centuries.
The story of a modern
Modern Malaysia
Art – An
Introduction
The modern Malaysian nation
state is a multi-ethnic and multi-
cultural entity. It is also a post-
colonial nation where traditional
religious beliefs and values
constantly overlap with modern,
secularistic influences. Malaysia is
a complex nation made up of
multiple, overlapping cultural
realities. Malaysia’s heterogenous
population of about twenty one
millions inhabitants includes the
Malays, the Dayaks, the
Kadazans, the Chinese, the
Indians, the Bajaus, the Murut, the
Orang Asli, the Eurasians, and
other minority ethnic groups. The
official religion of the country is
Islam but freedom of religious
worship is guaranteed by the
nation’s constitution. The arrival
of the non-indigenous peoples,
namely, the Chinese and the
Indians, in large numbers, took
place during the 19th and 20th
Malaysia art tradition has, as
such, been characterized by multi-
ethnic artistic engagements and
endeavours. Its origins are
traceable to the early decades of
the 20th century. It may be rightly
claimed that the excitement of
modern Malaysian art lies in the
fact that this relatively young
artistic tradition has continued to
mirror aspects of the diverse
cultural realities and also the
inevitable societal tensions that
might be expected from this
progressive, dynamic Southeast
Asian nation.
"The Chinese Mills"　
Capt. Robert Smith　
1818
　　
It will be useful to look at the
historical origins of the modern
Malaysian nation state. The
presence of non-indigenous
peoples in this country today can
be attributed to the 19th century
British effort to bring in large
numbers of immigrants into the
country to help develop it. The
Chinese and Indians, arriving
initially as indentured labourers
and later, as tradesmen and
artisans, brought with them their
own languages, customs and
cultural forms. They thereby
added a new, complex social
dimension to the hitherto
indigenous Malay-Islamic
ambience of the place. It was
during the 19th century that the
British had also introduced a new
Western-oriented educational
model through the newly-started
English language schools. The
consequence of this development
was the introduction of new
modes of cultural perception that
had slowly but systematically
changed the country and its
people. The new Western-derived
educational model, founded on
pragmatic, scientific and
individualistic underpinnings,
resulted in the introduction of
modernizing influences. By the
early 20th century, the place had
been transformed by the growth
of the new, urban town centres.
New kinds of imported
architecture had emerged,
heralding a new way of life and a
new modern era in the nation’s
history. There was a new urban
environment and culture, quite
distinct from that of the earlier,
unhurried, rural settings of the
Malays and other indigenous
peoples. And in this new
urbanized environment, a new
cosmopolitan cultural atmosphere
emerged. Initially, these
transformative developments took
place in the so-called Straits
Settlements which were the new
centres of trade, education and
social change. It was in the Straits
Settlements of Penang, Singapore
and Malacca therefore that the
new modern art activity initially
took root.
　
"Self Portrait"
Yong Mun Sen　
1941　
For those who wanted to find
employment within the colonial
government service, the mastery
of the English language became
an essential qualification,
achieved via attending the English
language schools. Not everyone,
however, went to these schools.
The British colonialists, in their
attempts to ensure their political
dominance over the pluralistic
populace, had also introduced a
complex "divide-and-rule"
educational population policy,
whereby different language
schools were systematically
established for the different ethnic
groups as well. A linguistically
fragmented populace, separated
by deliberate colonial political
design, was the result. The overall
British thrust was, nevertheless,
towards modernising the country,
in order to make it a viable
contributor to British’s industrial
ambitions. These modernizing
processes introduced new modes
of cultural perception. Ideas about
the physical world changed
radically. From the more
traditional, religious and symbolic
modes of perceiving and
interpreting reality, a more
scientific and rational appreciation
of nature and reality emerged. A
consequence of these
modernizing developments was
the emergence of a new kind of
creative visual artist in this
country. This new artists, initially
imbibing the tenets of Naturalism,
new ideas of artistic individualism
as an experimental mode of self-
expression, derived from the
West, differed from the more
traditional craftsmen of the place
who functioned within strictly
religious, symbolic and culturally-
restricted systems and contexts.
This new kind of secularistic,
modern artistic activity was not
restricted by religious or ethnic
demarcations.
　
"Portrait of My Wife in Wedding Dress"　 immigrants, were more interested
O Don Peris　 in their economic upliftment and
1933
Although the beginnings of our
modern art tradition is dateable
1920s, the actual introduction of
Western-type art forms into this
country must have taken place
much earlier. The Portuguese had
initially introduced Christian-type
imagery into the Catholic
churches in Malacca. The Dutch
who replaced the Portuguese in
Malacca must have also brought
into that historic town some
examples of naturalistic
landscape and portrait paintings
for which they had become
famous in Europe. What we
actually have with us today, in our
art museums, are the 19th
century scenic topographical
views produced by the British
traveler-artists, employing an
approach founded on the
naturalistic “picturesque”
treatment. Compared to the
Indians, the Indonesians, the
Filipinos and the Thais, who had
began their modern art
movements during the mid-19th
century, Malaysians were late
starters. Why was this so? A few
reasons may be ventured. The
British colonialists had not
envisaged a political role for art
here and they had not
encouraged it. The local ethnic
groups were initially also
disinclined towards Western-type
artistic expression. The religious
Malay-Muslims were initially
suspicious of Western education
and cultural influences and did
not readily take to Western
educational influences and
cultural forms during the 19th
century. The Chinese and the
Indians, having come here as poor
certainly not in imbibing Western
cultural forms. They were initially
busy establishing their own
cultural edifices and forms. It was
only in the early decades of the
20th century that the conditions
were right for Western-type art
commitments. The emergence of
small amateur art groups, by the
1920s, within the Straits
Settlements, marked the humble idiom initially. A new involvement
beginnings of our modernist art with easel-painting commitments
commitments. had been put in place.

