INTER-TEXTUAL DISH, AGAIN.

"I wonder if it is ever possible to consider the work as embodying the logics that led to its destruction and erasure. I am actually more curious as to the conditions that have allowed this sculpture to be built in the first place. I think that's a story that needs to unpacked, and it won't be the kind of valorisation of artistic genius that we like to pronounce in two sentences."

Simon Soon' fb.

"Syed Ahmad Jamal was not just an artist, but he was also a philosopher, art administrator, activist, profound writer, thinker and critic. He created theatre set designs for Tok Perak, Alang Rentak Seribu and other plays by Syed Alwi, another national laureate and artiste. His writings, paintings and sculptures feature prominently in the art history and appreciation curriculum in universities. This is the artist who inspired a generation of scholars, teachers and practitioners. Together with his contemporaries Ismail Zain, Reza Piyadasa, Mazli Matsom, Idris Salam, Ismail Hashim, Eric Peris, Leong Thien Shih, Chung Kan Kow, Latif Mohideen, Krishen Jit and Sulaiman Isa, they created a vibrant art scene that challenged and informed the public. (File pix) The late national laureate Datuk Syed Ahmad Jamal. Therefore, to demolish his seminal sculpture is an atrocity and akin to a criminal act, the mutilation of not only the physical work but also the soul of the artist and is an affront and insult to the art community. It is an act of blasphemy that can be likened to the destruction of the statues of Buddha in Bamya, Afghanistan, by the Taliban."

Mohamed Ghouse Nasaruddin, NST, 5 July. 

http://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/07/156781/sculpture-destruction-akin-criminal-act?m=1