Conceptual Art

Sorry for not updating my blog recently, I've been hardworking and lazy at the same time. 

Hardworking because I've a lot assignments to do, lazy because I procrastinate a lot. Oh mian.. 

Well, for this week, we have Tan Zi Hao as our guest lecture. 

Dr Carmen introduced Zi Hao as one of the few artist who makes conceptual art in Malaysia. This is my first time coming across to this term. Basically, it means art that involves "idea", where the idea itself becomes art. 

At first, I felt like this whole "conceptual art" thingy is not my cup of tea. I even felt that conceptual art is a fraud, because it seems like it doesn't need great skill to produce art if art is all about conveying an "idea".

I can just literally put a blank canvas in a posh looking space, with good lighting and say this is an art. And believe it or not, people actually did that. 

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Or this? 

A display feature pieces of wood at Birmingham's Icon Gallery

It feels like the artist started this work and eventually got bored and left his or her work unfinished. Lol. 

Most of the conceptual artwork makes the viewer feels uncomfortable, because it is too "modern" to understand it. 

For traditional art, you need skills to draw, and you need GREAT skill to actually make people to appreciate your artwork. But, there are people who have great MIMICRY skill, who can draw anything that is able to be visually seen by human eyes. They are just basically making a copy of the object or photographs as close as it can be.

Painting of a city
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That fellow who sings Let It Go. Lol. I don't remember her name.

This kind of art work, becomes less meaningful, because it doesn't convey anything but a painstaking skill only. We can call this as "mute art"---- art that doesn't speak for anything. 

This could mean that good visual art requires great skill, but great skill doesn't necessarily make good art.

This brings to the question --- What is art?

I was quite confused when Zi Hao was passing one of his conceptual art - The Soil (I don't quite remember the name) for us to have a look. I was confused as my own definition for art is completely destructed when he claimed that this packet, contained a handful of soil, together with a few random materials, including of his own sperm (seriously?) is an art work he made to convey his ideas and thoughts about our country.

This artwork, literally makes me uncomfortable, frankly speaking. Uncomfortable because it causes me to think a lot instead of enjoying it like how I enjoy appreciating traditional visual art (sometimes it is so well painted and drawn that you can "feeeeeeel" the emotion in the artwork).

Looking at Zi Hao's artwork, I had questions like: Is conceptual art about conveying idea regardless of any aesthetic properties? 

If it requires no aesthetic value, what distinguish conceptual art from non art? 

What if the idea proposed by the artist fails? 

Can failure be accepted as part of the art? 

Can idea fail?

As I had these questions racing through my mind, suddenly, I thought I understood something---- I think I know what is this guy sitting in front, trying to do with all of these art works.

The conceptual art work, obtains meaning by questioning.

Questioning what is the limit of art. What is the role of people instead of the role of artist.

First, Zi Hao questions about the limits of art by revealing a whole new mechanism of art. He put ticking alarm clock in British Council, he sat outside of his class, he obstructed his lecturer's view, he shook hands with the audiences and so on. 

This kind of art initially makes people feel uncomfortable as it moves people out of their comfort zone by destructing the mechanism of traditional art, and people tend to have many questions as they experience this, just like how The Soil did to me. 

When you questioning about it, you are actually throwing a catalyst into a debate. In this case, the artwork itself is the catalyst, and then people will debate over the artwork or the concept behind it.

Eventually, the concept proposed by the artist is said to have impact on people. So, conceptual artwork is meant to be uncomfortable, it's not meant for entertainment or escapism purposes. 

I've got to say that many Malaysians are very syok sendiri kind of people. 

"I got a stable job, I got nice food. I got a nice family. My life is perfect and I don't have to care about the government and politics."

The first step to solve a problem, is to not hide from it. 

And how do you make people to not hide from the problems? You make them question about it, and through questioning, you are forced to see different sides of a matter (in this state, you probably will feel discomfort as your conservative way to understand everything is destructed).

When you are exposed to a whole new perspective, you are curious what is truth. Then your curiosity towards finding the answer requires you to have confidence towards your own culture belief and values, and requires you to have courage to overcome challenges, and constancy to keep moving forward despite of our fears.

These 4Cs eventually leads to change.

(Feels familiar? Dr Carmen mentioned about it in one of our class) 

Our country desperately needs a change, but first we need to make people to realize the need to change. We, as the future generation of our country, and potentially to be working in creative industry in the future, what we can do is to make people question about the circumstances in our country by producing art that conveys idea.

Just like how Zi Hao did.

So, to answer this week question assigned by Dr Carmen, what did you learn from Tan Zi Hao?

I've learnt

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The art of questioning.