AHMAD FUAD OSMAN”S ‘AT THE END OF THE DAY, EVEN ART IS NOT IMPORTANT!’..>A REVIEW WITH NO TITLE
!
A review by Mansor bin Puteh
A controversy of some magnitude had suddenly erupted concerning an art exhibition at Balai Seni Negara (BSN) and I wish to comment on this massive retrospective exhibition mounted by Ahmad Fuad Osman with the exquisite, albeit, long and winded title At the End of the Day Even Art Is Not Important (1990-2019).
And what has the title got to do with his exhibition anyway? It is a retrospective one, that badly needed a theme and with it a relevant title. But the artist chose to have one that does not highlight his works as a whole, but to issue a general statement, on what he thought of Art with BSN agreeing to it.
So in the end, what the viewers have to do is to decide what they are seeing or have seen; which are either a description of what they could remember or what they thought them to be, based on their personal liking and attachments to some of the items on display.
The viewers can even skip the main feature of the exhibition which is on Panglima Awang a.k.a. Henry the Black whose black statue sits outside of the entrance of the gallery with some more inside some of the halls inside of it, all the time pretending not to be there and with the other exhibits or artworks scattered in the few halls that do not seem to be attached with each other, which call for some attention to themselves.
So in the end, one must get the artist himself to do some explaining to do, to be sure what he wants to say of his entire exhibition.
I dread to make a wild guess as to what it might be.
It happened at the end of an exhibition that was to last for three months with it not even attracting much public attention, until later on when a member of the board of Balai Seni Negara (BSN) wanted to flex his muscles by ordering the removal of four of the pieces from the exhibition which if the act was not done, the exhibition would have ended, quietly in the same way it opened.
Then suddenly the artist has become some sort of cause célèbre with some supporting his action to ask for the immediate closure of the exhibition and with two who owned some of the pieces that are put on display demanding that their pieces were removed from public display.
I managed to preview the entire exhibition when all the exhibits had been placed on display in the few halls in BSN and dare say it was kind of confusing.
However, on my second visit I managed to preview the exhibits and found some meanings in the entire show, which turned out to be a crass display of visual extravaganza, unwritten in the notes or booklets.
The exhibition therefore, is not found in any single piece of perplexing visual statement or the lack of it, but on and around Henry the Black a.k.a. Panglima Awang, who has been described and with many historical facts to back the exertion, to be the first man to circumnavigate around the world.
And in so profiling him as the unlikely 'hero' of Ahmad Fuad's collection, one sees how the other pieces merge to expand the scope of his discourse and hence pronouncements and by doing so in such a shy and coy manner.
Removing the four pieces from the ensemble will and can only disturb a visitor's subconscience, especially if he, like me, who had two opportunities to preview all the pieces, which by admittance, cannot distance me from the latent attachments I managed to get from the hidden intentions of the artist to spread his thoughts on his religion and race (Melayu, as in this case) with the gallery offering more than enough space to allow him to allow others solace in embracing them, if they so choose, or they can just walk pass by the works unaffected by none of them.
One can see the Islamness and Melayuness in this exhibition, without casting aside the four pieces that were deemed to be political and one which shows a nude man of an undetermined race, like some political cartooning or satire, at the most.
Removing four of the pieces will not affect the meaning of the show, but can just piss some who might not be able to accept the gallery's unconscious attempt to help promote it.
* * * * * * *
It is too bad that the age of art reviewing in the country had come to this; that an artist now only gets attention in the form of controversy or scandal that his art creates as what Ahmad Fuad had just found.
I did not see any long review of his exhibition which is basically a retrospective of all the works he had done in various forms and genres in the mainstream media which have for the last few years not giving enough attention to the arts as well as the cinema unlike before when they would have specialist writers in the relevant fields to do the reviews for them.
Ahmad Fuad spoke in a forum at Balai Seni in the last ten days of his exhibition with his curator from Singapore. But because the two of them talked too much the question-and-answer session following it was too short for anyone to raise more pertinent issues on his exhibition as a whole or on some individual pieces.
In the end, Ahmad Fuad’s exhibition which opened without a whimper also ended without a whimper with the gallery even denying me any chance to record video of their staff taking his pieces down, although it was meant to record another aspect of the life of the artist and his works when they are being put away.
The gallery seemed to be scared for nothing and did not realize even world famous works are recorded when they are being hung and also being taken away.
I got the permission from Ahmad Fuad to record his works being taken down, but the gallery did not see it fit to have the act recorded, which I thought I could use a bit of the footage in a special documentary on the artist I hope to work on later.
