Rethinking About Exhibitions: *Towards a Mystical Reality* through Exhibitionary Space
In 1974, Redza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa organised the exhibition *Towards a Mystical Reality*:* A Documentation of Jointly Initiated Experiences*. Piyadasa and Esa taught fine art at the Mara Institute of Technology (MIT, now known as Universiti Teknologi Mara) in Kuala Lumpur. They were part of a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Index Journal
2024-08-01
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| Series: | Index Journal |
| Online Access: | https://index-journal.org/issues/liquid-time/rethinking-about-exhibitions |
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| Summary: | In 1974, Redza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa organised the exhibition *Towards a Mystical Reality*:* A Documentation of Jointly Initiated Experiences*. Piyadasa and Esa taught fine art at the Mara Institute of Technology (MIT, now known as Universiti Teknologi Mara) in Kuala Lumpur. They were part of a broader intellectual movement centred on a critical attitude towards dominant aesthetic conventions circumscribed by Euro-American notions of art. *TMR* advanced a decolonial method of thinking about art and artmaking. In 2011, Sulaiman Esa restaged *TMR* at the National Art Gallery, Malaysia, as part of the retrospective exhibition *Raja'ah: Art, Idea and Creativity of Sulaiman Esa from 1950s-2011*. Esa has subsequently restaged *TMR* across multiple venues in South East Asia, establishing this exhibition as a case study and entry point in how methodologies for exhibition histories as a discipline can be developed within the context of Asian art. I propose the possibility that the intersections between the curatorial and restaging break the impasse between historical art and the exhibition. This essay reflects on how I restaged *TMR* by reconstructing an exhibition model of the exhibition in order to expand existing understandings of "exhibitionary spaces." |
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| ISSN: | 2652-4740 |