CURATOR’S NOTES

Something in the air is making our eyes tear up.

Marvin Chan is renovating his studio: a single

storey seventies bungalow near University Hospital,

along a side road at the boundary between Kuala

Lumpur and Petaling Jaya suburbia. A profusion of

leafy plants take up most of the outdoor space in

the front garden as well as the narrow strips of land

flanking both sides of the house. Chan commutes

daily to this studio with his canine companions

Max and Momo.

While creating works for this exhibition, the artist

has also taken on the task of re-organising his

studio space. He is adding more storage and

shelves, and the construction fumes of the treated

plywood are what induce our tears. The odour

is obnoxious enough to distract, even with the

green lushness of the gardens outside acting as a

counterpoint. The irony doesn’t escape us: after all,

we are here — artist, curator and dogs — to discuss

Chan’s fifth solo exhibition, an open studio event

‘Harum Busuk’, which follows closely his solo show

‘Invisible Lives: Tempting Frailty’, held in August

this year at Singapore’s Chan Hampe Galleries.

If Chan’s exhibition before was a work in progress,

then ‘Harum Busuk’ concludes the narrative of the

distressed Malaysian. As Chan puts it: “The two

shows are deliberately parked one after another to

provide closure.”

And what is Chan’s narrative of distress within the

paradoxical themes of foul and fair? In April 2016,

the artist wrote this:

Harum busuk

Silakan ke taman rimba

harum sengsara rakyat

negara tercinta

Semuanya diselibutkan

haruman bunga-bunga

Landen

Andaiannya tiada kebusukan

Di bawah selimut indah

bunga-bungaan

Tiadanya mayat

Tiadanya rakyat

​

Harum busuk. Putrid perfume. The nation, symbolised

as a jungle where malodorous strife is masked by

the sweet smell of flowers. The same flowery

profusion scattered on a grave to mask the odour

of a corpse. Chan’s jungle landscape, where the stink

of strife hides under a blanket of fragrance, seems to

channel the sickly sweet smell of rotting carrion, the

blossoming cadaver, the “decomposed love” of Charles

Baudelaire’s poem ‘A Carcass’ from Les Fleurs du Mal:

“Then, O my beauty! say to the worms who will

Devour you with kisses,

That I have kept the form and the divine essence

Of my decomposed love!”

Like Chan’s Harum Busuk, Baudelaire’s 19th century

Symbolist tour de force Flowers of Evil evokes a

paradox implicit in its title and carried through the

work. For Chan, however, the “decomposed love”

is not so much a Baudelairean sex-is-death seduction

between sacred and profane. Rather, Harum Busuk

is a statement of grief, a lament of the rakyat on

the decay of love for country, this decomposed

love masked by a perfumed blanket of illusions and

distractions. In this paradox, Chan pours his grief

into abstraction, in richly layered Malaysian symbols

and references, reaching through the foul and fair

fumes for that all-elusive identity of the personal

and the national.

“I think what motivates me to move from realism

towards abstraction is to achieve a personal

construct,” says Chan. “The works are parts to my

observation of how we go through constant change;

our meaning is constantly changing… (these works)

present a transition from the figurative towards

abstraction; creating a space to frame Malaysian

eclecticism.”

In his move towards abstraction, within a culture

rich with diversity, Chan says that it is easier to use

nationality as a key representation of identity, even

within the context of our post-colonial identity.

“Among the standing issues I consider is the postcolonial

effect, something I have borrowed... I am

intrigued by the proposition of politics, power and

culture imagined with the catastrophe that can arise

from such developments.”

“One of my favorite questions is: How did we end up

so different in our gaze of one another? We tend to

forget a critical proponent from our colonial imprint,

the role of master and servant. It goes without saying

that nobody wants to be a loser, hence everyone

wants to rule the world. Which brings us to what it

takes to rule, to run an administration. We are simply

screwed by the type of criteria in play.”

​

In all eight oils on canvas that make up the Harum

Busuk catalogue, one recurrent motif directs Chan’s

examination of post-colonial contradictions: the

conflict of longing and loathing for an illusory

nostalgia of empire and colony, master and servant.

The motif is of flowers — roses — from cooler climes

of neat English gardens, blooming profusely and

withering in the tropical and humid ‘jungle’ of

Malaysia, already dropping petals and evoking

the smell of decay.

“In this instance, it is the use of supposedly sweetsmelling

roses betrayed only by the flies, which mar

the delicate bouquet,” the artist explains, before

throwing in a contradiction of intent: “The flowers

may wither and petals flutter but as a painter, I feel

that I need to paint and not be distracted by symbol

placement to indicate meanings. I wish to express

something without relying too much on visual cues.”

