“X”

If you tried, even meekly, you could, beyond doubt, spot peculiar scraps of visual imageries that resemble the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Banksy, Erno Rubik, The Doors, Bob Dylan and even possibly John F. Kennedy, Andy Warhol and Roy Orbison. Most of you would be inclined to communicate nothing more than the surface. However, for a fortunate few, these visual references speak back, transpires into a mental movie; maybe with Los Bravos’ Black is Black as soundtrack.

This is X, a collage of appropriated or ‘stolen’ images, remixed and re-spawned by Aswad Ameir.

X is the second solo exhibition by Aswad. His first, Across the Lines, took place in June 2007 at Seksan Gallery in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. Across the Lines featured a series of abstract-expressionistic paintings developed from a privately funded residency program in Kuala Lumpur he undertook from 2001 to 2006. A profitable exhibition on various accounts, Across the Lines brought Aswad many patrons and afforded him a six-months sabbatical where he lived in Barcelona, Spain with short travels to Morocco and Belgium. He picked up Spanish, not just the language, but also a grasp of its colloquial culture. He documented his adventures almost religiously, especially while in Morocco. For a while after his return, these videos and photographs containing interviews, adventures and observations became his obsessive reference, meant to inspire a future project.

I have had the good fortune of witnessing the development of Aswad’s work through close friendship and the inception of both solo exhibitions. As any other artist, Aswad maneuvers through curious and at times haphazard creative processes in a world where art could seemingly be everything and anything. Today, traditional skills and formal knowledge do not necessarily make one a better, more valid or more successful artist. Take Maurizio Cattelan who started off as a janitor, mailman and assistant to a local morgue in Padua, Italy. He is now only the most infamous jokester, conceptual and escape artist, highly revered in today’s eco-system of contemporary arts.

The story of X really began a little over a year ago when I invited Aswad along with a dozen or so young artists and curators from Asia to participate in an exploratory summit convened with the partnership of The Substation art center in Singapore. This summit took place on the island of Sentosa and was called HAO: Confronting the future of arts and culture from Asia. The summit commenced the very same night that Singapore Biennale 2008 opened. Various presenters, mentors and workshop leaders hailing from a variety of backgrounds were invited to share knowledge and insights with its young participants. From corporate social responsibility to architecture to tourism, they were there. Briton Matt Mason, ex-pirate radio DJ, ex-Editor-in-Chief of RWD zine and author of The Pirate’s Dilemma was amongst the mentors present throughout the three-day summit.

Ideas communicated in The Pirate’s Dilemma has a special place in the development and realization of Aswad’s X. Several months prior to the summit, I had shared The Pirate’s Dilemma with Aswad (and a few other friends). It spoke of ‘creative’ punks, pirates, remixers, urban wars that pushed legal, social and industrial boundaries above and under- ground. Not dissimilar to the dynamism and often anarchic gestures of contemporary artists. One such act would be:

“THIS IS WHAT THE F**K I THINK I’M DOING.”

On Saturday, 19 April 2003, the above statement, along with the entire contents of the album American Life were made available for everyone to download for free on the front page of Madonna’s website by a hacker/remixer after she inseminated decoy WTF a capella renderings on various online peer-to-peer sharing platforms to fend off MP3 freeloaders. On top of that, fifteen of the public’s best WTF remixes were compiled into an album and published by an independent record label.

At that same time, we both found a new favourite website, TED.com, introduced by fellow artist and friend Shahrul Jamili. In their collection of videos that are free for download is the now famous lecture on amateur remixing, copyright and the future of creativity by Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is a professor of law at Harvard Law School and is also the author of REMIX, The Future of Ideas and Free Culture amongst others. Both The Pirate’s Dilemma and Lessig’s lecture and books pointed to the significance of amateur remix culture. They warned of the potential death of creativity if we were to be overly possessive of the rights to every creative output.

