CORE contemporary art

Reset is an exhibition which showcases a series of historical artworks by some of Malaysia’s most important and avant garde first generation contemporary artists. The nine artists featured- Anthonie Chong, Eng Hwee Chu, Fauzin Mustafa, Husin Hourmain, Masnoor Ramli, Mohd Nor Mahmud, Tan Chin Kuan, Yusof Ghani, and Zulkifli Yusoff- are well known today amongst Malaysian contemporary art audiences. With practices that span the spectrum of drawing, painting, mixed media, sculpture and installation, they have each contributed to shaping the dynamic landscape of contemporary Malaysian art. Reset in fact stems from a curatorial desire to not only document and record contemporary art history, which is very much a field in formation, but to also return to the origins of the Malaysian art canon, giving recognition to its key players.

The artists featured in Reset have navigated worlds of change; witnessing the transformation of Malaysia from a largely agrarian, newly independent country to one that sits at the forefront of political, technological and social development. They have responded creatively to these changes, marking the transformation from the modernist art movement to the contemporary one. While the relationship between art and society is well documented, it takes on a particular urgency in the contemporary world, where discussions on contemporary art involve the networking of several factors, from the social, political and historical, to the cultural and the personal. Thus, the emergence of a Malaysian contemporary art movement from the 1980’s seems natural, when looking at the changes Malaysia underwent in the postcolonial period following the declaration of Independence on August 31st 1957, thanks to economic growth alongside the social and political policies that were put in place from the 1970’s.

In 1971 the First National Cultural Congress was held. Simultaneously both the New Economic Policy (NEP) and New Cultural Policy (NCP) were introduced, with the twin aims of improving the quality of life for all Malaysians and upgrading the lives of the Bumiputras, and fostering a national cultural identity. As these political, social, educational and economic policies began to transform the structure of Malaysian society, the art being produced locally began to shift. One important consequence of these policies established in the 1970’s was the inauguration of educational facilities for the arts. Two universities stood out in particular during this period: UiTM and Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA). Almost all of the artists featured in Reset have not only graduated from these institutions, but several of them have gone on to teach at them, such as Yusof Ghani and Eng Hwee Chu, cementing their influence over subsequent generations of Malaysian artists. Another important consequence of these policies was the urbanisation of the rural Malays, exemplified by the rise of the MATAHATI art collective, which Masnoor Ramli was a founding member of.