Galeri 27 USM

Celebration of 2013 Worldwide Pinhole Camera Day, D.I.Y one for brilliant you, today.

http://www.pinholeday.org/participate/

Last year, following the hype of rumours regarding the dreaded apocalypse on 21-12-12, twelve artists decided to band together to stage an exhibition titled 12 in response to the controversial probability. This March, the artists are coming together again, this time welcoming their latest member, to stage another exhibition, “13: Rebirth”.

In life, even when we think we possess the most joy and excitement, we are already looking for something more. Horizons are barely touched before we are pulled off in other directions, distracted by the hustle and bustle of things that life throws at us. Amongst the chaos, we try to stake out a territory, to claim a meaning to our lives. Death becomes something like the event horizon of a black hole, a one-way journey. Each individual lives one lifetime and at the end of it passes the horizon of death to a state of no return. However, there is another view, a view which prevails as always, amongst the human spirit. This is the idea of Rebirth.

The exhibition will be held at 212, Beach Street, George Town, Penang. 13 opens on 13th March 2013 (Wednesday), 8pm till 10pm. The exhibition will then run daily from 10am – 6pm till the 31st March 2013.

This March, 13 brings you yet again more evoking works from the experimentalist Annabelle Ng, the provocative portraitist E H Chee, the media art enthusiast Chuah Ee Yan, the urban sketcher Ch’ng Kiah Kiean, the street art sensation Ernest Zacharevic, the sassy rebel Khor Zew Wey a.k.a. Bibi Chun, the conceptualist Liew Ting Chuang (TC Liew), the multi-disciplinarian Louise Low, the seriously playful sculptor Low Chee Peng, the expressionist tattooist Renny Cheng, the humorous parodist Tan Kai Sheuan, the young veteran and illusive painter, Tang Yeok Khang. Last but not least, we would like to introduce our thirteenth artist, Ammar Khalifa, a radical graphic artist.

Knowing what awaits us in the resurrection podium surpasses our powers of imagination. The significance of our dedication towards rebirth does not automatically change our lives. Our dedication to our present moment changes our lives as each and every of our present moment touches eternity. If rebirth is going to motivate our lives, then allow the thirteen of us to express our hope in rebirth through our artworks in this exhibition.

written by: Chuah Ee Yan
curated by: Lee Khai
co-curated by: TC Liew

Imaginary Landscapes of Betel Nut Island by Elizabeth Briel at Gallery 2puluh7

Penang Economic Monthly — Promise of a Renaissance New art spaces are popping up in Penang, but can the state take advantage of this energy?

Maizul plans and create stimulations of thought via art making; Maizul illustrates his view of propaganda. He employed vivid and straightforward icons to reconstruct narratives and subtexts, as an effort to invoke the audience. Maizul’s POPaganda series (2010 - 2011) invites audiences to experience a different way of cognition. Instead of reading texts to gain knowledge, Maizul suggests to the audience to read illustrations. He converts verbal communication into illustrative story-telling touching on local political issues. Through diligent news-clipping experiences, Maizul is able to express his commentary of political happenings that surround us. He learns from the collecting experience. As the result, Maizul is constructing sets of “realities” to campaign his thought through visual tension.

URL: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=302825633064800

The history of text and its evolution may be read in great detail from the developments of cultures, linguists and artists, amongst others, who since time immemorial redefined their form of reading and writing. Take for instance the marked simplification and revolution of Chinese text from ancient manuscripts to contemporary publications. Fundamentally, text may be understood as a structural form for manuscripts, books and newspapers. Text in today’s context is essentially the wording in published/online writings that give shape to form and meaning of ideas. There are but many ways to decipher interpret and understand the writings and messages from authors of texts.

What about text in visual art?

Text in visual art generates detailed explication of the works of art, narrating and elaborating further the intention(s) and concepts of the artist(s). The explanation and contextualization of art writing defines the perimeters in which the visual operate; hemming the reading within frameworks that encompass but is not limited to socio-economic and political connotations. Text and their meanings also allow for further discourse and multiple trajectories with which visuals may be discoursed, positioned and interpreted (depending on locality and conditions that the art works are produced).
So what happens when text IS the work of art? Or rather text is developed into a form of encoding, where text is no longer text but something else? How then do we read text, or is it art (not text)? Take for instance, a quotation from a passage is printed on the surface of a canvas, what then are the limits before plagiarism becomes an issue?
Legally, copyright requires the quotation be cited. In a polar view, lines on an art work can be contested as art and not citation.

Encoding has possibly transformed the way messages, or text is interpreted. Structurally, the ‘text’ becomes metaphorically embalmed, possibly necessitating new methods of breaking codes. As in a piece of abstract painting contains of varied marks, strokes and colour which refer as the artist’s ‘text’ to express and convey his messages. Through the study of formalistic quality of artwork, basic elements such as dots, lines, shapes, forms, textual, colours and etc. are identified and unveiled. If those elements are tool(s) or ‘text’ that make meaning to a piece of painting; scientifically those are similar to a bit – the basic computer unit which able to entangle the gigantic databases; or microtubule associated protein (MAP), the tiniest element in human being brain that sparks complex thoughts and ideas. Those visual databases are graphically plotted, diagrammed and mapped into graph and chart format to show multiple layers of information. Diagram is another visual forms share similar function as ‘text’ does.

Again, what happens when diagram is the work of art?

The diagrammatic data encourage and suggest different reading of a piece of art. It informs on both macro and a micro level; as micro level address audiences with detailed information of formalistic elements. On the other hand, macro level audiences is able to trace the thinking and behaviourist patterns of the man behind the piece of art; perhaps in larger picture the diagram itself showcase the thinking of the artists (the visual interpreters).

Making interlocution between research and art making, this exhibition may be seen as an attempt to integrate the very contrary practises within the field of visual art. Artists deal with the necessity for text as writers/researchers’ engagement with the visual is elevated from detached readings and critiques of images to a sense of meaning in presentation and portrayal. Perchance, such tensions need be negotiated to fashion future interdisciplinary practices. It may also be viewed as an open ended dialectic; obliging contradictory ideas in within a conformed space.

In terms of visual art, this exhibition is groundbreaking in its scheme to work, rework and integrate the usage of text in art works. Recent memory has not recorded many such conceptual exhibitions in the country using texts. One may recall Wong Hoy Cheong’s Text/tual. Yet this is a proposition to address the domain of text and art with tangential concerns ranging from the historical to cognitivism studies. Artistically, the show is of significance, not in monetary concerns but to push the boundaries of conceptual art as portrayed and seen in Malaysia.

Text and Diagram in cognition, to cognize in texts and diagrams. by 4 artists/researchers, namely Hasnul Jamal Saidon, Dr. Izmer Ahmad, Kelvin Chuah and Liew Ting Chuang @ TC. Where text is thrust to its limits as symbols of meanings or even iconography, to a configuration beyond conventional boundaries? All the participants of this exhibition are affiliated as staff or postgraduate students of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). The idea of presenting a conceptual show like this in an institution creates exciting possibilities for other collaborations.

Kelvin Chuah & TC Liew