Art exhibition: Is Malaysia a Stalinist regime, asks Pua

PETALING JAYA: An opposition MP today slammed the authorities for purportedly tampering with an installation at an art exhibition, on the grounds that it contained “communist” elements.

Calling the reported act a “blatant attempt at censorship”, Tony Pua of the DAP said the irony was that the authorities were acting “precisely like the purported ‘communism’ elements which the artists were accused of portraying”.

“Are we now like a Stalinist totalitarian regime where the police and other relevant authorities will act like the Big Brother controlling how and what its citizens think?” he said in a statement.

The Kuala Lumpur Biennale 2017 art exhibition, which was held last month, drew attention after a group of Malaysian and Indonesian artists withdrew in protest, saying authorities had confiscated their artwork.

The group’s spokesperson, Aisyah Baharuddin, told The Malaysian Insight that police had visited the National Visual Arts Gallery (NVAG) and seized several pieces of work that allegedly contained “elements of communism”.

The gallery later denied that authorities had confiscated any artwork, saying the installation, “Under Construction”, was still on display.

But Aisyah said the group had covered the installation with a black net as a sign of protest, as they felt the authorities had violated the artwork by removing elements that were part of the whole project.

She added that the artwork had been meant to depict the human mind, culture and community, which was always changing and developing.

Pua, who is Petaling Jaya Utara MP, said although a degree of censorship regarding taboo issues such as religion was understandable, the event had made Malaysia “an international laughing stock”.

“What is most disgraceful was the utter lack of professionalism and competence among the organisers and the authorities.”

He said the curator told the artists that the police had removed pieces from their installation.

“However, the police said they only advised the gallery to remove the artwork and return it to the artists. More than a week after the controversy, no one is any the wiser.

“As Aisyah rightly asked, ‘the National Art Gallery and the police have given conflicting accounts. Who is telling the truth? What actually happened?'”

Pua said the “totalitarian mindset” of the police and the NVAG would destroy any hope of achieving the exhibition’s objective, which was to position Kuala Lumpur as a must-visit city on the global art map, and to promote Malaysia as a country that is persistent in developing a competitive, creative economic sector.

“If the government is sincere about making Malaysia a global cultural hub and developing her local creative industries, it must stop with these frivolous acts of censorship and allow creative expression to thrive.” -FMT