POLICE will be contacting the curators, artists and media about the artwork that was confiscated at the Kuala Lumpur Biennale art exhibition (KLB2017).

Wangsa Maju district police Chief Supt Mohamad Roy Suhaimi Sarif said the police would conduct inquiries from all parties involved before opening investigation papers.

“We will be calling the National Art Gallery, artists, the people involved and the media who had reported on the incident. After collecting information, we will then open the investigation papers,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Roy also confirmed that the National Art Gallery had lodged a police report on the matter after the incident was reported by the media.

He also said the police were not ordered to take any artworks on display.

“We got the information from the National Art Gallery where they were told by some people that there was inappropriate works of art that displayed at the exhibition,” he said.

A check at the gallery today by The Malaysian Insight found that the allegedly controversial work entitled Under Construction was still displayed at the art exhibition.

However, it was still covered by a black canvas, which the artist did on Wednesday after he had sent a letter to withdraw from the exhibition.

Three police officers were also seen observing the artwork but they did not take any action or confiscate any artwork.

The police were sighted in the exhibition hall and was guided by a staff from the National Visual Art Gallery (NVAG).

When asked about the police, a NVAG spokesman on duty said he did not want to comment on the police presence.

“We are still waiting for the police investigation,” he said.

After an hour of conducting their checks around the area, the police left the premises.

The Malaysian Insight had reported that a group of Malaysian and Indonesian artists withdrew from KL Biennale, claiming that their artworks had been removed from the exhibition.

The group, a collaboration of five Malaysians from Pusat Sekitar Seni (PSS) and two Indonesians from Population Project, had produced an installation entitled Under Construction.

PSS spokesman Aisyah Baharuddin said the KL Biennale curator told them that police visited the NVAG yesterday and confiscated several artworks installed for the exhibition.

Aisyah said the artwork allegedly contained “elements of communism”.

She said the move had violated their rights as artists and they decided to pull out from the KL Biennale.

“There is no information on the whereabouts of the artwork, with no cooperation given by the organisers on the matter, she said.

PSS is now waiting for an official reply from the gallery after informing the exhibition that they are pulling out of the event to protest censorship.

The gallery’s director-general Prof Mohamed Najib Ahmad Dawa told the media today after the Biennale 2017 official opening that PSS was trying to gain cheap publicity by pulling out of the show and claiming that their installation had been removed.

The KL Biennale is an international contemporary arts programme at the National Visual Art Gallery in Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur, featuring 119 artworks from local and international artists. – November 24, 2017.

https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/24266/