"The Rich Land"　

Abdullah Ariff　
1960
　
The unique, intra-ethnic "Still Life With Jugs"　
dimension of the story of Chia Yu Chian　
1967
Malaysian art was already obvious
　
I its beginnings. Among the more
By the late 1930s, influences from
significant pioneer artists who
the School of Paris, such as
began the movement may be
Impressionism, Post-
included Yong Mun Sen, a
Impressionism and Fauvism were
Sarawak-born Chinese, settled in
gradually introduced. The role
Penang, O. Don Peris, an
played by the Chinese immigrant
immigrant artist from Sri Lanka,
artists during this time was
who had studied in Paris and
especially significant. Many of
initially come to Singapore and
these Chinese artists had arrived
later settled in Johor Baru, and
from mainland China, where a
Abdullah Ariff, a Penang Malay
historic social and cultural
school teacher teaching art in the
revolution had taken place,
Penang Free School. There were
inspired by the May 4th Pai Hua
others but these three artists
literary movement of 1917. There
should suffice to illustrate the
was a new acceptance of the
multi-ethnic beginnings of the
spirit of modernization and
new modernist art tradition during
realism in literature and art in
the pre-War era. There was no
mainland China. The artists had
support system for artistic activity
come here to teach in the newly
in those days and our pioneering
expanded Chinese language
artists had worked in relative
secondary schools as art teachers.
isolation and exhibited in school
One of these early immigrant
halls and the various community
artists, Lim Hak Tai, started the
halls. The earliest efforts were
Nanyang Academy of Fine Art
marked by attempts to record the
(NAFA) in Singapore in 1938.The
salient features of the place and
Nanyang Academy was the first
its peoples. Landscape paintings,
proper fine art college to be
portraiture and still-life efforts had
started in British Malaya. The
featured in the early days. The
medium of instruction was
favoured mediums were oil
Mandarin hence, Chinese
painting and watercolour painting.
Mandarin-educated school leavers
Naturalism was the preferred
from mainland Malaya as well as
Sarawak and British North Borneo,
went to study there in large
numbers, after the Second World
War. It was in the years after the
Second World War that the
significant contributions of the
Nanyang art movement would be
made. During the 1950s, the
Nanyang art movement witnessed
the rise of many significant artists
such as Cheong Soo-Pieng,
Georgette Chen, Chen Wen Hsi,
Chung Chen Sun, Lai Foong Moi,
Cheah Yew Saik, Tan Choon Ghee,
Tew Naitong, Chia Yu-Chian, Khoo
Sui-Hoe and others. Several
graduates of the college
proceeded to Paris and London to
continue their studies and later
returned home.
"Tropical Life"
Cheong SooPieng　
1959
　　
The Nanyang artists’
contributions, among the most
sophisticated at that time,
revealed interesting experimental
attempts to grapple with the
questions of cultural and artistic
identity. The fusing of Chinese
technical influences and pictorial
influences and the depiction of
Chinese, Malay, Indian, Dayak and
even Balinese subject-matter,
reflects conscious attempts made
o produce artistic forms reflective
of a multi-ethnic cultural milieu
and also, to the larger Southeast
Asia contexts. Their eclectic,
multi-cultural approach can be
seen in the works they have left
behind. A case in point was the
distinctive Chinese-derived
pictorial formats and the stylised
figure types created by the late
Cheong Soo-pieng, during the
1950s, derived from the region’s
tribal "hampathong" sculptures
and stylized Balinese wood
carvings. The Nanyang artists had
set the groundwork for more
serious questions to be asked
regarding artistic identity in later
decades.
"Rice Fields, Trengganu"　
Yeoh Jin Leng　
1963
The distinguished Malaysian critic
and cultural historian, Krishen Jit,
has suggested in the book Vision
and Idea: Re-looking Modern
Malaysian Art (1994) that a good
way of understanding cultural
issues in Malaysia would be to
adopt an approach that
demarcates our post-colonial
history into the pre-May 13, 1969
period and a post-May 13.1969
period. He had suggested that the
May13, 1969 event may be
viewed as a watershed in the
history of post-independence
Malaysia. It was a traumatic
period when the new nation state
lost its innocence and began to
painfully grapple with the more
complex issues of nationhood and
national cultural identity. The pre-
May 13 period had marked the
gradual rise of Kuala Lumpur as
the new administrative, economic
and cultural capital of Malaysia, a
process which had initially began
during the early 1950s. The
emergence of two significant art
groups in Kuala Lumpur, namely,
the Wednesday Art Group
founded in 1952 and the
Angkatan Pelukis Semenanjung in
1956, signaled a new major venue
for artistic activity. Kuala Lumpur
became artistically significant
with the formation of the
NATIONAL Art Gallery of Malaysia
by the Malaysia government in
1958, one year after
independence. Post-independent
Malaysia was then still an
agrarian, under-developed nation,
selling her natural resources to
the world. The country had not
yet embarked on the road
towards industrialization.
