has always had this compulsive motivation to succeed or to win and will turn any human activity into a sport or a game (sometimes ruthlessly bloody). They argue that it could be both productive and also an amusement — a great pastime in the dark caves (perhaps in Mulu, Sarawak).

Over the thousands of years of human evolution this act of gamesmanship has become an art — the art of winning by cunning practices without actually cheating. Just think of the recent so called world financial crisis and see how some of the multi-national players got away with it and were rewarded as well. Some say it was not greed that got us there but envy.

Mountains and Artists

Victor Chin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:33:08 +0000

Syed Ahmad Jamal, Endau Rompin, 1985, Acrylics on canvas, 173x223cm

Nature has always been an inspiration for artists throughout the ages. Mountains, in particular, have inspired many regional landscape painters.

He began to dismantle previous ideas of perspective and started to flatten out and break up his subject by using fragmented shapes, colours and brush marks. His paintings led the way for Matisse and Picasso and to Abstraction.

Syed Ahmad Jamal, Gunung Ledang Visited, 1992, Acrylics on canvas, 173x239cm

The mountains of Malaysia have attracted a few artists. Fung Yow Chork and Razak Abdullah are among the few landscape painters who got inspiration form the mountain backdrop of Kuala Lumpur, the Ulu Klang quartz ridge and Genting Highlands. Mount Kinabalu (4,101m), our highest mountain between the Himalayas and the Snow Mountains of New Guinea, has a devoted Sabahan painter — Benedict Chong.

Syed Ahmad Jamal, whose retrospective exhibition is currently at the National Art Gallery, has been moved by Gunung Ledang, near Muar, his home town, in Johor. Jamal has painted three artworks with that name. The first Gunung Ledang was in 1978 (this painting is not in the show), then Gunong Ledang Visited in 1992 and the last one Semangat Ledang in 1999.