Vocabulary

...the motivations to exhibit should emanate from a prevailing predisposition toward serving the public.

emanate
[noun]
issue 散发: ~ warmth, smell
originate 发源
give out (feeling/quality/sensation): ~ confidence

prevailing
style, culture 流行／通行

predisposition
to certain behaviour 倾向于
to disease

Summary

Week 3 
Exploration

Week 4 
No entry

Week 5 
About Art Expo Malaysia Plus
Art Scene in Malaysia

Week 6 
Art Exhibition is not Everyone's Cup of Tea
Change of Subject

Week 7
Negaraku Art Exhibition (Part 1/2)
Negaraku Art Exhibition (Part 2/2)
Scholar on Art Exhibition

Scholar on Art Exhibition

I explored some references on exhibition design to have an intro towards this topic. In Exhibition Design by David Dernie, he studied cases on exhibition design by various angles. I relate his context to my research topic:

Negaraku art exhibition is a physical narrative space that aimed to stimulated experience of entertained yet educated. Curators use display (art works, caption, portfolio book), lighting and visual communication to tell audience the importance of local modern art and appreciate them.

A similar theory of exhibiting techniques can found in Dean's Museum Exhibition: Theory and Practice which talk about fundamental exhibition design, including the art principles and exhibition evaluation.

Diagram 1: A book to understand the basic  exhibition design.

Despite the fundamental theory, a level deeper is thinking behind the appearance. I found many studies on museum communication design, which is similar to Negaraku that art pieces has rich historical background. The core message of museum is to educate, there I found the Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, a professor of Museum Studies in University of Leicester. He published Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge and The Educational Role of the Museum which study museum in education. According to him, museum sparkled and satisfied visitors' curiosity with physical display in front of them. He questioned how museum can bring what kind of knowledge to audience, and rethinking the value of it.

He also compile the theories on museum communication into a book Museum, Media, Message. It studied the museum as media to communicate message and evaluate the communication, which I can refer to to research on inaccurate of art work presentation.

My research conclusion until this stage is:

• Malaysia art exhibition hardly achieve the aim of educating because Malaysian rarely visit it.
• Art exhibition can deliver or twist the message of original artist to audience, and this might happens and audience are not aware of it.

Reference

Dean, D. (2002) Museum Exhibition: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. [Online] Available at: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=QDWIAgAAQBAJ&dq=Exhibition+Design:+Theory+and+Practice&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s (Accessed on 5 July 2017)

Dernie, D. (2006) Exhibition Design. London: Laurence King Publishing. [Online] Available at: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=CalHMBYjdpoC&dq=exhibition+design&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s (Accessed on 5 July 2017)

Hooper-Greenhill, H. (1999) Museum, Media, Message. United Kingdom: Psychology Press. [Online] Available at: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=a8cI8HhHh8UC&dq=museum+communication&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s (Accessed on 5 July 2017)

Hooper-Greenhill, H. (1992) Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge. London: Routledge.  [Online] Available at: http://14.139.206.50:8080/jspui/bitstream/1/2452/1/Hooper-Greenhill,%20Eilean%20-%20Museums%20and%20the%20Shaping%20of%20Knowledge.pdf (Accessed on 5 July 2017)

Hooper-Greenhill, H. (1999) The Educational Role of the Museum. United Kingdom: Psychology Press. [Online] Available at: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=-3_9K-TcPiwC&dq=museum+communication&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s (Accessed on 5 July 2017)

Bibliography

Macleod, S. (2005) Reshaping Museum Space. London: Routledge. [Online] Available at: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=PYnBVWj38-0C&dq=exhibition+design&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s (Accessed on 5 July 2017)

Negaraku Art Exhibition (Part 2/2)

Diagram 4 is mixed media installation “Of ' Image,Object,Illusion ' -Off Series Mechanism” (1977) by Lee Kian Seng. The work was produced after one decade of Malaysia Independence, it questioned the past and future of the nation. Jalur Gemilang was painted in reflected position, with a cockroach on the canvas, does it mean? It gives the feeling of something not quite right happened in the country. The excellent part is the execution that plays with space and dimension which took my attention.

According to the artist, the canvas is an mirror/virtual image; the visual on canvas is virtual image of artist himself who is raising the national flag. The real flag is an object, placed parallel with the canvas (image). Lighting is directly shine on object flag, making it project to the white ground to produce an illusion (Lee, n.d.).


Rationale from Lee Kian Seng's website does not match with what is exhibited, the lighting in exhibition is above the object flag (refer to Diagram 5), but in the rational it should produce an illusion/shadow of flag on the ground.  Is this the mistake of curators?

Diagram 4: “Of ' Image,Object,Illusion ' -Off Series Mechanism” exhibited in Negaraku exhibition.

