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Five Galleries from Mainland China in the Art Expo Malaysia 2011

Art Expo Malaysia 2011 returns with more opportunities

Kuala Lumpur: The leading China artists in Traditional, Modern, Contemporary and New Age are coming to the 5th International Art Expo Malaysia (AEM) 2011, making it the most exciting ever.

Some of the world’s greatest artists in the Western Hemisphere will also be represented:

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Joan Miro (1893-1983), Salvador Dali (1904-1989) and Antoni Tapies (born 1923).

The Art Expo Malaysia has become a marketplace of East-West and Arabian art trading and commerce and exchanges. It is a great confluence of Western, Asian and Arabian art with Iran making its debut this year with representations from Shiraz Art Gallery and Art & Identity.

Some 66 exhibitors from 24 countries will be taking part and they include six art organisations and 51 art galleries. The participating countries are: Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, The Philippines and Vietnam. It will involve more than 400 artists, some of whom come from nine other countries like Costa Rica and Tibet.

On the Chinese traditional brush and ink paintings front, there are the big names such as Wang Xijing, Wang Mingming, Pan Gongkai, Li Xiaoke and Taiwan’s national treasure Li Chi Mao (born 1925), who has a dedicated museum called the Li Chi Mao Art House in Malacca.

Some of China’s biggest names in contemporary art today from its Post-1989 New Art Movement, will also have their paintings shown here for the first time. They are Yue Minjun (born 1962), Fang Lijun (born 1963) and Wang Guangyi (born 1957). Other big-name contemporary artists include Feng Zhengjie and Chen Wenling will also tote up the star quality. Others will include Guan Wei, Du Xi, Xue Song and Yang Xun.

Animation wizard Miao Xiaochun who has enthralled AEM visitors since his Microcosm in 2009 and RESTART last year, is back with a double-whammy punch in two blockbusters called Disillusion and Neo-Cubism Projection. Miao’s animation booth was the top attraction in the last two Art Expo Malaysia.

Indonesian master Jeihan Sukmantoro will also debut while Qatar’s controversial Indian-born artist M.F. Husain (1915-2011) will also have his works represented. There will also be Singapore pioneers Lim Cheng Hoe and masters Lim Tze Peng and Goh Beng Kwan, while the master-artists from the Philippines, Myanmar and Pakistan are Ramon Orlina, Aung Thiha and Saeed Akhtar respectively. Thailand’s most high profiled artists in world art capitals , Natee Utarit, will also make his presence felt.

A German Expressionist, Ewald Platte (1894-1985), who painted in relative obscurity to contemporaries like Emil Nolde (1867-1956) is gaining acceptance since last year. Swedish sculptor Carl Fredrik Reuterswald will also have his works shown.

On the Malaysian front, more local art galleries have joined AEM to raise their commitment to the next level. Of course, all the Malaysian big names – masters, mid-career and emerging - will form the AEM’s biggest art firepower.

The AEM’s Special Events will be headlined by Today Art Museum, the Double Blockbusters of Miao Xiao Chun and the 88.6 Szechuan New Wave Six, the Xi’an Chinese Painting Academy and the Cuiheng Culture & Art Village.

The Embassies Row under CuBES will feature artists from Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador and Switzerland, while a special local highlight will be artist-gallerist Hoe Say Yong’s WaterWorld: Reflected Reality and Illusions.

There will also be an early peek of possible works to be put up at next year’s Henry Butcher Art Auction Malaysia. This year, it set a phenomenal record of RM3.17 million in sales with a 94% success rate.

The Art Expo Malaysia sold a whopping RM11 million in works last year including a suit of silkscreens by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), which went for RM2 million. The AEM is under the royal patronage of the Crown Prince of Perlis DYTM Tuanku Syed Faizuddin Putra ibni Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Jamalullail and Crown Princess of Perlis DYTM Tuanku Hajjah Lailatul Shahreen Akashah Khalil. It is also supported by Ministry of Tourism and National Visual Arts Gallery. Event sponsor is Secret Recipe.

Venue: Matrade Exhibition and Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur

Menara MATRADE, Jalan Khidmat Usaha, Off Jalan Duta,

50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Date: October 28 to November 1, 2011

Opening Hours: 28 – 31 October 2011 10.30 am – 7.30 pm

1 November 2011 10.30 am – 5.00 pm

Open to Public. Admission is Free.