It's been intense for us at VWFA in the past four months, running three exhibitions back to back in our Project Room! We hope that you have enjoyed this year's Bombay Sapphire Art Projects and will continue to support our local experimental art practices. 

As we bid goodbye to 2008, we would like to round off our programme with the launch of the KL Art Map 2009. Come join us for food and drinks, in conjunction with our closing party, with Bombay Sapphire at Palate Palette Restaurant and Bar this Saturday 6 December 2008 at 8pm. 

Free copies of the KL Art Map 2009 will be made available at selected galleries, cultural spaces and bars. Recognising the healthy growth of commercial and alternative art spaces around KL, the map is a user-friendly guide to what's around town. We would like to note that there are many new spaces and initiatives, such as 1948 Projects, Findars Art Space, 12 Art Space, SicKL, that are initiating extremely interesting projects. Moreover, veteran arts collectives such as Matahati, Rumah Air Panas and Lost Generation Space are also actively planning for an exciting year ahead. 2009 seems to be a very promising year!

Last but not least, we would like to thank everyone for coming to the BSAP08. Your support and interest in contemporary visual art in Malaysia have been encouraging. See you again next year!

BSAP08 - Lim Kok Yoong: When You're Not Your Body

VWFA Project Room

14 Nov - 5 Dec 2008

'When You're Not Your Body' is video installation that simulates a process of decentering, where an awareness of the viewer's selfhood is disrupted. Since the beginning of video art practices, one of the key quality that interested artists is its ‘live’ transmission. Video artists since the 60s, like Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci, have explored this particular quality, creating works that challenges our sense of identity and self in a specific time and place through the effects of video transmission. This transmission provides the viewer with a concrete representation of him/her being in another space (the screening space for instance), while also telling us that we are in ‘here’ (in the gallery space), and this element of displacement can create feelings such as anxiety, alienation or amusement, challenging the way we understand optical perspective and cognition of both time and space. 

By using digital video feed, the viewer is made to confront himself or herself as an 'other', an image or a subject that is separated yet recognisably part of oneself. Through this, the artist hopes to provoke the audience into thinking about the meaning of being in existence.

Safe House - Flora and Fauna III (Installation views)

BSAP 08 | Chang Yoong Chia + Teoh Ming Wah - Safe House: Flora and Fauna Series III

Chang Yoong Chia + Teoh Ming Wah - Safe House: Flora & Fauna Series III

17 October - 7 November 2008

Valentine Willie Fine Art Project Room

Valentine Willie Fine Art and Bombay Sapphire is delighted to present Chang Yoong Chia's new installation entitled, Flora & Fauna Series III - Safe House, as part of this year's Bombay Sapphire Art Projects. In this highly anticipated third installment of his acclaimed Flora & Fauna series, Yoong Chia develops upon a paradox that is progressively made apparent in this body of works, exploring the intersection between his art and the aesthetics of museum display.

The Flora & Fauna series, which began in 2003, are 'largely driven by emotions, subjectivity, and the recollection of stray memories' in the form of surreal non-linear narratives. Yoong Chia notes that, 'It is, in many ways, the complete opposite of what museums represent.' Nevertheless his increasing use of fragile materials, like seashells, eggshells, insect wings, spider's web, human hair and animal bones as a canvas or platform for his paintings require them to be encased in protective custom-made vitrines for display. He adds, 'They start to resemble artifacts found in natural history or ethnological museums.'

The installation not only creates a museum space but also replicates its disciplinary structure - scientific categorization, textual interpretation of material, etc. It represents a rational system of order that reads against Yoong Chia's painted objects which are fragile and emotive, creating an irresolvable tension that underscores the complex spatial negotiations between the rational and the irrational.

Southeast Asian Video Screening Opening Pics

Southeast Asian Video Screening Online Catalogue

http://www.vwfa.net/BSAP08-videoscreening

List of participating Indonesian + Filipino artists

Indonesia

Bagasworo Aryaningtyas, 'Bilal'

Wimo Ambala Bayang, 'Sabar'

Febie Babyrose, 'Trap'

Maulana Muhammad Pasha, 'Jalan Tak Ada Ujung'

Ruddy Hatumena, 'The Blue Flashing Lights'

Cinanti Astria, 'Silence Mysteries'

Muhammad Akbar, 'Evergreen'

Otty Widasari, 'Rumah'

Yusuf Ismail, 'Let Us Laugh'

The Philippines

Cesar Hernando, Eli Guieb III & Jimbo Albano, 'Kalawang'

Kiri Dalena & ST Exposure, 'Red Saga'

Roxlee, 'The Great Smoke'

Antoinette Jadonne, 'it feels so good to be alive'

Tad Ermitano, 'Cathode Jam'

Poklong Anading, 'Line Drawing'

Lyle Sacris, 'Self-Portrait (Work-in-Progress)'