Malaysian artists were,
understandably, still beset by the
post-Merdeka euphoria and
idealistic visions. And this earlier
sense of idealism is clearly
detectable in the approaches of
the artists who began to exhibit
within the new Kuala Lumpur art
scene and elsewhere at that time.
"Woman Pounding Rice"　
Mohd Hoessein Enas　 search for a distinctive Malaysia
1959
　　
The involvement was still largely
with the idyllic and the pastoral
even if new formal approaches
were being projected. The
nation’s tropical landscape, with
its luxuriant vegetation, became a
veritable symbol of nationhood.
The land was celebrated as is
witnessed in the accomplished
earlier landscapes produced by
Syed Ahamd Jamal and Yeoh Jin
Leng. The humanity portrayed
then was one that existed within
an idyllic, happy world of daily
chores, happy children’s games,
joyous festivals and seasonal fruit
seasons. And this was reflected in
the works of artists such as
Mohamad Hoessein Enas, Dzulkifli
Buyong and Chuah Thean Teng.
Our visual artists had,
nevertheless, continued to
address the question of artistic
identity, a tendency that had
begun with the Nanyang artists.
As was to be expected, in a
situation where there was, as yet,
no officially prescribed definitions
about what the national culture
should be, the artistic approaches
were open-ended, varied and
eclectic.
　　　　
"Paper Boat"　
Dzulkfi Buyong　
1964　
The rallying artistic call, during
the pre-May 13 days, was
centered around the aesthetic
art form. This broad-based search
for a "Malaysian-ness" had, in
fact, started during the 1956s,
when local anti-colonial
intellectuals and university
students at the university of
Malaya in Singapore, during the
pre-independence period, had
asked the vital questions: "What is
Malayan culture?" and "What is
Malayan identity?" These were
indeed complex questions but
nevertheless very relevant
considering the country’s
pluralistic cultural realities. The
artistic assumption during the
1960s had therefore been that
artists should arrive at a
distinctive "Malaysian" style of
painting, immediately
recognizable as "our own" art
form. Formal experiments and the
use of past cultural references,
Malaysian, regional and even pan-
Asian, had featured prominently
in the artistic experiments.
"Fishing Village"　 noticeable in his highly
Chuah Thean Teng
1956
　　
"Spirits of the Earth, Water and Air"　 York sojourn, had, however,
Patrick Ng Kah Onn　 tended to reflect a more
1958
Some interesting attempts were
indeed made by the multi-racial
artists at that time. Batik painting,
initially introduced by Chuah
Thean Teng, was deemed a move
in the right direction and was
hailed as a significant formal
breakthrough. It spawned a
number of technical exponents
who included Tay Mo Leong and
Khalil Ibrahim. Batik painting had
certainly allowed for a sense of
artistic continuity with the craft
traditions of the Malay and
regional past. Similarly, Nik Zainal
Abidin’s interesting efforts at
depicting the Wayang Kulit stories
on two-dimensional surface, was
an attempt to employ
iconography derived from a wider
Malay and regional source. Patrick
Ng’s ambitiously complex
metaphysical work Spirits of the
matter, stylized Thai and Balinese
dance movements and Balinese
decorative effects. Syed Ahmad
Jamal’s initial introduction of
abstract expressionist influences
into local art scene in 1959, was
marked by interesting syncretic
attempts to fuse Chinese and
Western influences as is
calligraphic work, The Bait. Abdul
Latiff Mohidin's effort to arrive at
a notion of artistic identity, as
reflected in his expressionistic
Pago-Pago series, was to create
tropical biomorphic imagery by
juxtaposing various plant shapes
derived from the tropical flora as
well as utilizing iconic built forms,
derived from the region. Ibrahim
Hussein’s pop art inspired
figurative work, Why Are You Like
That?, produced during his New
cosmopolitan, mass-culture frame
of reference, unique at that time,
in Malaysian art developments.
　

"The Bait"　
Syed Ahmad Jamal　 nation’s more complex, social-
1959
What was discernible from these
art works was the new degree of
technical and ideatic
sophistication that had emerged
within the art scene. There was
also, in many instances, the new
employment of international
artistic frames of reference in the
works of some of the new abstract
artists. Abstract Expressionist
pursuits had begun to feature
within the local art scene. The art
scene had become more
sophisticated with the emergence
of properly-trained artists
returning from Western art
colleges in Europe and the United
States. The emergence of the New
Scene artists in 1969, advocating
a non-personalised, neo-
Constructivist art orientation
marked another aspect of the new
international abstractionist
commitments. These varied,
amorphous artistic approaches
clearly marked individualistic
preferences and personalized
definitions of artistic priorities.
And the spirit of modernist art
experimentation had allowed for
these varied individualistic
approaches. Looking back at the
period, one notices too that
whereas many of the support
systems vital for more serious
artistic activity were already
falling into place during the
1960s, there was still the general
absence of serious art critical
activity and more serious
polemical debate within the art
scene. Art writing, largely
attempted on a journalistic and
reportorial level, for the most
part, had not seriously highlighted
or addressed the more serious
issues related to the young
political and social-economic
contexts.
"Pago-pago"　
Abdul Latiff Mohidin　
1964
　　
The obvious difficulties of arriving
at a commonly recognizable
artistic solution or a Malaysian
“style” of painting was perhaps
only to be expected, bearing in
mind the inherent complexities of
this multi-ethnic nation. Still, as
modernistic experiments, these
artists had contributed
significantly to the on-going
evolution of the relatively young
modern art tradition. Their artistic
experiments had been made,
however, with little reference to
the larger, more complex, real
world existing outside the art
museum and art gallery contexts.
