Nadiah Bamadhaj: The Inconsistencies of Success

A+ WORKS of ART is pleased to present The Inconsistencies of Success, a solo exhibition by Nadiah Bamadhaj in collaboration with Small Shifting Space (SSS). Each work in The Inconsistencies of Success is a record of Nadiah Bamadhaj’s personal experience in early 2020. At the time she had reached the milestone of twenty years as an artist. All the components in this series, with one exception, are all designed around a missing figure—her.

This series of charcoal on paper collage explores the themes of bondage and juxtaposition; representing the artist’s reflections on a period in her career when she lacked choice, control and consent, even as she felt framed by the glitter of success.

// I had come to the twentieth year of my practice as a “success”— something acknowledged by my audience and peers. But I enjoyed none of its privileges—choice, wealth, independence, none at all.

I was in a state of bondage—some may argue of my own consent— but bound nevertheless. I had spent a decade, half of my career, in a commercial experiment that had failed, despite its façade of success. By the end of that period I had no freedom of choice about the direction of my work, the form of my work, even what I wanted to say or post. I was in a bondage of my own making, juxtaposed with the glitter of success. My success was inconsistent. //

Nadiah Bamadhaj, 2021

Installation view at Small Shifting Space, Kuala Lumpur.

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Adorned 2020 Charcoal on paper collage 160 ∑ 100 cm

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The Spittoon 2020 Charcoal on paper collage 160 ∑ 100 cm

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Flourished 2020 Charcoal on paper collage 160 ∑ 100 cm

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Pungent 2020 Charcoal on paper collage 160 ∑ 100 cm

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My Cornucopia 2020 Charcoal on paper collage 160 ∑ 100 cm

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The Opposite of Depressed 2020 Charcoal on paper collage 160 ∑ 100 cm

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A Conversation on Consent and Privilege

Lee Weng Choy: Nadiah, in a recent conversation you mentioned that January 2020 marked the twentieth anniversary of your artistic practice.

Belated congratulations are in order.

However, you also provided a troubling image of how you felt about this milestone.

Nadiah Bamadhaj: I had come to the twentieth year of my practice as a “success”—something acknowledged by my audience and peers. But I enjoyed none of its privileges—choice, wealth, independence, none at all. I was in a state of bondage—some may argue of my own consent—but bound nevertheless. I had spent a decade, half of my career, in a commercial experiment that had failed, despite its façade of success. By the end of that period I had no freedom of choice about the direction of my work, the form of my work, even what I wanted to say or post. I was in a bondage of my own making, juxtaposed with the glitter of success. My success was inconsistent.

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LWC: Your exhibition, The Inconsistencies of Success, of works made in January 2020, has a pair of themes: bondage and juxtaposition (I suppose bondage is a particularly interesting form of juxtaposition). When I heard this, I reacted by thinking of a few literary references—which, I suppose, betray the limits of my own education, as they are all by dead white men. There’s Somerset Maugham’s novel, Of Human Bondage, which in turn references the philosopher Spinoza, and his work, Ethics, in particular the section, “Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions”. In the history of Western philosophy, a central juxtaposition is mind versus body, and the corollary, reason versus emotion. It is usually the mind and reason that have priority over the body and emotion.

NB: I haven’t read the texts you’re referring to and even though my obsessive side wants to rush off to Wikipedia, let’s save that for another conversation. But I like the reference, “Dead White Men”.

Which I suppose one can juxtapose with “dark humour”, which can be very helpful in dealing with pain and disappointment. I am also reminded of something very distinct when I was watching a documentary about BDSM in the 90s, and its relationship to the LGBTQ community. There were discussions of identity, pleasure in the threshold of pain, community and metaphors of pushing boundaries. But when an African American lesbian was interviewed on the subject she baulked at the representation of bondage in queerness for her. BDSM failed to acknowledge her history of slavery, and she flatly rejected it. So, can we come

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around to acknowledging how BDSM has often been an exercise of privilege? Because the bonds for many Dead White Men, or not yet Dead White Men, will always be loosened, the pain will always cease, the injury will never be permanent, because it is an exercise of consent and privilege.

