A red Chinese box-altar stands on\none of The Annexe Gallery’s upper levels; its idol, a cross-legged figure with\na white beard, looks over a space in which two-by-fours, of varying sizes and\neach encrusted with a layer of fresh asphalt, lay scattered. Some distinguish\nthemselves: “Platform” has a panel raised as a ramp into one of the\ngalleries windows, in whose frame a 1950s painting of road workers has been\nreproduced; in “Lake”, another piece of this patchwork road is\npropped open, like the viewing cover of a coffin, over a pool of water where a\nwarning light lies, blinking. There are bits of tarry gravel everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is Kepong-based visual artist\nChong Kim Chiew’s “A Temporary Road”, installed at the gallery\nalongside Low Yi Chin’s “A White House” until November 29th<\/sup>,\n2007. Occupying the upper floor are concept sketches, photographs of streets in\nJohor destroyed by flood, and news clippings about cracks in the Middle Ring\nRoad 2 highway — blueprints of the broken thoroughfare below. By locating such\na statement (of the impermanence of human edifice) in one of the oldest parts\nof Kuala Lumpur, Kim Chiew hopes “to make us think (and rethink) about our\nnational developments and aspirations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The altar, itself, appears to be\nhere to bless the endeavour, in emulation of construction contractors\neverywhere; I noticed, however, that there are neither offerings nor incense.\nAt the show’s opening I asked Yap Sau Bin (he and both artists of” A White\nHouse and A Temporary Road” were part of the Rumah Air Panas alternative\nart collective, before it lost its Setapak base last year) about this detail.\n“Well, if you burn incense that means you are inviting spirits in,”\nhe said, “And from then on there will be something living in the altar.\nOr, anyway, that is the belief. True or not is a different question.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Sunday, however, someone had left\nan offering, just in case: three small kumquats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kim Chiew’s installation is a\nseemingly simple presentation of self-destructive hubris — but the most\nfruitful interpretation I heard incorporated the shrine and its effigy\nmetaphorically: our destruction is a result of disrespect, both to spiritual\npowers and common realities. In less divisive times, superstitious engineers,\nprudent bet-hedgers, offered supplications to everyone: not only to Taoist or\nancestral deities, but to Hindu gods and other semangats of the land. Today,\ndogmatic religion and communal attitudes mean that the Chinese-featured old man\nsits alone. Not all parties are acknowledged, let alone appeased — and this is\nwhy our roads rip themselves apart, like the fabric of our social contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zedeck Siew writes for Kakiseni. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chong Kim Chiew’s “A Temporary Road” is one half of “A White House and A Temporary Road”, with Low Yi Chin’s equally proficient “A White House”. Both are meditations on human artifice and its relationship with the natural world, and run at The Annexe @ Central Market from November 9th<\/sup> to 29th<\/sup>, 2007. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 11.11.2007 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A red Chinese box-altar stands on one of The Annexe Gallery’s upper levels; its idol, a cross-legged figure with a white beard, looks over a space in which two-by-fours, of varying sizes and each encrusted with a layer of fresh asphalt, lay scattered. Some distinguish themselves: “Platform” has a panel raised as a ramp into […]<\/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":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3569,3539],"tags":[1098,3755,2816,49,257,722,259],"language":[7523],"writer":[7625],"class_list":["post-27362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-review","category-visual-arts","tag-chong-kim-chiew","tag-installation","tag-low-yi-chin","tag-review","tag-rumah-air-panas","tag-the-annexe-gallery","tag-visual-art","language-english","writer-zedeck-siew"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27362","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=27362"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38570,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27362\/revisions\/38570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27362"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27362"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}