The Malaysian Insight

THE National Art Gallery is only prepared to reinstall three of the four artworks by visual artist Ahmad Fuad Osman removed from his solo exhibition earlier this month, sources told The Malaysian Insight.

The management’s decision was conveyed to Fuad in a meeting at the gallery on Tuesday.

Fuad, however, made it clear to the gallery either all four pieces of his works are reinstalled or the exhibition be shut down immediately.

The retrospective, entitled The End of The Day, Even Art is Not Important (1990-2019), which started on October 28, was to end on February 28.

The artist also told The Malaysian Insight that if the gallery is unable to meet his request, then the exhibition should end immediately.

“I want them to reinstall all the four pieces but if the minister could not accept my request, then the exhibition should be shut tomorrow (today),” Fuad said last night.

He was referring to Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Mohamaddin Ketapi.

The gallery’s objection is to an artwork titled Imitating the Mountain, an oil painting showing a man lying naked against a backdrop of mountain ranges.

The other three artworks are Untitled (2012), Dreaming of Being Somebody Afraid of Being Nobody and Mak Bapak Borek, Anak Cucu Cicit Pun Rintik.

“I reject (the decision). If they start censoring one painting now, then censorship (in art) would be an issue, and that also raises the question why this is raised after three months,” Fuad said when asked about his discussions with the gallery.

Mohamaddin ordered the meeting between the gallery and artist.

The management of the National Arts Gallery is scheduled to brief the minister on the outcome of their discussions with the visual artist in Penang today.

“I hope they will consider my request… reinstall all the work and continue with the exhibition until February 29,” Fuad said.

On Monday, the gallery’s managing director Amerruddin Ahmad confirmed the gallery took down all of Fuad’s work.

He said the work was “a process and not a finished product”.

Amerruddin’s confirmation came a few hours after Fuad wrote an open letter to the gallery calling it to be transparent in its decision to pull down the four pieces.

Fuad protested against the action, claiming that neither he nor the curator was consulted on why the gallery approved the pieces in October.

Other artists are also protesting against the decision, deeming it as an attempt to stifle the freedom of expression which they said goes against the political changes brought about by the last general election.

Two art collectors, Bingley Sim and Pakharuddin Sulaiman, meanwhile, have demanded that the gallery return all the works of Fuad lent to the exhibition.

Deputy Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Muhammad Bakhtiar Wan Chik earlier wrote a personal letter asking the gallery to reconsider reinstalling all the four art pieces.

He also asked the gallery to apologise to Fuad over the incident. – February 15, 2020.