LWC: Another reference for me is the philosopher Deleuze, and his work on Masochism, Coldness and Cruelty.

Masochism is often juxtaposed with Sadism, as if the two are a complementary pair. But Deleuze argued that in Sade’s writings he used language as a demonstration of power over other humans.

And consent didn’t figure. Whereas with Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, he used language to create scenes of tension, where questions of persuasion and learning are pivotal.

In my limited understanding of Deleuze on masochism, the emphasis on creating scenes of tension and juxtaposition means that “bondage” is always context specific, and always about a story. When I think of your work in general, there is a strong narrative component, whether one looks at individual pieces, or pieces in a series. As you’ve made plain many times, a lot of your works are conceived and created as a series and for installation. The arrangement and sequence of works in the exhibition space is deliberate because that is another level of your

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storytelling. Could you talk about how the series of works in Inconsistencies tells a story. And could you say more about bondage as a metaphor for success?

NB: My representation of bondage here is literal. I’m like the African American lesbian saying no. It’s not a metaphor for success. It’s a metaphor for failure. This bondage series is not about a complex play of power dynamics, I’m not pushing a sexual boundary, there was no pleasure in this constriction, I’m not a power bottom. Even though at the time when this series was produced, it was received and interpreted with all the usual titillation associated with BDSM. Having said this, I am well aware that these works can always be read with some ambiguity and irony and dark humour. That is how art works. But, like you said, such tensions and juxtapositions always have a backstory as well, so let me elaborate.

I distinctly remember a dealer in the 2000s describing my work on identity as “navel gazing”. It still amuses me to this day.

But fundamentally I cannot represent anyone else’s experience but my own, nor do I seek to. Fast forward several years. Each work in The Inconsistencies of Success is a record of personal experience. In January 2020, I had just returned from Singapore Art Week 2020 and had gone through the entire charade of political shenanigans of the “art ecosystem”. I had been moved around like a chess piece all week, and had been struggling to do and look my best, remembering names, taking numbers, trying to be attentive, and yet, at the end of the week, I was still dressed down for not doing enough, for not being enough. When I got home to Yogyakarta I was drained and exhausted.

The Inconsistencies of Success came right after that experience, and what it represented in terms of my career at that time. The

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components of this series, with the exception of The Spittoon, are all designed around a missing figure—me. I had presented myself at openings in my pearls, feeling like I was not in control of where or who I was, like wearing a bondage hood, as in Adorned. My success could be interpreted as wearing a garland of flowers, of which I couldn’t smell as I was wearing a gas mask, as in Pungent, (and this was pre-Covid-19, by the way). In My Cornucopia, I wear a dog-collar, with an empty cornucopia hanging from it. A cornucopia is supposed to represent riches and abundance, but, at the time, mine was empty.

Ironically, while The Spittoon makes no immediate reference to an invisible body, to me it is the most figurative of all the works—I was the spittoon. Someone had me in a chokehold, and was spitting into my mouth at the same time. Yes, it is a classic bondage scene, which people might be comfortable visualising, if it were contextualised within the BDSM default of “with his or her consent or preference”.

The last work to mention is The Opposite of Depressed. The Inconsistencies of Success is an offshoot of an installation I made in 2018 called Moral Panic, about the LGBTQ crisis in Indonesia.

But the installation was never exhibited as a whole. Instead, Moral Panic was immediately broken up, framed, and sold off in parts—which is what happened to several other installations I made in the second decade of my practice. In the series, I had made works using BDSM imagery, playing on the idea of consensuality and non-consensuality. Of course, when separated from the rest of the installation, the individual works made no sense at all, but, since they had been sold, one could say—though I don’t know with how much sarcasm—that the series was a commercial success.

