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REVIEW: Iskandar Jalil: Kembara Tanah Liat (Clay Travels)

SINGAPORE — Few artists in Singapore can claim to be as highly decorated and lauded as Iskandar Jalil, the star of a career-spanning exhibition now on at the National Gallery Singapore.

SINGAPORE — Few artists in Singapore can claim to be as highly decorated and lauded as Iskandar Jalil, the star of a career-spanning exhibition now on at the National Gallery Singapore.

Over the course of the past 40-odd years of practice as a ceramicist, he has been awarded the Cultural Medallion, an honorary doctorate from Nanyang Technological University and, in a first for a Singaporean artist, the Emperor of Japan conferring upon him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette.

Such recognition carries an unusual trade-off, however.

His fame, and the prestige with which his work is viewed, sometimes sees his work in a place he was initially uncomfortable with: The pedestal, as a fine art object. It is, after all, not possible to appreciate the ingenious craftsmanship behind a teapot’s functionality if all it does is sit in a display cabinet.

Of course, Iskandar’s output has not been restricted to functional vessels over the course of his career, with the exhibition also showcasing many examples of art objects. While the term “art” suggests some degree of rarefaction, titles such as 3 Gundus, and That’s the Way, ah-ha, ah-ha, I like it, indicate a spirit of whimsical vitality to counter the seriousness and solemnity that often pervade the art world.

With several decades’ worth of works on show — of both functional and art objects — an astounding range of shapes, forms, textures, patterns and colours meets the eye, which at first seems to resist any attempt to impose categorisation.

The show’s curators have nevertheless accomplished this, grouping Iskandar’s works into a number of thematically linked islands — here, a focus on the influence of his travels; there, a focus on his use of local, non-commercial clay, and found objects, and so on.

While solid as a whole, the exhibition design has some distractingly melodramatic touches: Swirls of gauzy fabric hang from the ceiling, aligned to the contours of the curved pedestals, for instance.

In addition to this overall survey of Iskandar’s practice, the gallery also commissioned contemporary artist Gerald Leow to produce Some Of You Will Be Asked To Leave. As a counterpoint to the relative formality and thematic organisation of the main exhibition, Leow’s installation is derived from the form of a house, executed as a kind of steel wireframe. Within the rooms of this notional house, a number of works from the personal collections of Iskandar, as well as of his friends and family, can be found.

Highlights here include an untitled table of clay samples from across Singapore, each moulded in simple patterns, and an untitled conjoining of clay with roots, and branches that appear to serve as a hat-stand. A downside to the installation, however, lies in its timer-controlled lighting, which is meant to evoke day-night cycles but comes across as overly theatrical, even lurid, suggesting a dreamscape of sorts.

Touches of the dramatic aside, the exhibition — both in its breadth and attention to the functional aspects of Iskandar’s ceramic practice — serves as a fitting swansong to the master potter, and a touchstone that future generations might come to appreciate in his work.

Iskandar Jalil: Kembara Tanah Liat (Clay Travels) runs until Feb 28, 2017, from 10am to 7pm, Sundays to Thursdays, and 10am to 10pm Fridays, Saturdays and the eve of public holidays. At National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew’s Road. Free admission.

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