A review by Mansor bin Puteh
A controversy of some magnitude had suddenly erupted concerning an art exhibition at Balai Seni Negara (BSN) and I wish to comment on this massive retrospective exhibition mounted by Ahmad Fuad Osman with the exquisite, albeit, long and winded title At the End of the Day Even Art Is Not Important (1990-2019).
And what has the title got to do with his exhibition anyway? It is a retrospective one, that badly needed a theme and with it a relevant title. But the artist chose to have one that does not highlight his works as a whole, but to issue a general statement, on what he thought of Art with BSN agreeing to it.
So in the end, what the viewers have to do is to decide what they are seeing or have seen; which are either a description of what they could remember or what they thought them to be, based on their personal liking and attachments to some of the items on display.
The viewers can even skip the main feature of the exhibition which is on Panglima Awang a.k.a. Henry the Black whose black statue sits outside of the entrance of the gallery with some more inside some of the halls inside of it, all the time pretending not to be there and with the other exhibits or artworks scattered in the few halls that do not seem to be attached with each other, which call for some attention to themselves.
So in the end, one must get the artist himself to do some explaining to do, to be sure what he wants to say of his entire exhibition.
I dread to make a wild guess as to what it might be.
It happened at the end of an exhibition that was to last for three months with it not even attracting much public attention, until later on when a member of the board of Balai Seni Negara (BSN) wanted to flex his muscles by ordering the removal of four of the pieces from the exhibition which if the act was not done, the exhibition would have ended, quietly in the same way it opened.
Then suddenly the artist has become some sort of cause célèbre with some supporting his action to ask for the immediate closure of the exhibition and with two who owned some of the pieces that are put on display demanding that their pieces were removed from public display.
I managed to preview the entire exhibition when all the exhibits had been placed on display in the few halls in BSN and dare say it was kind of confusing.
However, on my second visit I managed to preview the exhibits and found some meanings in the entire show, which turned out to be a crass display of visual extravaganza, unwritten in the notes or booklets.
The exhibition therefore, is not found in any single piece of perplexing visual statement or the lack of it, but on and around Henry the Black a.k.a. Panglima Awang, who has been described and with many historical facts to back the exertion, to be the first man to circumnavigate around the world.
And in so profiling him as the unlikely 'hero' of Ahmad Fuad's collection, one sees how the other pieces merge to expand the scope of his discourse and hence pronouncements and by doing so in such a shy and coy manner.
Removing the four pieces from the ensemble will and can only disturb a visitor's subconscience, especially if he, like me, who had two opportunities to preview all the pieces, which by admittance, cannot distance me from the latent attachments I managed to get from the hidden intentions of the artist to spread his thoughts on his religion and race (Melayu, as in this case) with the gallery offering more than enough space to allow him to allow others solace in embracing them, if they so choose, or they can just walk pass by the works unaffected by none of them.
One can see the Islamness and Melayuness in this exhibition, without casting aside the four pieces that were deemed to be political and one which shows a nude man of an undetermined race, like some political cartooning or satire, at the most.
Removing four of the pieces will not affect the meaning of the show, but can just piss some who might not be able to accept the gallery's unconscious attempt to help promote it.
* * * * * * *
It is too bad that the age of art reviewing in the country had come to this; that an artist now only gets attention in the form of controversy or scandal that his art creates as what Ahmad Fuad had just found.
I did not see any long review of his exhibition which is basically a retrospective of all the works he had done in various forms and genres in the mainstream media which have for the last few years not giving enough attention to the arts as well as the cinema unlike before when they would have specialist writers in the relevant fields to do the reviews for them.
Ahmad Fuad spoke in a forum at Balai Seni in the last ten days of his exhibition with his curator from Singapore. But because the two of them talked too much the question-and-answer session following it was too short for anyone to raise more pertinent issues on his exhibition as a whole or on some individual pieces.
In the end, Ahmad Fuad’s exhibition which opened without a whimper also ended without a whimper with the gallery even denying me any chance to record video of their staff taking his pieces down, although it was meant to record another aspect of the life of the artist and his works when they are being put away.
The gallery seemed to be scared for nothing and did not realize even world famous works are recorded when they are being hung and also being taken away.
I got the permission from Ahmad Fuad to record his works being taken down, but the gallery did not see it fit to have the act recorded, which I thought I could use a bit of the footage in a special documentary on the artist I hope to work on later.
Comments