Two additional readymade works are presented in the Installation – one is a small enamelled urinal, titled Air Abang Salleh (circa 2013), and alludes to Salleh Joned’s critique of Reza Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa’s Mystical Reality (1974); the other, titled The Appearance of a Fact ataupun Batu Kasih Piyadasa (circa 2017) refers to Reza Piyadasa’s A Fact Has No Appearance (1977) and is wooden icon belonging to my late mother at the feet of which she had placed a stone brought back for her by Reza Piyadasa from the shores of Sri Lanka when he returned from his first trip to the land of his ancestors.
Biography
Niranjan Rajah is a photo-performance artist and pioneer of Malaysian new media art. He made the first Southeast Asian Web work, The Failure of Marcel Duchamp/ Japanese Fetish Even! (1996), and also co-developed E-Art ASEAN (1999) the first regional portal for electronic art. This contribution was acknowledged in a two-person retrospective titled ‘Relocations’ at the International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA),Singapore (2018). The significance of his practice to Southeast Asian art has been recognized in exhibitions such as ‘Rupa Malaysia,’ National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, (2001) and ‘Intersecting Histories,’ School of Art, Design and Media Gallery, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, (2012). His early photo-performative work, Telinga Keling (2000) sits in the collection of the National Art Gallery of Malaysia. Niranjan’s ongoing photo-performative Koboi Project has been exhibited at the Fergana Art Gallery, Penang (2015), the National Art Gallery of Malaysia (2016), the Kuala Lumpur Biennale (2017), the Aga Khan Diamond Jubilee Festival, Lisbon (2018), the Courtyard Hiroo Gallery,Tokyo (2018), the Bangkok Biennale (2018), the Burning Man Festival, Black Rock City (2017), the Percha Artspace, Lumut (2019), and the Singapore Biennale (2016). The Koboi Project Blog is at http://koboiproject.com/
Photos of the Exhibition: https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=kapallorek&set=a.689088096581353
Video Live Performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1qzq91Lf7c&t=808s
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