Jumaat, 7 Julai 2017

PETANG RABU LALU






OBJECTS OF DESIRE
" SENI : APA ? KENAPA ? & SIAPA ? ".
There wasnt need for a gentle breeze on a balmy afternoon in the old city of KL.
Words flew off the pages , audience rapt in attention ; a session looking for an audience became Engagingly Noisy & Loud : the portable PA system must have had a cardiac event. Good Stuff , indeed.
These guys , two poets & thespians , one social activist are just Climate Change in persons : they probably need thermostats when slacking off.
Rahmat & Khalid are poets & actors , did their gigs right on cue , unhesitatingly clear , their craft of assembled words rhymed with the heartbeats of those who listened.
One sensed the words bleeding through the pages , as the two poets lamented the festering wound of their people and the nation , a call to resist the slippery slope while peering into the Abyss of the Unthinkable. Sad , but we have to take the positives of Ambition and Hope : of Change.
Hisham went on full steam , proposing the Art for Resistance , almost Bolshevikian , then raising the spectre of the Wounded Generation of Maoist artists when the Gang of Four was incarcerated : " There was No Art during the Cultural Revolution , it was art for the party ".
Do the Malaysian artists , in the broader sense , will want to be described , in future , as the Wounded Generation ?
Art Critics would have balked at his proposition , a call of arms , to choose and pick sides of the political & ethical divide , else the artists , autonomous beings they like to be , will succumb to " Bodeklogy " .
He didnt go far enough in taking potshots at gallerists , bureaucrats , collectors and others within the fanciful ecosystem of the arts , who are quite capable of influencing the aesthetics and practice of artists : the elements within the equation of Bodeklogy dodged a couple of bullets.
The Mercantilist Imperialism by the emerging Asian superpowers , the invasion from the cold north , was an obvious concern to watchers of Cultural Landscape : as voluble as Hisham is , there arent prescriptive suggestions other than expressing a distaste that " Art will be made for the Cukongs , to the colours of capital ".
Hisham , whose life is almost Performance Art itself , offers no fast answers to issues raised ; no quick fixes other than encouraging artists to be True to themselves and not succumb to the temptation of The Fatal Embrace : Resist the Erosion of Ethics & Morality.
Art is after all , a Celebration of Life.








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1 ulasan:

  1. As per bro zunar's mantra: even my pen has a stand.
    So wake up my fellow countrymen! Stand up head high walk tall, and together we vanquish the people's enemies and the nation's traitors! Let us rightly and righteously take back this land from the greedy plunderers! Then we can move forward and upward as the country advances to greatness it far deserves! Now it's time: Rise, good people of malaysia, rise!!

    BalasPadam