Diagram 6: Notice the difference in spotlight position. Left is lighting design in 
Negaraku art exhibition, right is Lee's documentary of artwork exhibition (leekianseng, n.d.).

Diagram 7: Lee Kian Seng's layout design for this art work (Lee, 1977), clearly showed that 
light source should be placed in front of the object flag.

The artist wrote letter to National Art Gallery five times in the past years to point out the inaccuracy, with different mistakes in each time. Is the art work reshaped intentionally or just an unprofessional careless mistake? Exhibition curators are the middle person of artists and public audience, who need to be aware to send message accurately and respect the original content.

The world famous art museum such as Tate Modern and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), are they  just known for their great art collection, or perhaps also their respect to art and democracy for artists to voice out?

Diagram 8: Lee Kian Seng's accusation of National Art Gallery presented 
his art work with edited content in 1994.

Reference

Leekianseng.com (n.d.) Factual Inaccuracies in the publications of Malaysian Art. [Online] Available at: http://www.leekianseng.com/lee_FactualInaccuracy.pdf (Access on 4 July 2017)

Leekianseng.com (n.d.) 《 Of ' Image,Object,Illusion ' -Off Series Mechanism 》by LEE Kian Seng. [Online] Available at: http://www.leekianseng.com/3d_Image.pdf (Access on 4 July 2017)

Biblography

Lee, K.S. (2013) Hijacking Art. Sinchew Daily. [Online] Available at:  http://opinions.sinchew.com.my/node/28471) (Translated by Lee, K.S. at http://www.leekianseng.com/lee_HijackingArt.pdf)

Lorenc, J. at al. (2007) What is Exhibition Design? Singapore: Page One Publishing Private Limited.

Negaraku Art Exhibition (Part 1/2)

The exhibition is a programme under "Inisiatif NEGARAKU" in conjunction with the 60th year anniversary celebration of Malaysia independence. The exhibition aim is to awake the importance of visual art treasure of the country. It also give a chance to Malaysian to appreciate the great art pieces that hardly seen on usual days. The 88 artworks exhibited are selected from 72 artists, those are the important pieces in Malaysian history of modern art.

The curator group is consists of various local artists, some are from Curator of Collections Division of National Visual Arts Gallery: 

• Amerrudin Ahmad
• Faizal Sidik
• Syahrul Niza Ahmad Zaini
• Azrul Amin Arshad
• Ismaliza Mohd Badarudin

According to the exhibition catalogue, they selected artworks and arranged them considering genre, movement, influence and artists' rationale. The age of artists also noted beside the art pieces for audiences to imagine the process of art creation. 

I visited to the exhibition twice, the first time was with TOA field trip, and it is important because it gave the first impression to me who don't know any background of it. Spatial, historical and humanities were the keywords that came into my mind. I keep going back to the sculpture Bujang Berani (1991) by Bayu Utomo Radjikin, it was the suffering expression that pulled me into it. They were just standing there with perhaps the strongest expression in someone's life, screaming quietly to the quiet and cold gallery, and their suffer is eternal as they were captured in a still sculpture. 

It was my favourite piece since I saw its image on secondary school Seni subject textbook, this is the first time I stand in font of the real sculpture. It was also the first time I knew Radjikin produced a second piece entitled "Lang Ngindang" on the second year. It amazed me that the artist was just aged 22 when he created Bujang Berani after reading caption beside it. 

Diagram 1: The sculptures were placed face to face, seems screaming at each other. 

Somehow it look complete when they are placed together.

It was my experience on space arrangement on the first visit, on second time I went there with a target to study the the exhibition design. When I walked in to the exhibition space, I tried to figured out which direction to start walking from "Landscape" category, soon I realised the exhibition is not arranged according the timeline but theme. It has five themes: Landscape, Social Interaction, Beliefs, Abstract and Inheritance/Independence.

Landscape category has the earliest painting among all the exhibited art works, it includes work from 1940's, featuring Abdullah Ariff who is known as father of Malaysia modern art. The most famous painting of him "Lukisan Bumi yang Bahagia - Lombong Biji Timah Malaya" (1950) was the spotlight in the category. Even though it is hanged together with other batch of art works, its position still the most obvious to be seen, despite Ariff's portfolio book and bronze plate of National Heritage certification placed at the side of art works.

Diagram 2: Landscape paintings from early modern art era. Audience's sight will be led to 
"Lukisan Bumi yang Bahagia - Lombong Biji Timah Malaya" (bottom left corner) because 
it is at eye level and there is a book just beside it, attracting people to approach the painting.

