NOT JUST IN
BLACK AND WHITE

Works from the Steve Wong Art Collection

23 June –
11 August 2024

GDP Campus
Level 4, No. 79, Jalan Setiabakti,
Bukit Damansara,
50490 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

12:00 – 18:00 (Wednesday – Friday)
11:00 – 18:00 (Saturday & Sunday)
Closed on Monday & Tuesday
Free admission

Built over a period of three decades, and including over a thousand artworks by more than 350 artists, the Steve Wong Art Collection offers an overview of contemporary art-making, and contemporary painting in particular, in Malaysia from the 1990s to the current day, alongside regional practices from the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore. This exhibition of works selected by Steve Wong serves as an introduction and invitation to the collection.

It begins as a visual proposition—what and how do we see in black and white? In picture-making, “black-and-white” evokes the bare bones of visual form. Without the comfort and distraction of colour, an image is somehow naked, either especially vulnerable or especially audacious. In our minds we may associate “black and white” with a theory of opposites—positive and negative, substance and absence, darkness and light. We may see these in tension with, or in complement to one another. In the English language, something presented “in black and white” is to be taken as clear, plain, fixed, incontrovertible.

An exhibition in black and white prompts a shift in viewers’ aesthetic register, and invites a special way of looking at and thinking about the artworks it brings together, and how they may relate. The artworks here present many textures of black and white. A few are inflected by a brief intrusion of colour. We see figuration and abstraction, man and nature, boys and girls, order and chaos, anger and joy, creating a set of assumptions and categories to be interrogated. In our increasingly polarised contemporary world, we need artists to help us make those interrogations, through how they navigate and understand their experience of the “now”, recalibrating ways of looking.

Installation view at level 5, GDP Campus, from left to right — Ruben Pang, Cradle Me Bravely (2016) and Ronald Ventura, Monkey Man (2008). Photo: Kenta Chai

Installation view at level 5, GDP Campus, from left to right — Maryanto, Path of Enlightenment (2019) and Yunizar, Irama Laut (2006). Photo: Kenta Chai

Artists

Agus Suwage
Ahmad Fuad Osman
Ahmad Shukri Mohamed
Ahmad Zakii Anwar
Arif Fauzan Othman
Bayu Utomo Radjikin
Carlo Gabuco
Chan Kok Hooi
Chang Yoong Chia
Cheong Kiet Cheng
Chong Kim Chiew
Chong Siew Ying
Chong Yan Chuah
Drew Harris
Edroger Rosili
Erik Pauhrizi
Faizal Suhif
Fauzulyusri
Geraldine Javier
Haffendi Anuar
Hamir Soib
Hannah Nazamil
Hasanul Isyraf Idris
Hisyamuddin Abdullah
J. Ariadhitya Pramuhendra
Jimmy Ong
Jumaldi Alfi
Justin Lim
Kaloy Sanchez
Kamal Mustafa
Kayleigh Goh
Kedsuda Loogthong
Kide Baharudin
Kim Ng
Kow Leong Kiang

Latiff Mohidin
Liv Vinluan
Luis Antonio Santos
Luke Heng
Lyle Buencamino
Maryanto
Melissa Tan
Minstrel Kuik
Mohd Khairul Izham
Mujahidin Nurrahman
Nadiah Bamadhaj
Najib Bamadhaj
Norberto Roldan
Olan Ventura
Pangrok Sulap
Paul Nickson Atia
Phuan Thai Meng
Putu Sutawijaya
Romulo Olazo
Ronald Ventura
Ruben Pang
Sabri Idrus
Saiful Razman
Samsudin Wahab
Tan Wei Kheng
Tan Zi Hao
W. Rajaie
Wong Hoy Cheong
Wong Perng Fey
Yee I-Lann
Yeoh Choo Kuan
Yim Yen Sum
Yunizar
Zac Lee
Zelin Seah
Zulkifli Yusoff

About the Artists

Publication

In conjunction with the exhibition, a publication featuring 76 artworks, artist profiles, and an essay by Beverly Yong, published by Adaptus Design System, available for sale through the publisher.

Specifications: Paperback with flaps, 200 pages, 20 (w) × 28.5 (h) cm, printed in Malaysia. ISBN 978-983-40803-7-2

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Not Just in Black and White is an exhibition that’s really a big bag of stories, and we’ve been thinking of ways to unpack these. Through the weekends of the show, members of our exhibition team and invited guides will be leading informal conversations walking through selected works in the exhibition — please join us!

Contact us

ExhibitionCurator’s NoteArtworks in the Exhibition About the Artists Acknowledgements Resources

Exhibition
Curator’s Note
Artworks in the Exhibition
About the Artists

Acknowledgements
Resources