After this particular “success”, I was urged—though it was rigorously denied later in a spectacular display of gaslighting— to make a drawing series of sex toys, preferably anal. More

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titillation. After my Singapore Art Week experience, I realised how problematic that request was for me, as a feminist. It was not my choice.

But to speak of the particular work in question. I had thought of what a “sex toy” actually meant to me. In my very limited experience of using sex toys, it was one full of love, passion, at an emotional and physical height of which I would never experience again, because it was specific to the one person with which I had that experience with. So, it was therefore—“the opposite of depressed”—the title of the work. Which, sadly, I cannot say was the condition I was in, back in early 2020, when I made this series, The Inconsistencies of Success.

Lee Weng Choy is a part-time consultant with A+ WORKS of ART, Kuala Lumpur. He is also the president of the Singapore Section of the International Association of Art Critics, and has done project work with several organisations, including ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, National Gallery Singapore, and Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City.

Previously,` Weng Choy was Artistic Co-Director of The Substation, Singapore, and he has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art — Singapore. He writes on contemporary art and culture in Southeast Asia, and his essays have appeared in journals such as Afterall, and anthologies such as Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture, and Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. He writes the “Ask a Critic” column for pluralartmag.com

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Biodata

Nadiah Bamadhaj (born 1968, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia) resides permanently in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Trained as a sculptor in New Zealand at the Canterbury School of Fine Arts, she creates collaged drawings of a specific technique developed over many years. Her repertoire also includes sculpture, site-specific installation, digital video and print. She has lectured in Fine Arts in Kuala Lumpur, written several articles and publications on human rights in Malaysia and Indonesia, received two grants from the Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship in 2002 and 2004, and is currently on the board of Yayasan Kebaya, a HIV/AIDS homeless shelter in Yogyakarta. In 2019, a survey book of 18-years of her artwork ‘Nadiah Bamadhaj’ was published

by Italian-based SKIRA, and she was recently featured in ‘Vitamin D3: Today’s Best in Contemporary Drawing’ published by Londonbased PHAIDON. Her artwork currently focuses on the social intricacies of life within Indonesian society, using figure, flora and fauna, batik motif, mythology, and architecture to articulate her observations.

EDUCATION 1993– Bachelor of Fine 1989 Arts, Sculpture and Sociology Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand.

AWARDS 2004– Asian Public 2002 Intellectual Fellowship and Follow-Up Grant, funded by the Nippon Foundation, administered by the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

2001 Juror’s Choice, Philip Morris Malaysia Art Awards.

2001– Artist-in-Residence, 2000 Rimbun Dahan, Artist Residency Program, Kuang, Malaysia.

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2021 The Inconsistencies of Success, Small Shifting Space, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

BIENNALES & GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2021 ESOK: Jakarta Biennale, Museum Nasional, Jakarta.

The Submissive Feminist, Kiniko Art, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

ARTJOG MMXXI – Time(to) Wonder, Jogja Nasional Museum, Yogayakarta, Indonesia.

2020 Ravaged, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Dreaming Desire, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore.

2019 Lush Fixations, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore.

2018 Ravaged, Chambers Fine Art, New York, USA.

hyper-horizon, S.E.A FOCUS, Artspace@ HeluTrans, Singapore.

2020 ARTJOG Resilience, Jogja Nasional Museum, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

2016 Incomplete Urbanism: Attempts of Spatial Critical Practice, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Gillman Barracks, Singapore.

Encounter: Art from Different Lands, Southeast Asia Plus Triennale 2016, National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Crossing: Pushing Boundaries, Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2015 Art of ASEAN, Bank Negara Museum and Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2016 Descent, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2019 The Body Politic and the Body, ILHAM X SAM Project, ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2014 Poised for Degradation, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore.

Aura, Art Collection Reflection, Galeri Petronas, Malaysia.

2012 Keseragaman, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

ART-staged: No Booth, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore.

2014 Medium at Large, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.

2008 Surveillance, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Of Dreams and Contemplation: Selections from the Collection of Richard Koh, The Private Museum, Singapore.