Although most of the references cited by Mason and Lessig were based on new and social media such as youtube videos, MP3 music and hip-hop street fashion, they nevertheless ignited a spark in Aswad’s art practice. This spark was further fuelled from frustrations of witnessing haphazard trade transactions and monopolistic ownership of artworks from his first solo exhibition. There lies a common belief that major art collectors of an artists’ work are not too pleased if the artist were to employ drastic shifts in his/her aesthetics and modes of expression. At the same time, artists too fear that experimenting and straying from a tried and tested formula could demonstrate fickleness and drive away their faithful collectors. These situations cause creative stalemates and are detrimental to the development of art. It takes a massive amount of self-belief for an artist to rid themselves off the mentally limiting shackles of his/her collectors as often times, the artists’ means of living depend on it.

In the span of a little less than two years, Aswad’s approach to his art shifted. What is immediately apparent is his departure form the abstract-expressionistic style of painting. There are now objects and tableaux. While it is evident that his references are mostly derivatives of western pop histories, one can sense its purpose as tools of the artists’ personal introspect. Clues to this exist at times from the visuals, and at other times from their titles.

You Make Me, a pixilated self-portrait of the artist posing bare bodied cross-references American rock star Lenny Kravitz and the song You Make Me Real (1970) by 1960s psychedelic-rock band The Doors. The lyrics to the song vaguely relates to a ‘lover’ that ‘make me real’, ‘make me throw mistaken misery’ and ‘make me free’. Given the context, the period the song was made and the band’s notorious reputation, this ‘lover’ could have easily been a reference to drugs. It is a hint to a desire for an ‘escape’, a desire shared by the artist.

Two more song titles appear in this series of works. I Wear My Sunglasses at Night, a line from the song Sunglasses at Night (1983) by Canadian singer Corey Hart while Black is Black (1966) is the title of a chart topping song by Los Bravos, a Spanish band based in Madrid. A fourth reference to a song is in the painting Mr Jones. The text in this painting: ‘Because something is happening but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?’ is from the song Ballad of a Thin Man (1965) by American folk singer-songwriter-poet Bob Dylan. This song, asking the know-all, self-absorbed, condescending man to wake up to reality again suggests the artist’s personal sentiments.

In I Wear My Sunglasses at Night, the artist inserted a representation of his own image within a tribute to the iconic Wayfarer sunglasses manufactured by Ray-Ban since 1952. Made famous by celebrated figures such as John F. Kennedy, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison, the Wayfarer pictured in the painting is one that is owned and regularly worn by the artist. Corey Hart had also worn the Wayfarer in the original MTV clip to the song. This track back to nostalgia and rebellion is persistently repeated as demonstrated through Songs for the Pirates / Black is Black, the bigger-than-life acrylic cassette tape; Battle of Algiers in reference to the film of the same title that inspired many guerilla movements made by Gillo Pontecorvo in 1966; and Youth, an appropriation of the Black Power Salute made famous by American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the podium of the 1968 Summer Olympics after winning the 200 meters sprint in protest of discrimination against black Americans in America.

Although We Will Protect You, with colourful bursts of paint on top of a formation of Malaysian riot police brings us back to the present, it bears a Banksy (the infamous British graffiti artist) like signature. A similar take is seen in In God We Trust, this official American motto is juxtaposed against a pair of flamenco dancers, freemason eyes and a self-portrait of the artist dressed in a suit topped with English bowler hat against the crescent and star symbol, a typical Islamic emblem and the hands of Hindu goddess Kali.

X could be a new weapon in the artists’ arsenal; perhaps the axe he needs to rid any shackles. One would be forgiven if tempted to think that the artist has been Americanized or bears hidden anti-America sentiments. This collection of images seem to have provided Aswad with a renewed resource of power, liberty and his very own personal dialect. Many times, Aswad appears to be speaking in codes, relevant and comprehensible only to those they are addressed to. There are no clear narratives to his images and as audiences, it is as if we are forced to second-guess then construct whatever meanings we will of them. Although we could choose to ignore, these artworks nags you like puzzles that challenge our intellect and egos. X is an unknown, an enigma.


Kharuddin Hori
Singapore, 30 November 2009