Harum Busuk also marks the artist’s break from

what he calls “limitations” presented by a strictly

figurative representation. In looking for abstraction,

triangles were used for the transformation of such

representations.

He elaborates: “Transformation here also indicates

a transition to abstraction in time to come. From

conversations with a friend, I learnt another aspect of

seeing. Combinations formed by plural constructions

to provide a bigger and fuller image. However, such

combinations allow for fragmentary readings of their

own, depending on the viewer and audience.”

On the subject of portraits: “There is a criterion

which I adopt to express how a person feels or look.

The combination of the subject with the multifaceted

shapes and triangles portray works that articulate my

intention, that they are not merely faces per se.”

Being a self-taught artist, Chan says that he is

“very conscious about not having gone to art school.

Education may be viewed as a set of rules. My

lack of formal indoctrination results in an influx of

diverse and disoriented information, which is why

I experiment frequently to examine if a thought is

consistent with what I think is true.”

The portraits not only reflect the realistic state, but

also symbolize his outlook of the current that is tied

to earlier issues and notions that are still unresolved.

“By closure of this body of works, it is by no means

the end of my search for understanding; but to

reevaluate and consider different trajectories, this

context may be assessed through future stylistic

depictions. The next phase, if one may call it as such,

marks a new challenge for a stronger grasp of context, albeit less restrained representations

of the figurative.”

In looking forward, Chan continues his search for

answers from a deeply personal prism: “Using my

visual language, my ideas of the post-colonial may

or may not be seen from portraitures. Indeed this is

a personal evaluation and response to how I mark

what I see and experience.”

Harum busuk: in his juxtaposition of paradox,

of foul and fair, of sacred and profane, of longing

and loathing, the artist seeks a cathartic purge of

the grief and despair that colour his narrative of

personal and national identity. Perhaps it is in this

conflict that the artist is healed enough to achieve

the much-sought closure to move on.

“When I try to describe who I am, I struggle. I feel

like I am no longer as angry as I was yesterday, nor

as hopeful as I will be tomorrow; yet I look forward.”

Noor Mahnun Mohamed is a painter and (dormant) printmaker.

She lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She teaches

Art Criticism and Professional Studies at a local art institute.

​

Harum Busuk: A Malaysian paradox

There is a fascination — an attraction — among Malaysians for things that are busuk: the

smelly durian, belacan, budu, tempoyak. One man’s busuk is another person’s harum? It is a

cultural paradox of conflict and unity that is deeply visceral and sensuous.

Contradictorily, harum takes on sinister and dangerous connotations. In the Malay world,

catching a whiff of harum perfume at dusk, for instance, could indicate the presence of a

malevolent spirit. The sickeningly sweet smell of bunga melor (jasmine) is said to possess a

special attraction to ghosts. In the Kelantanese Main Peteri ritual performance of incantation,

healing and semangat, a canopy of yellow cloth is hung with floral garlands and wreaths to

help the purging of spirits. One calls a newborn baby busuk rather than harum, in order

to confuse spirits with nefarious intent.

The Open Studio as Intimate Artifice

Marvin Chan’s focus remains in studio practice as he declares Harum Busuk the end of a series.

So, he finds it an exciting prospect to present his fifth solo effort in his private working space,

rather than the conventional ‘white cube’ of a gallery.

The Open Studio is a promise of intimacy, an invitation for the audience to enter the artist’s

creative space, to take voyeuristic pleasure in the artist’s exhibitionism. Yet, as Chan’s own new

plywood shelves signify, artist studios are often as carefully constructed to stage the illusion

of intimacy as the actual work.

British art historian and curator Giles Waterfield, who curated his own seminal Artist Studio

exhibition in 2009, pointed this out in his own curator’s notes: “For centuries people have

taken the studio as a faithful reflection of the soul of the artist, but my question is — and it is

one which this exhibition finally cannot answer: is it really?”

He continues: “On the other hand, the apparent encapsulation of the artist’s being by a studio

is not necessarily a reality, but rather a construct. Artists frame themselves, showing themselves

to the public (as self-portraitists before the age of the camera had to do) through a mirror.

While the studio becomes a reflection of themselves (just as any habitation reflects the character

and background of its inhabitant), this form of seemingly accurate and revealing information

is infinitely manipulable. Artists were concerned about their position in society, and the studio,

fictitious or actual, provided a setting that could make them appear learned, prosperous,

respectable or the reverse. The dialogue between respectability and disorder is one of the

most intriguing elements of the history of studio imagery.”

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