And it was a Malaysian world
heading towards an intra-ethnic
explosion by the late 1960s. If
anything, one is able today to
note the essentially apolitical
approach of Malaysian art
movement as a whole, at that
time. Ethnic tensions were already
emerging in the young post-
independent nation during the
late 1960s. Hence, when 13 May,
1969 racial riots took place, our
visual artists had actually been
caught by surprise. What finally
became clear to the more serious
artists now was that the young
Malaysian nation had indeed been
built on very fragile foundations!
"Why Are You Like That?"　
Ibrahim Hussein　
1969　　
The May 13, 1969 intra-ethnic
riots between the Malays and the
Chinese had indeed marked a
wake-up call for Malaysian artists.
And two works produced in the
immediate aftermath of the May
13 event, aptly illustrated a new
kind of artistic imagery never
seen before. Ibrahim Hussein's
somber work titled May 13, 1969
(1970) featuring a blackened-out
Malaysian flag and the tragic
number "13" inscribed below it
addressed the riots. The other
work was Redza Piyadasa's
installation, also titled May 13,
1969 and produced in 1970. It
featured an upright, life-size
coffin, draped standing on a
delicate reflective mirror. These
two disturbing works, inspired by
the traumatic racial riots, clearly
heralded a new, somewhat
belated artistic consciousness of
the pertinence of contemporary
socio-political contexts and a new
possible role for art, which was to
address more directly the more
complex societal issues besetting
the young nation state. The
prevailing interest in abstract art
and conceptual art concerns by
many leading artists, at that time,
had, however, discouraged a
more serious confrontation with
the deeper, intra-ethnic, societal
issues for quite some time to
come.
"49 Squares"　
Tang Tuck Kan　
1969
An immediate consequence of the
May 13 riots was the National
Cultural Congress which was
convened by then governing
National Operations Council at the
University of Malaya in 19171.
During this historic Congress, it
was suggested that the nation
had to have a common unifying
culture and national identity in
order to hold it together. It was
also decided that affirmative
action for the indigenous peoples
was a necessary prerequisite, to
correct the existing economic
disparities between the races.
After much deliberation and been use ever since then.
debate at the Congress, it was
decided that the nation had to
officially lay down the basis of an
official national culture. It should
be founded on Malay core values,
Malay cultural forms and the
Malay language as official national
language. This must be the
unifying basis for the construction
of a common official national
cultural identity. The other
cultures could exist but on an
unofficial basis. The resolutions
were passed at the Congress and 　　
they were presented to the "May 13"　
government to be implemented as Redza Piyadasa　
1969
soon as possible. The implications
How did this new policy affect the
of this historic decision was that it
visual artists and the art scene in
altered the cultural contexts
the post May 13 era? Perhaps, the
within which the nation has
one group of artists that as most
operated in ever since. The
directly encouraged by the new
government had introduced a
official, politicized vision of
politically-defined cultural vision
national culture and identity were
and more importantly, it now
the Malay artists connected to the
reinforced the hegemony of the
ITM School of Art and Design, The
Malay nationalistic forces. The
art school had been started only
mass narrative would henceforth
in 1967 as part of the effort to
be founded on a Malay-centered
upgrade educational opportunities
discourse and dominance. The
for the Malays and the other
implementation of the Malay
indigenous peoples. The Mara
language in the universities and
Institute of technology (presently
schools was thus speeded up and
UiTM), was an integral part of the
there was now an officially
nation’s new experiments in social
prescribed and politicized
engineering. The ITM art school
definition of national culture that
was filled with Malay staff and
would be given priority and
students for the most part and it
adhered to at all official national
was here that the new Malay-
functions. And this policy has
centred artistic vision found its
strongest adherents and its
manifestation. It was here that
some of the more interesting
Malay-Muslim experiments began
to happen. We may be reminded
that for the Malay intellectuals
and creative artists, the new
officially-sanctioned cultural policy
was, understandably, a real
emotional need now for the Malay
intellectuals, including artists, to
rediscover their cultural roots and
highlight their notions of “Malay-
ness”. We may also notice here
the shift from an earlier artistic
search for a broad-based multi-
cultural Malaysian-ness to a new
notion of Malay-ness, as the new
defining cultural paradigm. This
new shift in emphasis inevitably
caused the emergence of a new
Malay-dominated force within the
Malaysian art scene. This new
Malay-centred artistic energy
found its initial impetus from an
important exhibition curated by
the painter Datuk Syed Ahmad
Jamal at the University of Malaya
called Rupa dan Jiwa, which was
staged in 1974. In this exhibition,
for the first time ever, all manner
of Malay artifacts and visual arts,
were brought together from all
over the country, analysed and
presented authoritatively as a
coherent, distinctive cultural
manifestation of the Malays. A
book on the exhibition was
published as well. The richness
and complexity of Malay art and
design was impressive and
undeniable. It was certainly an
eye-opener. It was, especially for
the Malay artists, a revelation and
it set off the beginnings of a
strong, Malay-Islamic revivalist art
movement within the local art
scene. These Malay-centred
proclivities had began initially in
the late 1970s and lasted well into
the early 1990s, before its
motivating impulses began to
diminish.
