The Versus: Art Communicates

Art defines as:

Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
1. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
2. The study of these activities.
3. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value

Art communicates. It creates a relationship between an individual to another individual. We play our role as an artist to gather, communicate, assemble and inspire more artists, more talents, so we can create strong communities in the art industry.

However, people here in Malaysia abuses art. They try to set borders and limitations. Others who acclaim that they learn art and graduated overseas think different. I know few individual (artist) that shows their ‘art discrimination’ or ‘art racism’, who only select artist and individual who only graduated overseas to showcase or exhibit their work in an art gallery. It’s very obvious that ‘they’ wanted to form a different collective to dish out and put artist in hierarchy.

I am very concern about art education. It seems that our local education system would still think that art is redundant. That’s why we won’t able to see people around us who understand and appreciate art. And that is why our clients are born ‘artless’. For example, art education in America or western country is different. They (art educators) will teach kids in their kindergarten or junior not only to draw, but to understand art, how to see colors, learning the harmony of colors and even learning the history and the artists. In Malaysia, even if we have art education, art teachers who follow syllabus only teach student how to draw landscape drawing, portrait and simple subject matter which somehow doesn’t develop our art skills and our techniques.

Where thou art shall ‘stay’?
When I was a kid, long ago in our channel, we are able to see TV shows like Sesame Street, Art Attack, documentary of art, cartoons and illustrations that carries attention. I don’t see any local school have drawing competition anymore. I don’t see any school kids going in lakes or park in groups with their teacher to draw anymore.

Now, when I ask school kids on who are their favorite ARTIST, their answer was so simple; ‘Siti Nurhaliza’ or ‘Mawi’. I went berserk. That wasn’t the answer I seek for. I thought they would know who is Dato’ Lat, Ibrahim Hussein, Syed Ahmad Jamal, or at least Imuda (local comedian/actor who have crazy illustration works). I sighed, as to realize that the perception of ‘artist’ has changed forever. ‘Artists’ mean ‘recording artists’ to them, entertainers.

It’s one of the point why I wrote is post is because I see so many people are so judgmental and negative over Graffiti Art, which they consider as vandalism. It’s because they are not art-educated, neither in school or their family background. It sucks.

Study Case: Entertainment Industry
What Happened?

Let see what went wrong. Today, in Malaysia, is all about entertainment. It’s absolutely bullshit especially to see the Malays took it far to serious. Parents would rather spend their money to buy a VCD or DVD and let their kids watch uneducated movie such as ‘Sembilu” or “Cinta Fotokopi” which drives kids to negative mindset and turn them into love pigeons, who only cares about getting hookups with guys. Parents would spend hundreds of Ringgits buying ASTRO so that they can watch redundant program such as the lousy reality show, “Akademi Fantasia” who portrays local Malay (Muslim) untalented ‘pop-idols’ who spend their life doing useless activities, and doesn’t portray local ‘so-called-idols’ who doesn’t pray and full of fake dramas. It’s pathetic.
I still can’t figure out why it’s such a buzz to support untalented people who can barely sing well. Even the blind old man in Puduraya near Plaza Rakyat LRT Station (near the famous Kuala Lumpur bus station) can sing and play good music. Real music fades, popularity increases. It’s funny that all these recording artists in Malaysia actually didn’t do so well. They are so popular but their album sales are only less then 30,000 units. It’s a sick industry. Everyone can tell. And that is why Indonesian recording artists sells more albums rather then the local ones, because they are lack of quality, only try to be glamour which can only last a minute.

So what does our politician do? Do we really need to blame the government or we ourselves need to play the role in order to make sure our young generation understand and learn how to appreciate art? We will see.

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It was indeed a blazing hot Saturday. After me, Daniel & Lekan (Dap) sent our dearest friend, Gaby & Cristelle (from France) at the KLIA airport, I went to sign on some documents and papers later with my papa at the Bank in Masjid Jamek. I reached home at 11:30 am and fetch my friend Azhar a.k.a Orkibal to join me for our UBU Graffiti session in Bangsar. Once we’ve arrived, we met Ghostfinger & Rooty.

In the Afternoon, I met the graffiti artist involved in the project on top of the roof of UBU/COA/MalaysiaKini building. We set our marks and all of us went to have our lunch at the Mamak (Indian-muslim) restaurant nearby.

With Beastie Boys playing loud on the roof top (thanks to Shieko for providing the CD), we started our graffiti with style, where Perez gets to shoot us an intro video using his expensive videocam, art directed by Shieko. The scene was like a Hotlink ad. Damn, it was hot. We were all dehydrated.

Joining me is Rooty, Tha-B, Ghostfingers, and the spectaculars like Orkibal from Artvts, SWS (Sembur With Style) Team; Shieko, Iwaz & Sona (Drew @ GhostOne is still in Australia), and last but not least is our fellow DMP member, Perez, with his first stencil of his logo ‘Perezoldschool’ :P We had so much fun and it was a successful event for us. The place we did our graffiti art (legal ya'all!) was at the rooftop near Putra Bangsar LRT Station. So you will get the chance to see our work behind the 7-11 store, of course at the roof top.

Checkout the graffiti pix at my fotopages:
http://muidlatif.fotopages.com

Thousand of appreciation goes out to UBU for providing us the space, and to the great Graffiti artists involved. It was a great pleasure hanging out with you guys. Perez, sorry that we didn’t have the time to see your premier showcase of your video works later that night, but thanks for sponsoring us the 100Plus isotonic drink! Yeay! I hope you are feeling better now.

I would also like to thank everyone who came by and see our works, friends like Akira (Sifoo.com), Rafil, Bell, Gerek & the gang, and the participants of the event.



Gaby & Cristelle
My new friends, which I forever enjoy your stay here in Malaysia. I will miss you guys and hope to see you guys in France in near future. There’s so much to talk about and catch up. Gaby, thanks for the wonderful words that hold the strength to let my love grow for my sayang. I never realize how much love is. It’s really in those loves songs. Lekan, thanks for introducing your crazy-cool buddies. Much love from me, baby.

Visit our photo album at: http://www.moedlatif.com/misc/gambar/gabycristelle

To my Sayang,
I miss you so much. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve did to hurt you. I was being so self-centered which I shouldn’t have. I will let myself be more positive. Thanks to my friends who had supported me and carry many beautiful words and advice to keep me stay happy and alive. I love you. Loving you is amazing. I wish you upon success and prosperity back at Mauritius. Je viendrai pour vous mon amour..



* dancing with cans... that's right...