Some confessions ought to start this piece off nicely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, when asked to review Multhalib Musa’s recent\nexhibition at Wei-Ling Gallery, I had absolutely no idea who the artist was.\nThe exhibition’s Chubby Checkeresque title, Twist<\/em>,\nsuggested milkshakes and black-and-white linoleum flooring, but these American\ndreams came to a halt when I googled the artist’s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second confession is that I actually found nothing\non the search engine. I later discovered that I had misspelled Multhalib’s\nname. For this, I am sorry -\u00ad self-diagnosed dyslexia really doesn’t make for\nvery professional criticism, nor does the admission that it was Facebook that\ncame to my rescue. Still, it was there that I first saw the Rimbun Dahan\nalumni’s work and learnt that I was not going to see any kitsch from the\nfifties, but rather, a formidable body of contemporary sculptural works made\nfrom metal — works whose form induce a sense of the organic and contrast\nstarkly against the harsh, cold material in which they are produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘A Tale of Two Boundaries’, Multhalib’s winning\nsubmission for the 6th<\/sup> Oita\nAsian Sculpture Exhibition<\/em> (2001) is a good example of this. It features a\nseries of minimalist spade-like forms assembled together in ascending, and then\ndescending sizes, to form the overall piece. If my description falls short of\nadequate, I urge readers to picture a fish without a tail or fins. And, if the\npicture fails to form, help is only a mouse-click away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Altogether, viewing Multhalib’s works online first was\n— to be perfectly honest — a little intimidating. Sculpture, especially those\nentrenched in contemporary gestures, remain amongst the most difficult to\ncomprehend, analyse, or appreciate. The minimalist works by Donald Judd or Eva\nHesse, for example, are great culprits for this and it certainly doesn’t help\nwhen accompanying literature on the subject is written in academic jargon that\nconfuses more than it clarifies. It may be easier poking fun at Michelangelo’s\nDavid, but — and, as a\nrecent exchange of words right here on Kakiseni has shown — this\nforms the crux of the great debate between high art and populist art. Is one\nany better than the other? And, where does Multhalib’s work stand in relation\nto this dichotomy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Twist<\/em>,\nsculptures — both standing (the ‘twist’ series) and wall-mounted (‘linear\ntwist’) — bear the artist’s signatory approach of deriving each piece, or\nexpanding it, from a central idea or form. Here, the overriding principle is\nthe gesture of twisting, and the form du jour<\/em>,\nthe fin (or, an elongated S-shape). Each piece is a subtle variation of these\ncombined elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These metal works are, as noted by Gina Fairley in the\nexhibition catalogue, an extension of Multhalib’s formal training as an\narchitect. References to Frank Gehry’s architectural marvels abound, but how\nexactly does the language of architecture translate into that of art, or more\nprecisely, sculpture? For one, it’s apparent in the process of creation, which\nMulthalib has documented with great diligence and detail. The blueprints of his\nwork (available online) are evidence of the shared technical vocabulary between\nthe two fields, and, the actual physical quality of both is similar. Like\nbuildings, Multhalib’s works — more evident in the standing sculptures than\nthe ‘linear twist’ pieces — necessitate an all-encompassing viewing\nexperience; you are required to work your way around the sculpture,\nappreciating it from all angles and the small changes each approach affords. At\nthe exhibition, the ‘twist’ series were exhibited on plinths, so it is a great\nshame that I am so short; from photographic reproductions, I understand it is\nquite a view from the top — the variations between the one, two, and three fin\nsculptures are more notable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, is Multhalib’s work high art and inaccessible? The\ncontext of the exhibition (a private commercial gallery) notwithstanding, I\nwouldn’t argue so. Seeing the works in-person and some words with the artist\nhimself enlightens me that Multhalib himself veers towards the classification\nof public art — works that, in the right environment, engage viewers and\nenhance the landscape in which it is situated. The ‘twist’ series may be a\nlittle too small for public spaces, but there’s no denying the engagement it\nprompts in viewers. I, for one, imagine Lilliputian characters running up and\ndown the most precarious of spiral staircases — a hypothesis that lacks\nintellectualism, but highlights the possibilities with works that don’t\nprescribe or dictate any preformed notions upon its viewers. In short, it’s\nperfectly fine to remove the shackles of academia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ‘linear twist’ family, on the other hand, may find its way into a corporate space, but still, the works withhold the capacity to actively engage viewers through its evolving temporal and physical qualities. The metal used for these works will rust and ‘linear twist 1′ (2,3,4, and 5) will visibly age over time –\u00ad just like us. It’s arguable that paintings and other artworks age too, but conservators — like the great plastic surgeons of our day — conduct exhaustive efforts to reverse this very process. Multhalib’ s works won’t be going under the surgeon’s knife, but instead, will be allowed to transform naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly, these points recall the work of Carl\nAndre (an American minimalist sculptor working in the second-half of the\ntwentieth-century), whose infamous floor-pieces were made with grids and\nmathematical efficiency in mind. Andre’s works, made from metal sheets or\nbricks, were placed directly on gallery floors and viewers were allowed\n(encouraged, even) to step and walk over them. This example hints at a more\nsymbiotic spectatorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Michelangelo’s David, on the other hand, isn’t quite\nas welcoming, or rather, the guards protecting his manhood aren’t and you are\nforced to take in his virile marble body from a distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1967, Artforum<\/em>\npublished art critic, Michael Fried’s, seminal essay, ‘Art and Objecthood’.\nAnd, like the other great advocate of Modernism, Clement Greenberg, Fried\nabhorred Minimalism, arguing against its lack of distinction from mere objects\nand its overt reliance, or loan, on theatre. In short, he felt these works had\nno function as art objects without the presence of a spectator who was needed\nto complete it. Indeed, like the works of Minimalist artists, Multhalib’s also\nrequire a degree of theatricality: they demand our time, space, and physicality,\nbut so what? I think we all need a little drama in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachel Jenagaratnam is a free-lance writer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 17.07.2008 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some confessions ought to start this piece off nicely: First, when asked to review Multhalib Musa’s recent exhibition at Wei-Ling Gallery, I had absolutely no idea who the artist was. The exhibition’s Chubby Checkeresque title, Twist, suggested milkshakes and black-and-white linoleum flooring, but these American dreams came to a halt when I googled the artist’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":17,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3600,3569,3539],"tags":[2724,276,259,2723],"language":[7523],"writer":[7724],"class_list":["post-27218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-exhibition","category-review","category-visual-arts","tag-multhalib-musa","tag-sculpture","tag-visual-art","tag-wei-ling-gallery","language-english","writer-rachel-jenagaratnam"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27218"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38395,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27218\/revisions\/38395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27218"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27218"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}