The curators also put art works that has similar content together for audience to compare them. In Social Interaction category, a half-closed area is built using walls, and portrait paintings are hung in the area. When people stepped into it, they feel surrounded by the portraits/faces. The exhibition  uses this method to create many sections with different emotion.

Diagram 3: Top view plan to explain the section mentioned above.

See Part 2 on next post.

Change of Subject

The fact that Art Expo Malaysia is very focus on commercial is unsurprising, no wonder the exhibition can survive until today since 2007. I am also bored of this, can't Malaysia has an long run art exhibition for art community's growth? For example, annual Malaysia Popular Book Fair as a spot which many high quality Mandarin literature conferences were organised.

I tried researched on fine art commerce, however it is too hard because I've never in touch with fine art marketing, yet Art Expo Malaysia is very much emphasise on selling the art pieces. I decided to change my subject to Negaraku Exhibition that is now showcasing at National Visual Arts Gallery until 30 September 2017. Reasons why I changed my topic:

1. I can still visit to the exhibition for research if I am not sure of anything. Although I have pictures of last year's Art Expo Malaysia Plus, but I hardly recall the total ambiance of the exhibition.
2. Compared to Negaraku, I found art works in Art Expo are more random and it is hard to set a subject if I want to discuss about artworks.
3. I found more historical meaning in the Negaraku exhibition to research about, compared to the commercial-driven Art Expo.

Although I came to this decision in last-minute, but it is necessary for me to change the subject because when came to know more about Art Expo, I know that it is not for me, because I was just wanted to analyse artworks, research more about Malaysia art field and a little of history, but not about how to sell art. Some of the research that I've done is still usable even though my target subject has changed.

Bibliography

Art Expo Malaysia Plus. (2016) Malaysia Art Gallery Guide. Issue 23. [Online] Available at: https://issuu.com/malaysiaartgalleryguide/docs/final_magg__23_with_cover_for_e-bla
(Accessed on 1 July 2017)

DiMingo, E.P. (1987) The Fine Art of Positioning: Sound Bite or Solid Marketing? [Online] Available at: http://www.artofpositioning.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Fine-Art-Of-Positioning.pdf (Accessed on 2 July 2017)

Sherman, D.J. (1994) Art, Commerce, and the Production of Memory in France after World War I. In: Gillis, J.R. The Politics of National Identities. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press.
(Accessed on 1 July 2017)

Art Exhibition is not Everybody's Cup of Tea

According to Ooi Kuk Chuen, editor of Art Expo Malaysia annual book, one of the main focus of this exhibition is education:

The organisers aimed to make the Art Expo Malaysia a life experience and an educational event, with great entertainment value as well as a quality diversity in terms of media, styles, artists and geography - regional or as sovereign states (Ooi, 2010).

I doubt the effectiveness of an art exhibition to local public's education, because visual aesthetic is not something that can be taught just through an art exhibition. Their target audience are those who are already has interest in art, and them who has potential to buy art. In the book Way of Seeing, data shown most of the population think art is a privilege for the rich, and people who visit to art museum are those who has higher education (Berger, 1977, p.24).

Way of Seeing was published at 1977, in recent year's data of 2001, the result is almost the same as Berger's, which majority of art museum visitors has at least a diploma education, and for them the art museum is more likely to be a educative leisure, just like Ooi stated (Hanquinet and Savage, 2001). This report also led me to Bourdieu and Darbel's The Love of Art: European Art Museums and Their Public published in 1966, that studied the characteristics of small population who visit art museums.

Diagram 1: This is the first systematic sociology study of art museums and their public.
I will study on it later for essay writing.

Therefore, target audience of Art Expo Malaysia is definitely not all the Malaysian public, but the specific group that has interest in creative field. In Malaysia History of Art from Scratch written by Malaysian artist Tan Chin Kuan, he stated that Art Expo Malaysia is a big-scaled art commerce event, but not a major activity that push the visual art field.

I agreed that this art exhibition could not achieve art education for public, although it is free entry for everyone, because they are rarely get in touch of it. Therefore I shall focus on how an art exhibition influence the art or creative society.

Reference

Berger, J. (1977) Ways of Seeing. United Kingdom: Penguin Books Ltd.

Hanquinet, L. and Savage, M. (2011) 'Educative leisure' and the art museum. 

United Kingdom: Wentworth College.

Ooi, K.C. (2010) Art Expo Malaysia 2010. Selangor: Art Expo Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

Tan, C.K. (2016) Malaysia History of Art from Scratch. Malaysia: Tan Chin Kuan.

(Translated by Yap, J.E. from Chinese)

Bibliography

Bourdieu, P. and Darbel, A. (1966) The Love of Art: European Art Museums and Their Public. 
Reprint Edition. Cornwall: Politic Press.