Writing Out of the Ghetto

Accessibility is, perhaps, the biggest (and perennial) challenge facing the Malaysian visual arts.

In a society where art itself is a ghetto, the stuff that gets exhibited in galleries - enclosed spaces secreted in nooks within the city - is easily missed by an oblivious population. This gets worse when some galleries embrace exclusivity: concerns like Shalini Ganendra Fine Art hold exhibitions that are by appointment only, and the general public (meaning you and me) is excluded altogether.

Writing on the visual arts, therefore, plays a vital role. It's the bridge that connects artists and their work to audiences. However, because of the level at which art discourse happens, writing on the subject tends to be mired in a specialised legalese few people can decipher. In a sense, the "bridge" metaphor is all too true: writing about visual arts connects a single point (artists) to another single point (the pre-existing, trained visual arts audience).

Beverly Yong, co-founder of the art consultancy group RogueArt, makes the distinction between arts writing for a specialised audience, and writing for the rest of us.

"I think that arts writers who feel they want to reach a general public could pay more attention to what might interest the general reader and work on more straightforward language," Yong said. "I don't think this is such a hard thing to do!"

RogueArt launched its big 2010 project last month: a 500-page compendium of essays on Malaysian art, entitled Narratives in Malaysian Art. Edited by people like Anurendra Jegadeva and Nur Hanim Khairuddin, with art-writing granddaddy T K Sabapathy as a consultant, the book is designed to be "a comprehensive overview and discussion of Malaysia's rich and diverse art history and practice".

Topics include the early beginnings of Malaysian fine art; its use of the abstract and figurative (think Latiff Mohidin and Chuah Thean Teng); the infrastructure around the arts -- as well as the movements within Malaysian art criticism itself. These subjects will be discussed via essay, and interviews with arts personalities.

While Narratives's writers have not been finalised, RogueArt has name-dropped Adeline Ooi, Chai Chang Hwang and Wong Hoy Cheong -- as well as reproductions of articles by the late Redza Piyadasa and Ismail Zain. Such a muhibbah list means that the content would naturally lend itself multilingualism -- the book will debut with English- and Malay-language versions.

"There is barely any current knowledge or discussion about Malaysian art history, even among local artists, because of the lack of, or inaccessibility to, resources," said Yong. And, while the book could not claim to fill such a glaring vacuum, Yong believed Narratives would be an important step forwards.

Of course, the primary audience for such a volume would be artists, academics, and students -- the specialised audience. But RogueArt is aiming wider.

"A book of essays like this should have something for everyone," Yong asserted. "There aren't plans to classify the writing for the book into 'general' and 'specialist'. While there will be some drier academic writing, there would also be much of human and social interests in most of the content. And pictures, of course." Narratives will feature up to 300 colour illustrations.

Just in case this is still too much of a binary-style "bridge", the book will be accompanied by a lighter publication, an "A to Z of Malaysian Art" that will take a clueless reader through a bullet-list of key developments, issues and artworks in Malaysian art. This reader will also function as a guide, as it will contain listings of art spaces and services.

According to Yong, the most pressing business facing arts writing is breaking down the perception that art is elitist.

"Sure, theatre will never have the mass popularity of football," Yong admitted, "but we can at least aim towards reviewing performances as enthusiastically as the latest movie or pop album."

For more information on Narratives in Malaysian Art, visit RogueArt's website.

Text Zedeck Siew