Of Pictures I Didn't Take

I kind of made a vague promise to myself that I would do more artsy cultured things this year. Like learning to take better photographs. Reading more (I have a long, long list of books to read that keeps growing). Learning to play guitar again (just got a guitar yesterday).

Mostly I've been lazing around the house. Not doing anything remotely arty except writing a bit more often.

I also always mean to go see art exhibitions here. They are unfortunately as widely advertised or publicized in the local media, so I usually miss them. Which is a shame because the local art scene is alive and kicking. As I witnessed last Thursday at the Central Market Annexe, which is a lovely gallery space and a nice place to spend an afternoon.

The exhibition was titled 'Dari Mata Turun ke Hati' with various Central Market artists contributing to the exhibition. There were a lot of impressive pieces there. And I found myself being quite awe struck.

We also managed to see an exhibition by uni students who entered a competition showcasing art as society's cosnciense. Most of the pieces were pretty bad. Hehehe. But there were two pieces there that were good, one which was I think phenomenal.

It was a mixed media piece using metal, wood, fabric, and chinese chess pieces about materialism and greed. It was like a giant collage and the artist made it the whole piece one giant board game. Not only did it look amazing but I think for a university student it was a very mature and creative way of interpreting the theme.

A lot of the other pieces looked like the type of posters that they made you draw in primary school for anti smoking, anti dadah, buy malaysian kempens. Sorry. I speaketh the truth.

Since I had extra time me and my fellow appreciator of the arts, Shu Ruei headed to Galeri Petronas to see more stuff. And there was a cool modern exhibition there too.

And I just realized why the crime rate in Malaysia is so high lately. When you are getting robbed, raped, murdered, all that the police are guarding the art in Galeri Petronas. Omg it made me soooo mad to see it.

I've been to art galleries in London and Europe that housed paintings by great masters like Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh and there were never police around. Just volunteers. Cos let's face it, it's pretty hard to steal a painting in broad daylight.

And you can't really call what the cops in GP were doing 'guarding'. More like sitting in the air cond place looking bored and playing with their handphones. Or flirting with girls who came to the gallery. AAArrgghhhh. It makes me so annoyed when I see how our police resources are wasted like this.