A Short Note on Political Criticism in Malaysian Art.

Introduction.

It is an impossible task to define contemporary art as there are various interpretation on its definition. However, contemporary art can be understood by looking at the characters in the art world and art itself. It is also a challenge to define these characters in the context of Malaysian art as the history of Malaysian art is different compared to the Modern art in the West especially America and Europe even there are relations and some similarities between both of the region.

            One of the characteristic that helps to define contemporary art is the timeline which include art that produced between 1990’s until now. The transition and change that occurred from previous decades in art need a new observation on the cause and effect to understand the art development which basically defined by art historians and art theorist. Sarena Abdullah in her theses argued about Postmodernism Malaysian art that began from 1970’s until 1990’s, indicate the transition is happening and yet need some relocation in understanding Malaysian art in wider context. Because of we are now living in the age of Metamodernism that challenge Modernism and Postmodernism, art in Malaysia might be understood in different ways considering the changes that happen in decades.

            Secondly, contemporary art is rich, diverse and unpredictable. As stated by Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel in Themes of Contemporary Art:

            “Although painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, and the crafts still attract a large of number of practitioners, these familiar forms of art no longer subsume the field. Film, video, audio, installation, performance, texts, and computers are common media today, and artists are often fluent in several media. Artists freely mix media or may practice a medium with a long lineage in an unconventional way, such as making paintings that looked like a pixelate computer images or drawing with unconventional materials such as chocolate syrup.”

            There is no specific ism practiced by artists in contemporary art. Even though there is nothing new or originality in art anymore, the focal point in contemporary art is the extension of idea or entry point. Contemporary art celebrates diversity and defined by thematic approaches. Politics, identity, death, time, place, language, art, spirituality and science are among the theme used by artists in making artworks. Having said that, the deeply and meaningful content of artworks really matter in contemporary art. Since there is a rapid development and changes in politics landscape, socio-cultural and religious belief, the rise of technology, artists are motivated by a range of purposes and ideas beyond a desire to express personal emotions and visions or to display a mastery of media and techniques.

       Political criticism in art.

Contemporary art is no longer perceived as solely related to beauty. Only a few of artists locate themselves as formalist. Artist nowadays as a part of society play roles to contribute viewpoint on everyday living experience, likely in socio-politics, culture, worldview or philosophy and art itself. In Malaysia, there are growing numbers of artists show their interest in political criticism in recent years.

Timothy Van Laar and Leonard Diepeven stated a comment on the beginning of political criticism since the age of Modern art:

“Starting with the revolutionary social and political criticism of artist like Francisco Goya, this model develops through the defiant bohemian artists of early twentieth century Paris to the postmodern social- activist artists of the present. These artists create new visual language in order to reject particular social and aesthetic conventions.”

Most of the artists involved in the socio-political normally approach their works in reactionary or event- oriented way. The reactions can be concluded as propaganda which influenced by certain political ideology and solidarity to those discriminated society, war victims and power abused. There are artists that take stand their domestic politics such as right wing- far right wing, left wing- far left wing while some of them place themselves as observers. In other angle, some of them have the radical idea; to change the world by those  who stand with the idea of humanity and liberation. 

Most of the artists likely to criticize on local politics and some of them are likely to convey their criticism in international or global politics especially in war, injustice and power. Even in 1981, Nirmala Shanmughalingam in her ‘Vietnam’ has made political commentary on war issue. The other example of previous local political criticism in Malaysian art is ‘13 May 1969’ by Redza Piyadasa, which was produced in 1970. An international artist, Anselm Kiefer shared his experience as a victim of the Nazi in World War II in most of his artworks, while earlier Pablo Picasso criticized the World War II through his ‘Guernica’ in 1937. Ai Wei Wei, a contemporary international artist and political activist, banned by his own China government because of his radical opposition to the ruler. 

The change of political landscape in 1998 (the dismissal of Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister), raised the opposition to the party Barisan Nasional which also the ruling government in Malaysia. The rise of technology and the emergence of social media caused the growth of information in politics for both government and opposition party. Due to the world without borders, local news as well global can be reached easily by peoples around the globe. Besides, the raise of economy as well as social issue much likely related to politics may be the reason many of political artists take place in Malaysian contemporary art scene. 

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