　
"Rebab Player"　
Mad Annuar Ismail　
1991
The Malay-Islamic art movement
affected not only the artists
connected to the ITM art school
but other non-ITM Malay artists as
well. Their growing sense of their
Malay-ness was further re-
inforced when the government, in
introducing and implementing the
New Economic Policy's affirmative
action policy, had demarcated the
peoples of this nation into two
distinctive groups, namely, the
indigenous natives, now to be
called the Bumiputeras and the
non-indigenous immigrants, now
to be called the Non-Bumiputeras.
This was the new scenario
following in the wake of the May
13 event and a new sense of a
cultural schism had inevitably
begun to creep into the art scene.
These new developments marked
a more difficult phase indeed,
signalling also the beginnings of
ethnic tensions and ethnic self-
consciousness within the society-
at-large.

"Gunung Ledang"　
Syed Ahmad Jamal　 columnade sculptures evoking
1978　　 sensibilities of the region and
What is interesting about the
Malay-Islamic art movement
referred to above,was that it was
motivated by politicised,
ideological considerations rooted
in the new post-Cultural Congress
governmental policies. There was
an undeniable ideatic
cohesiveness and a sense of
purpose about this new revivalist
Malay art movement which
differed from that of the earlier 1
960s artistic efforts discussed
earlier. There was also now an
attempt made to intellectually
explicate the Malay cultural and
artistic issue in a number of
Malay-Islamic centred seminars
and in a number of significant
essays that were published. The
movement seemed more
ideologically centred and had a
definite ideatic core. And, the
movement had two distinct
phases. The initial phase had
been marked by a conscious
search for Malay "roots" and a
Malay essentialism or flavour. The
artists initially returned to the
Malay and Southeast Asian world
and appropriated influences from
both Malay and regional sources.
Malay cultural forms are, as is
well-known, connected to the
overall history of the region.
Examples of this earlier Malay-
centred commitment are evident
in Amron Omar's Silat paintings;
Ruzaika Omar Bassaree's Dungun
Series – Window, Mad Annuar's
wood arving Rebab Player; Syed
Ahmad Jamal's Gunung Ledang
series; Mastura Abdul Rahman's
ornately decorative, aerial
perpective views of the interiors
of traditional Malay houses;
Tenhku Sabri's vertical wood
Ismail Zains's decorative abstract
paintings. The Malay revivalist
attempts constituted, in any case,
a rich and rewarding foray into
the Malay and Southeast Asian
past, consciously undertaken, in
the search for Malay-centred
artistic influences and a Malay
artistic essentialism.
"Interior No 29"　
Mastura Abdul Rahman　
1987　　
The second phase of the Malay-
Islamic revival in art, beginning
from around the early 1980s, was
marked by the introduction of
distinctive Islamic values and a
marked Islamic overtone. The art
historian, Zainal Abidin Ahmad
Shariff, has suggested, in his
essay published in the book Vision art). The idea of an Islamic
and Idea – Relooking Modern "renaissance" gad became the
Malaysian Art, that this new new catch phrase. It was clearly
Islamic dimension had been partly linked to a new, globalised Islamic
inspired by the successful Islamic resurgence. The first calls for an
revolution in Iran of 1978 and the Islamic state by certain extremist
emergence of the Islamic state quarters, began to appear in this
there. The Malaysian country around the early 1980s.
government's Islamisation
processes, begun in the early
1980s, had also given an added
impetus th the Islamic dimension
that appeared within the Malay-
centred artistic movement. The
projection of Islamic culture and
civilization now became the
rallying cry within the larger
Islamic world as well as and many
Malay-Muslim artists linked to the
ITM art school responded
emotionally to new impulses,
which saw the introduction of
radical new ideas about an Islamic
religious world-view being
introduces. A larger philosophical
debate ensued. Should Muslims
reject the Western materialistic
philosophy and Western idea of
modernism? For the Muslims
intellectuals, Western modernism "Oppositions"　
was now viewed as essentially Ahmad Khalid Yusoff　
1993　　
hedonistic, not moralistic but
decadent and had thus to be
And this was the case with some
rejected. It was seculistic and
of the ITM artists who embraced
individualistic in orientations and
the new Islamic consciousness.
not religio-centred. In short, the
There was now a rejection of the
Western-derived modern artistic
underpinnings of the modernist
and literary movements, founded
movement in art and the Western-
on humanistic individualism and
derived idea of modernity and
self-expression, therefore also
secularism itself. At the ITM art
needed to be rejected. Art's real
school, figurative art was now
function was to highlight the
discouraged and a new
worship of Allah and his divine
prescriptive, abstract approach to
laws. Only religiously inspired art
art making, founded on Islamic
forms were valid for Muslims. For
religious and design principles,
the local Malay writers the new
began to be encouraged, in
rallying call had now become the
earnest. The ubiquitous Islamic
search for a Sastera Islam (Islamic
Jawi script inevitably featured.
literature) and for the Malay
And this Islamic consciousness
artists it was Seni Islam (Islamic
was reflected in the works of
Sulaiman Esa, Ahmad Khalid
Yusof, Raja Zahabuddin Yaacob,
Hamdzun Haron, and others. In
retrospect, it may be stated that
the Malay-Islamic approach
adopted by the Malay-Islamic
visual artists toward creativity,
had been founded on the
fabrication of cultural forms that
owed their sudden appearance to
the new ideological and politicised
considerations rather than to any
natural, historical, evolutionary
processes that had taken place
here. It was, in essence, a self-
conscious revivalist art movement 　
attempting to evoke the past
glories of the Arab-Islamic past. "Tomb Stone"　
Hamzun Harun　
That these abstract Islamic works 1992
had emerged within the 　
secularistic confines of the ITM art
college, and exhibited within the
secularistic contexts of the art
museum and the art galleries, The present day Malaysia that has
rather than in the contexts of just entered the new millennium is
everyday-life religious contexts, is indeed a far cry from the Malaysia
a moot point that is worth of the pre-May 13 era. The nation
considering, in hindsight. The has been successfully
movement, nevertheless, had industrialising since the 1970s
reflected the new politicized and Vision 2020, an idea inspired
sentiments that have emerged by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri
within sections of the Malay- Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, marks the
Islamic community in this country target date for possible arrival at
since the 1980s. The on-going, fully industrialised nation status.