2004 enamlima sekarang (sixtyfive now), Galeri Lontar, Komunitas Utan Kayu, Jakarta, Indonesia.

2003 enamlima sekarang (sixtyfive now), Benteng Vredeburg Museum, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

2001 1965 – Rebuilding Its Monuments, Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Taipei Dangdai, Richard Koh Fine Art, Taipei, Taiwan.

A Luxury We Cannot Afford, Para Site, Hong Kong.

I am Ten, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

START, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

2013 Parallax: ASEAN, Changing Landscapes, Wandering Stars, ASEAN-Korea Contemporary Media Art Exhibition, ASEANKOREA Centre, Seoul, South Korea.

2018 Contemporary Chaos, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Norway.

Art Central Hong Kong, Richard Koh Fine Art, Hong Kong.

Bersama, Muzium Dan Galeri Seni Bank Negara Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

elcome to the Jungle: W Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia from the Collection of Singapore Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto (CAMK), Kumamoto, Japan.

onvergence: Cultural Legacy, C Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

ART STAGE Singapore, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore.

2017 We are here, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ACAW Thinking Projects, C24 Gallery, New York, United States.

Di Mana (Where Are) Young?, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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2011 It’s Now or Never Part II, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.

2008 Wonder, Singapore Biennale, Singapore City Hall, Singapore.

Beyond the Self: Contemporary Portraiture from Asia, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia.

Works from Southeast Asia, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2010 C reative Index, The Nippon Foundation’s Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship’s 10th Anniversary, Silverlens Gallery, Manila, Philippines.

Agenda Kebudayaan Gusdurisme, 100-day memorial for Abdurrahman Wahid @ Gus Dur, Langgeng Gallery, Magelang, Indonesia. eacons of Archipelago: B Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia, Arario Gallery, Seoul, South Korea.

2009 Jogja Jamming: Jogja Biennale X, Taman Budaya Yogyayakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

arth and Water: Mapping Art E in Southeast Asia, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.

Photoquai 09: 2nd Biennale Photographic Festival, musée duquai Branly, Paris, France.

Cartographical Lure, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Jakarta Biennale XII: Fluid Zone, Galeri Nasional, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Littoral Drift, UTS Gallery, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Code Share: 5 continents, 10 biennales, 20 artists, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania.

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ast-South, Out of Sight, South E and Southeast Asia Still and Moving Images, Tea Pavilion, Guangzhou Triennale, China. he Scale of Black, T Contemporary Drawings from Southeast Asia, HT Contemporary Space, Singapore.

2006 Fast Futures: Asian Video Art, The Asia Society India Centre, Little Theatre Auditorium, NCPA, Mumbai, India.

The War Must Go On, Clockshop Billboard Series, corner of Fairfax and Wilshire, Los Angeles, USA.

TV-TV, Week 34, Video Art Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark.

2007 Out of the Mould: The Age of Reason, 10 Malaysian Women Artists, Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

uilding Conversations: Nadiah B Bamadhaj and Michael Lee, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.

Photofolio, Jogja Gallery, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

igned and Dated, Valentine S Willie Fine Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

olding Up Half the Sky by H Women Artists, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Fetish: Object Art Project #1, Biasa Artspace, Denpasar, Indonesia.

Selamat Datang ke (Welcome to) Malaysia: An exhibition of contemporary art from Malaysia, Gallery 4A, Sydney, Australia rocessing the City: Art on P Architecture, The Annex Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Never Mind, Video Art Exhibition, ViaVia Café, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Rethinking Nordic Colonialism: A Postcolonial Exhibition Project in Five Acts, Act 3: Faroe Art Museum, Tórshavn, The Faroe Islands, Denmark.

Biennale Jakarta 2006, Beyond the Limits and its Challenges, Galeri Lontar, Komunitas Utan Kayu, Indonesia.

ast Futures: Asian Video Art, F Asian Contemporary Art Week, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, USA.

