PHOTO ART EXHIBITION : ARTWORKS QR CODE #8

ARTIST STATEMENT:

‘’After effectively rejecting Western-centric art, Sulaiman was in an impasse. However, it was during this period he produced a controversial pieces Waiting for Godot- a series of open plate intaglio prints. It was a critical moment in his life now that he had negated western art that he had been obsessed with for more than two decades. Complex questions “Is he a Malay, Muslim and a Malaysian?

How would he reconcile his Islamic roots and Islamic elements in art?” assail his conscience and consciousness. It was within this soul-searching period he produced Waiting for Godot series. The provocative combination of female nude underneath the Islamic architecture is a metaphor for western art tradition as distraction that impede proper contemplation of the Divine.

Islamic ornamentations as background represent Islamic art and the grace brought by His blessing. Controversial as the work was, he won an award in the ‘Printmaking Competition’ organised by the National Art Gallery.

To Sulaiman, waiting for Godot series could be regarded as his self-portrait reflecting his predicament then. During these intense soul-searching periods, he could not but became deeply moved by the new bearing specifically Islamic worldview on Malay art tradition.’’’

-Writings from the website of Sulaiman Esa. Retrieved 15 May 2022.

Copyright © 2021 Sulaiman Esa · All Rights Reserved- link:

http://www.sulaimanesa.com/works/post-london

CURATOR’S NOTE:

Sulaiman’s composition in Waiting for Godot visually clarified the identity crisis in the combination of both Eastern and Western values; making prominent Malaysia’s collision of cultural subjects, beliefs system and values. The artwork was severely criticized for imposing a polarity of subject, tiptoeing between beliefs, critical assessment of reality & cultural sensitivity.

This piece was only acquired 3 years later, perhaps because it played a clear role in signifying a real and major visual polemic of identity politics in the development of Contemporary Malaysian Art.

ABOUT SULAIMAN ESA, Phd

Dr Sulaiman Hj Esa was born on 12 September 1941. He received his art education in Hornsey College of Art, London from 1962 to 1967 for both Diploma and Post-graduate studies. He later on proceeded to pursue an MA in Fine Art from Maryland Institute College of Art between 1979 to 1981. Sulaiman Esa received his Ph.D in Islamic Studies at Temple University, Philadelphia (1986-1996)

BACKGROUND

The National Art Gallery had held a solo retrospective show for Dr. Sulaiman Esa, curated by Nur Hanim Khairuddin an artist and curator.

According to Nur Hanim Khairuddin (2011):

‘‘Only in 1977 he felt called to produce a new series, Waiting for Godot. These photo etching express the severity of not only the crisis of art identity but also socio-psychological predicament encountered by Sulaiman. This series could also be read as the portrayal of cultural conflict in modern Malaysia, particularly among the Malay-Muslim community. In each of these works, the pictorial plane is divided into two spaces filled with two diametrically opposing iconic symbols: first, an image of nude woman in different sensual poses – Sulaiman proclaims it a representation of his psychological self; Niranjan interprets it as ‘’a symbol for the Western tradition of art as for the distractions that impede the proper remembrance of God’’-; second, arabesque patterns and Islamic calligraphic texts copied from a mosque in Cordova or Alhambra. ‘’After I hung it on my office wall… one day my Head of School came in… he was shocked and exclaimed, ‘What is this?’ I said, What’s wrong? He replied, ‘It’s the ayat Quran and you put nude woman there!’