strident calls for the formation of Malaysia is today the eighteenth
a theocratic Islamic state by the largest trading partner of the
Islamic Pas political party and United States of America and is
other local Muslim being held up as a rare model
fundamentalists, marks the most Islamic country that is fast making
extreme manifestation of these the transition into the post-
new Malay-Islamic political modern globalised economic
impulses within the country. It is culture, There has arisen a
posing serious political problems substantial multi-ethnic middle
that the present, more liberalised class population. Malaysia is an
UMNO-led, multi-ethnic Barisan international success story which
Nasional ruling coalition is having is the envy of the other Islamic
to downplay. nations. There is intra-racial
harmony and a tolerance of the
nation’s multi-cultural religions,
values and forms. How have these
radical socio-economic
developments affected the local
art scene and our other more
serious artists in recent years?
What are some of the more
serious issues that artists are
tackling these days? It may be
useful to dwell a little longer with
the Malay creative artists. Clearly
the rise of the new urbanised,
consumerist, supermarket culture
here in recent years, has affected
the older, traditional way of life.
These new cultural developments
have affected everyone,
irrespective of race or religion. It
has signaled a new kind of altered
cultural environment and has
introduced a notion of a new
urban identity that has largely
overtaken the earlier, laid-back
Malay rural contexts and its
concomitant sentimentalised
visions of a monolithic Malay
cultural identity.
" lunar astronaut. Similarly, Ismail
My Father And The Astronaut"　
Ibrahim Hussein　 Zain in 1983 had hinted at this
1969
　　
"Between Two Servings"　
Din Omar　
1992
For the new Malays of today, it
has been marked by an especially
drastic shift environmentally. And,
interestingly enough, not all Malay
artists have tended to turn back
the clock and return to a religious
world of the idealised MaIay-
lslamic past or the Arab-Muslim
cultural past. The new Malay
confrontation with the
technological age has indeed
been a complex transformative
process, as it is for everyone else
in this country. The inevitable
implications of this larger, new
global cultural reality was, in fact,
initially hinted at by the artist
Ibrahim Hussein in his prescient
painting My Father and the
Astronaut, 1970. The old, shirtless
Malay peasant (his father) is
juxtaposed standing against the
ultimate symbol of the modern
machine culture, an American
new Malay dilemma in his aptly-
titled The De-tribalisation of Tam
binte Che Lat. An old Malay
woman from the kampung,
pictured in the foreground, is
surrounded in a new urbanised
middle-class home environment,
amidst the trappings of the new
cultural life-style of her children,
that she now co-habits with
uncomfortably. It is a world of new
dislocating realities for the older
Malay generation. The noted
photographer Ismail Hashim has
also often commented on the
changes happening within the
local Malay rural environment. His
Pemajuan, 1986 is a statement on
the disappearance of the
authentic rural kampungs, as a
result of new developmental and
modern housing projects. The
image of this particular kampung,
stripped bare, has to do,
ironically, with the creation of a
new golf course in Penang. The
social dislocations have also been
commented on by the younger
Malay artists as well, often with
humour and sometimes with
acute pain. Omar Din’s Between
Two Servings, 1992 alludes to two
culinary habits in the new Malay
world nowadays, namely, that of
the nasi lemak stalls and older
habit of eating with hands and the
contrasting fork and spoons and
sleek wine glasses of the new
coffee house culture of the new,
posh hotels and the new middle-
class Malay life style. The impact
of the global popular mass-culture
and pop culture on the Malay
psyche has been commented
upon by the late Ismail Zain in his
computerised print showing the
Erwings of the TV Series Dallas,
posing before a traditional
Malaccan Malay house. Raja
Shariman's depictions of the
Malay Silat warrior, as portrayed
in his metal sculptures, are
depersonalised, dehumanised
entities, nearer to the cyborg
world of the science fiction movies
than to the older, flesh and blood,
feudal world of the legendary
Malay warriors Hang Tuah and
Hang Jebat. The new urbanized
realities of unmarried mothers,
abandoned babies, abused
children, drug addiction, and the
problems of young disaffected
Malay urban youth, in more recent
times, has been commented upon
realistically and powerfully by
Bayu Utomo Radjikin and other
Malay artists. These works project
another view of the contemporary
Malay socio-cultural dilemma.
Malay cultural identity is oviously
not monolithic. Like the other
ethnic cultures in this country, it is
undergoing radical changes as a
consequence of rapid progress.
The issue of defining cultural
identity is obviously getting even
more complex for all Malaysians,
including the visual artists, as
they all arrive at the new portals
of the wired-up and computerised,
post-modernist Global Village of
the new century. And, an
essential part of this new post-
modernist, globalised cultural
paradigm, ironically enough, is
that it is founded on the new,
more challenging notion and
recognition of multi-ethnic and
multi-cultural realities!