Home Productions, Video Art Exhibition, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.

2005 Consciousness of the Here and Now, Biennial Yogya VII 05, Kandhang Menjangan Heritage Site, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

ome Works II: A Forum on H Cultural Practices, Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon.

147 Tahun Merdeka (147 Years of Independence), in collaboration with Tian Chua, Reka Art Space, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Urban Culture, CP Biennale, Museum of the Indonesian National Bank, Jakarta, Indonesia.

2002 Asean Art Awards, Bali International Convention Center, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia.

Touch, WWF Art For Nature Fundraising Exhibition, Rimbun Dahan Gallery, Kuang, Malaysia.

Pause, Gwangju Biennale 2002, Exhibition Hall 1, Gwangju, South Korea.

2001 Philip Morris Art Awards, National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Exhibit X, Taksu Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

you are here, Valentine Willie Fine Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Media in “f”, The 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women, EWHA Women’s University Campus, Seoul, South Korea.

Flashpoint, WWF Art for Nature Fundraising Exhibition, Rimbun Dahan Gallery, Kuang, Malaysia.

ART COLLECTIONS National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Galeri Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Zain Azahari Collection, Galeri Z, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Museum Azman, Shah Alam, Malaysia Muzium & Galeri Tuanku Fauziah, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia National Gallery, Singapore Singapore Art Museum, Singapore

Exhibit A, Valentine Willie Fine Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2000 Arang, Taksu Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2004 Flying Circus Project: 04, Seeing with Foreign Eyes, Theatreworks, Fort Canning Park, Singapore.

Batu Bata Tanah Air (Building Blocks of Homeland), a collaborative project with Tian Chua, Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Living Art: Regional Artists Respond to HIV/AIDS, Queen’s Gallery, XV International AIDS Conference, Bangkok, Thailand.

Paradise Found/ Paradise Lost, WWF Art for Nature Fundraising Exhibition, Rimbun Dahan Gallery, Kuang, Malaysia.

Seriously Beautiful, Reka Art Studio, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Gedebook, Group Fundraising Exhibition, Kedai Kebun Forum, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

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Nadiah Bamadhaj and A + WORKS of ART, would like to thank the following individuals for their support and contribution to this publication and presentation: Arie Dyanto Desri Surya Kristiani Lee Small Shifting Space

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Published in conjunction with the presentation The Inconsistencies of Success by Nadiah Bamadhaj, held at Small Shifting Space, Kuala Lumpur from 12 to 31 December 2021.

Artist Nadiah Bamadhaj Writer Lee Weng Choy Editor Aminah Ibrahim Photography Damien Khoo Graphic Design Kenta.Works

Published by A+ WORKS of ART d6 - G - 8 d6 Trade Centre 801 Jalan Sentul 51000 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia +60 18 333 3399 info@aplusart.asia www.aplusart.asia Facebook/Instagram @aplusart.asia Opening Hours 12 pm – 7 pm, Tuesday to Saturday Closed on Sunday, Monday and public holidays Copyright © 2021 A+ WORKS of ART. All rights reserved.

All articles and illustrations contained in this catalogue are subject to copyright law. Any use beyond the narrow limites defineded by copyright law, and without the express of the publisher, is forbidden and will be prosecuted.

A+ WORKS of ART is a contemporary art gallery based in Kuala Lumpur, with a geographic focus on Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Founded in 2017 by Joshua Lim, the gallery presents a wide range of contemporary practices, from painting to performance, drawing, sculpture, new media art, photography, video and installation. Its exhibitions have showcased diverse themes and approaches, including material experimentation and global conversations on social issues. Collaboration is key to the ethos of A+ WORKS of ART. Since its opening, the gallery has worked with artists, curators, writers, collectors, galleries and partners from within the region and beyond, and continues to look out for new collaborations. The gallery name is a play on striving for distinction but also on the idea that art is never without context and is always reaching to connect — it is always “plus” something else.