at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in New York City

Yee I-Lann’s solo exhibition Picturing Power at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York, is an emphatic act of subversion. Her black-and-white photomontages, made from two centuries of archival images of the Dutch and British colonization of Malaysia, present a reengagement with reality through a new language of alterity. For Yee, the exposure and visibility of the past create a vocabulary that focuses on emancipation and justice.

In Picturing Power: Wherein one surreptitiously performs reconnaissance to collect views and freeze points of view to be reflective of one’s own kind (2013), shrouded black figures posed as 19th-century photographers are juxtaposed with a comic scene of colonizers standing below large, overturned tables. Set against a stark white background, these incongruous figures symbolize colonial suppression. In Yee’s work, recurring images of tables represent transactions, power, and control. The inversion of these objects becomes a strong metaphor for the reversion of power from centuries of repression. More importantly, the dark, haunting, ghost-like figures appear to be voyeurs looking into the past and upending memories of hard times and the subjugation of the colonized. Here the artist’s language demands a heightened level of representation that is both humorous and a clearly articulated negative critique.

In Picturing Power: Wherein one nods with political sympathy and says I understand you better than you understand yourself, I’m just here to help you help yourself (2013), hundreds of native Malaysians line up in quiet acquiescence behind one of their oppressors, portraying life in the colonies at the time. Yee’s ironic titles, dripping with sarcasm, compel the viewer to visualize an era of dogmatic coersion. Picturing Power: Wherein one cultivates cultural codes, the noble endeavors of mankind and thereby puts them in their place (2013) presents the native woman whose long tresses transform her into the stereotypical mythological enchantress. Seated against a backdrop of spice plantations, which were the most lucrative colonial trade, the figure—with her lengthy, unruly hair—is symbolic of the classic temptress who had to be controlled.

While the eight images from Picturing Power use historical mimesis to expose colonial inequities as a constructive expunging exercise, Tabled (2013), from a previous exhibition titled Suspended Histories, has a conciliatory tone. Images of current life in Malaysia, representing entrepreneurship, freedom, and mobility, are printed on dinner plates referencing blue China from the Dutch and British colonial periods. Neon-colored outlines of embracing figures in The Sun will rise in the East and deliver us from this long night (2012) seem to suggest reconciliation as the best path toward retribution. At the end, the viewer is left with the indelible mark of history on Malaysia and the strength of its people to move on.

Yee I-Lann: Picturing Power runs through April 13 at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in New York.

Bansie Vasvani is an art historian and critic. She lives in New York City.

Aswad Ameir is a multi-disciplinary artist who works with painting, installations and objects. In Quite, Ameir built a white shrine in the style of an old wooden chapel much like the ones you’d see on a farm. Called Small Things, Ameir drew inspiration from Booker prize winner, Arundhati Roy’s fiction novel, God of Small Things. The work deals with childhood memories, safety and security one might feel stepping into a place of worship.

Aswad Ameir, Small Things, Installation, courtesy of Angela Chong

Azharr Ruddin who was originally trained in filmmaking molded a statue of a child complete with detailed facial features. He added a base container and filled it with corn starch, honey and strawberry to obtain a reddish-maroon color similar to the color of blood. In the sculpture, he inserted a tube and attached a motor to allow the water to pass through the body of the child and exit from a small hole which he made on the forehead. One look at the artwork and one will definitely be intrigued by the liquid and child standing atop of it. Looking more like a premature child, the liquid is actually edible and fellow artist, Angela Chong, whose installation-based artwork consist of a game with a prize where a cup of the red liquid is given to the winner. Azhar’s pre-occupation with blood, however sinister this may sound, is inspired by a film script he had written. In this script, a scene where the lead actor is having a seizure and vomiting blood on the floor, had stuck to his mind. His work in actual fact explores re-birth, renewal and death of the past.

Ghazi Alqudcy’s phone booth of interviews with three men of various ethnicities – Indian, Chinese and Malay made me cringe. These three men were recorded talking to the voice of a young woman who is about the age of fourteen. What the men don’t know is that it is Ghazi himself who is mimicking the voice of the young woman on the other end. Much like a phone sex chat service, the men reveal their deepest darkest secrets unknowingly to Ghazi who is recording them. The interviews are then installed into a dark blue phone booth to emphasize the sort of anonymity one wants when making calls to another person in order to hide their mobile numbers.

Ghazi Alqudcy, I am older than I was when we first got together, Installation, courtesy of Angela Chong

Trained as a jeweler, Stellah Lim’s objects are made from hair and objects from friends and close ones. She replicated these objects from people had been an influence on her with hair, and as a part of this installation, framed images of people without facial features. Representing her closest ones without facial features, Stellah’s work is talking about presence and absence. As a child,  Stellah would use hand-me-downs to invent what was happening in the other person’s mind. If she had a used textbook with notes in it, she wondered what the previous owner articulated as if he or she is beside her in class. Interestingly, this habit of owning used objects carried on into her adult life as Stellah had a habit of buying used items from eBay. She feels it is not purely a habit but a way of owning a product with a history in someone else’s life. Just like the frames she bought online to house her painted works, she described them as important objects that once held family portraits but ceased to function like it was before once the person/family member has passed on.

Quite was showing at The Annexe in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia till 21st November 2010.