　
"The Abuse Victim"　
Bayu Utomo Radjikin　
1994
What is becoming clear about the
Malaysian art scene today is that
it is a very much more complex
and sophisticated scene, when
compared to that of the
immediate post-National Cultural
Congress period of the 1970s.
There are many local art colleges
today, so many trained fine
artists, many serious art books
and art critical publications, many
commercial art galleries and
many art patrons and art
collectors. The works of our artists
are also being collected by foreign
museums and people outside the
country. Our more serious artists
are now also winning international
awards. What seems interesting is
the emergence, since the early
1990s, of a new generation of
younger Malaysian fine artists.
These younger artists have been
exposed to the new, more radical
methods of art teaching that have
been introduced in the art
colleges. Their perceptions clearly
differ from that of the older
generation of artists, educated
during the Sixties and Seventies.
These new artists reflect new
creative approaches. Post-
modernist ideas have permeated
art colleges everywhere in the
world and altered the very idea of
the artist. Syllabuses have been
dramatically overhauled in art
colleges and a multi-disciplinary,
comparative approach of cultural
and liberal studies has been
substituted. And, the very notion
of artistic activity has taken on
new meaning, as a consequence.
Not the least of these is the
consideration of historical,
societal and linguistic influences
as vital ingredients of the art
making process. The earlier
mythification of the artist as a
uniquely inspired self-centred
genius, has been debunked today.
All historical and cultural myths
are subject to re-questioning
today. The new artist must now
understand the nature of cultural
discourses and the way cultural
signs and mythic values are
manipulated by hegemonic power
groups. Discourse rather than
style has become the big defining
word in artistic activity today.
Artists must intervene in the
value-making process and in the
re-defining of socio-cultural
contexts. And, if necessary, the
creative artist should attempt to
deconstruct entrenched cultural
systems in order to liberate
thinking processes. A more
conceptual approach has, as a
result, emerged within the local
art scene today, challenging
previous definitions of what art
and artists should be about. A
more socially committed artist has
clearly emerged in this country
since the early l990s, employing
provocative, confrontational and
re-questioning approaches in his
creativity. Similarly, the new
interest in multi-dimensional
artistic installations and electronic
video presentations signal new,
significant areas of artistic
exploration and expression.
"Sing A Song For Ah Kong And Ah Ma"　
Liew Kungyu　
1994
The emergence of these new
younger generation artists during
the 1990s has also signalled a
new, healthy, regenerative return
to figurative art concerns and
realism. Abstract art impulses,
which had dominated the art
scene for so long, are now on the
decline. Younger artists are
looking at the real world, dealing
with it realistically and also re-
questioning it. Given the nature of
the multi-ethnic reality of the
contemporary Malaysian situation,
it is only to be expected that
alternative artistic perceptions
and re-definitions of the issue of
national cultural identity will
emerge. And these perceptions
may not be in tandem with
politically dominant officially-
sponsored Malay-Islamic
perceptions. They may be
reactionary and in Opposition to
the officially prescribed idea of
cultural identity and an officially
politicised version of Malaysian
history even. Marginalisation will
and does encourage reactions on
the part of those artists who feel
ethnically marginalised. And this
has happened in recent years with
the emergence of a significant
number of younger non-Malay
artists who have consciously
projected non-Malay themes and
issues in their art works.
"Kdek, Kdek, Ong"　
Hasnul Jamal Saidon　
1994
The beginnings of this impulse is
traceable to the early 19905 and
after. It was initially connected to
the Malaysian Institute of Art, (or
MIA) a private art school set up by
the Chinese community. The MIA
art college is filled with a Chinese
staff and Chinese students for the
most part. The presence of the
newly-returned U.S. trained artist,
Wong Hoy Cheong, at the MIA,
during the early 1990s, as a
teacher, proved consequential to
the search for a more assertive
Chinese-ness. This search for a
Non-Malay point of view may be
viewed as a counterpoint to the
Malay-Islamic impulses. Wong’s
initial major work, a video
installation produced in 1990
untitled Sook Ching dealt with the
atrocities of the Japanese
occupation, suffered by all
Malaysians. The artists’ attempt
to construct a more composite,
multi-ethnic history was very
obvious. All the races were
featured in his video installation.
Old men and women, of all races,
recounted their painful
experiences. It projected a
historical narrative that was multi-
ethnic in its orientations. All
Malaysians had suffered. All
Malaysians are the real heroes of
modern Malaysian history!
　
"Sook Ching"
Wong Hoy Cheong
1990　

Wong Hoy Cheong's Migrant
Series produced during the mid-
1990s was a tour de force,
consisting of more than fifteen
large black and white paintings
documenting the rich history of
the Chinese community in this
country. It was clearly the
younger Chinese generation's call
for a reconsideration of modern
Malaysian history itself. The
Migrant Series had highlighted the
drama of the Chinese diaspora
and the indelible Chinese
contributions to the building of
this modern nation. It highlighted
the contributions of the "Others".
Other younger Chinese artists
belonging to his generation have
also reacted to the overt Malay-
Islamic tendencies and the sense
of being marginalised by the new
politicised processes. They have
made attempts to project the
Chinese point of view. Examples
include Kung Yu Liew's Hungry
Ghost Festival and Chengbeng
Festival. Tan Chin Kuan's To Know
Malaysia Is To Love Malaysia
depicts a Kafka-like, haunted,
depersonalised landscape of
images featuring the faces of
young alienated Chinese youth.
