This paper will discuss the idea of postmodernity in the context of Malaysia visual arts. The late 20th-century movement has always been cautiously discussed as the theory itself is characterized by broad subjectivism or relativism; and suspicion of the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power. Such concept was threaded carefully in Malaysia as it was feared that such an ideology would challenge the national cultural conceptualisation rooted in Malay and Islamic forms. The postmodern narrative were more possible in the late 1990s without provoking any fearful responses. This paper will, discuss further the appropriation of the idea of postmodern/postmodernity in the new context of Malaysian art history. Within the larger context of Malaysian studies, this paper will discuss the term situasi percamoden (postmodern situation) as an appropriation of postmodern theory, although it has nothing to do with the discontinuity in the earlier phases of the modern period in Western societies. It a term that I have used in describing the cultural condition, that have developed especially among the Malaysian middle class as the result of Malaysia’s sudden participation in the modern global economy. The art works by Malaysian artists since the 1990s can be argued a result of this situation.
Sarena Abdullah, Ph.D is an art historian at the School of the Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She was awarded the inaugural London, Asia Research Award, by Paul-Mellon Centre, London and Asian Art Archive, Hong Kong in 2017. She was also the recipient of the 2016, and 2017 & 2019 CAA-Getty Travel Grant as part of the CAA-Getty International and Reunion Program. She is the author of Malaysian Art since the 1990s: Postmodern Situation (2018) and co-editor of a publication of Southeast Asian Art entitled Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art 1945-1990 (2018). She had written extensively on Malaysian art on various academic journals and platforms.
Day 1 (May 27, Thu HK/SG time)
Panel 1: Rethinking ‘Trans-’ and ‘Post-’
9:30-11:30am HK/SG / 2:30-4:30am BST / 3:30-5:30am CEST / 9:30-11:30pm EDT / 6:30-8:30pm PDT