The painting's title was taken
from a popular Malaysian tourist
campaign jingle, boasting a
happy, multi-racial Malaysia. The
emergence of angst in the works
of the younger artist is telling.
Leong Chee Siong'’s Who are We,
Where do We come from and
Where are We going? is another
recent work by a younger Chinese
artist raising questions about
identity in this country. The artist
appears in the work, standing
alongside another marginalised
figure, an Orang Asli. The stream
of life separates the two. Both
figures confront the viewer's eyes
frontally. Sylvia Goh's nostalgic
recreations of the vanishing Baba-
Nyonya world are founded on her
own rich memories drawn from
her own life experiences . Eng
Hwee Chu's feminist painting
titled Black Moon is a subtle
statement of two kinds of
Malaysian womenhood. Her tee-
shirt clad self portrait, in the pose
of undressing herself, is
juxtaposed against a fully veiled,
woman clad in black, in the
background, seated just behind
her. It is a poignant, younger
female artist’s view of the
country’s complex ethnic and
religious cultural problems today.
Around the same time, a younger
generation Indian artist, J.
Anurendra had produced stark
images about the Indian
condition. He has produced
images of Indian festivals and also
of a more stark picture of the
poverty and social ills that have
beset the marginalised working
class Tamil community me of the
most powerful figurative art works
in the story of modern Malaysian
art, to date. And they also include
powerful images of that other
usually forgotten half of our
nation, namely, the East
Malaysians. These new images
celebrating the rich culture of the
Dayaks especially, have come
from Malaysian artists who have
come to Kuala Lumpur from East
Malaysia. Among these artists
may be included Bayu Utomo
Radjikin, Kelvin Chap, and Shia Yih
Ying.
 growing decline of the nation
state as a self-contained, self-
defining entity and the emergence
of new ideas pertaining to
alternative regional "centres" as
the new zones of economic and
cultural influence (i.e. the The
United States, the European
Union, Russia, the Asia- Pacific,
Asean etc.,) such a proposition
may not seem so far-fetched
"Immunity"　 even, given the new realities of
Zulkifli Yusoff　 the shrinking, borderless Global
1993 Village.
The earlier strident Malay-Islamic
artistic impulses generated by the
ITM artists, in the wake of the
National Cultural Congress period,
are clearly already on the decline.
Even the earlier strident calls for a
Sastera Islam, by our Malay
writers have become less heard
today. Interestingly enough, a "Vietnam"　
Nirmala Shanmughalingam　
number of Malay Muslim artists,
1981
ex-students of the ITM art college,
have turned to tribal, non-Islamic
regional influences for their
artistic sources and visual effects.
Works by artists such as Dzulkifli
Yusof, Fatimah Chik, Jailaini Abu
Hassan and Mohd. Azhar Manan
employ influences that are clearly
rooted in the authentic,
indigenous Southeast Asian
cultural milieu. An artist who has
persistently involved herself with
the region and its political
developments is Nirmala
Shanmugahlingam. This is an area
that needs to be investigated
more closely by Malaysian artists
as indeed the peoples of the
Southeast Asian region have a
commonly shared prehistory and
have partaken of the various on-
going civilizational exposures and
cultural transformations that have
shaped the complex, regional
history of Southeast Asia. With the
Malaysian Artist:

Yong Mun Sen. Tsai Horng Chung.

Abdullah Ariff. Lee Cheng Yong.
Cheong Soo Pieng. Jehan Chan
Yee Bing. Lai Foong Moi. Lu Chon
Min. Tew Nai Tong. Georgette
Chen. Chia Yu-Chian. Anthony
Lau. Tay Hooi Keat. Syed Ahmad
Jamal. Yeoh Jin Leng. Lim Eng
Hooi. Mohd Sani bin Md. Dom.
Johan Marjonid. O. Don Eric Peris.
Goh Ah Ang. Nik Zainal Abidin bin
Nik Salleh. Syed Thajudeen.
Patrick Ng Kah Onn. Tengku Sabri
bin Tengku Ibrahim. Abdul Latiff
Mohidin. Fatimah Chik. Mastura
Abdul Rahman. Ahmad Khalid
Yusof. Sulaiman Hj. Esa. Noraini
Nasir. Raja Zahabuddin Raja
Yaacob. Haji
Hashim Hassan. Amron Omar.
Long Thien Shih. Jailani Abu
Hassan. Kelvin Chap Kok Leong.
Bayu Utomo Radjikin. Zulkifli
Dahalan. Mohamad Hoessein
Enas. Dzulkifli Buyong. Samjis
Mat Jan. Ismail Zain. Ismail
Hashim. Nirmala
Shanmughalingham. Zakaria Ali.
Redza Piyadasa. Sylvia Lee Goh.
Shia Yih Ying. Wong Hoy Cheong.
Liew Kung Yu. Norma Abbas. J
Anurendra. Eng Hwee Chu. Tan
Chin Kuan. Kok Yew Puah. Wong
Woan Lee. Jolly Koh. Awang
Damit. Sharifah Fatimah Zubir.
Fauzan Omar. Tan Tuck Kang.
Choong Kam Kow. Lee Kian Seng.
Tan Hon Nyan. Joseph Tan. Mad
Annuar Ismail. Raja Shahriman
Raja Azidin. Ibrahim Hussein.
Hasnul Jamal Saidon. Zulkifli
Yusoff. Aznan Omar. Wong Pek
Yu. Mohd Suhaimi.