“The problem with this country is that we don’t realise how much we have lost,” Marion D’Cruz said, at a tribute for the late Redza Piyadasa on June 2nd, 2007 at Jalan Damai’s RA Fine Art Gallery.

We hope to replicate the spirit of that tribute here, online. What follows are brief stories and statements about the visual artist, lecturer and critic, from four people -- including Marion -- who knew him. This article isn’t meant to end with just these four, however. Piyadasa was an Influence on Malaysian arts practice; we respectfully welcome artists, students, and acquaintances to -- in the comments section below -- debate Piyadasa’s critical oeuvre, consider his work as an artist, and share stories of their own. ~

Datuk Syed Ahmad Jamal
Painter, National arts laureate, former Balai Seni Lukis Negara director

What caught your attention about the young Piyadasa?

Piyadasa was my student at the Specialist Teachers Training Institute in Cheras, in 1962, along with Chew Teng Beng and Ahmad Haji Hashim. He was among the limited few subsequently sent to the United Kingdom (Hornsy College of Art, London, 1963-1967) for training. I also wrote in support of him to be accepted in to the East-West Centre in Hawaii, to do his MA; he came to be very well-regarded by his professor there.

He struck me as very intelligent and eager to participate in discussions. Unlike the other students -- who just accepted what the teachers said -- he challenged me. He was not one of those that would keep quiet if he didn’t agree with things. He did not want to take a subject that, he felt, was not relevant to his training -- and almost got into trouble for not having fulfilled the requirements to pass the course.

I remember that he had a lot of strong views, and would get into trouble with other artists. But, you know, he felt that artists should not only

~

Prof Madya Fauzan Omar
Award-winning artist, Universiti Sains Malaysia Assistant Professor of Fine Arts

How did you manage the change from being Redza’s student to a fellow painter?

I think my relationship with Piya was always a love and hate relationship. Once, he ridiculed me and told me to leave his class. He used to tear up my work and step on my work and call me all sorts of names!

At that time, we were all very naughty, and must have posed a challenge to any art teacher. Piya used race and all sorts of condemnation to challenge us, to prove to him that we were not what he called us. Majority of the students hated him.

But it became clear to us that he was a good teacher, and that he was concerned for us. He’d give us a reading list, and he expected us to be aware of current affairs.

I still quarrelled with him, at the age of 30! Once, he called me up to condemn one of my exhibitions. But I remember I felt really good when I read his comments of the work I submitted for the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale in 1979. He really took the pains to do a good analysis.

How did his methods -- especially his teaching methods -- influence yours?

He gave a thorough lecture -- which was sometimes difficult for us to follow, during those days. He used slides and teaching aids to help us understand. He’d explain a lot, during class, and would work together with us on projects, leading us by example.

I think the most effective teaching methods I use I learnt from Piyadasa and Sulaiman Esa.

I am not sure if I am conscious of it all the time -- but I have come to see that, in Malaysia, you need to use the fierce approach Piyadasa used, because that’s how things get done.

I really miss him, now. I would have liked to have him around for another 15 to 20 years. When I went to visit him at the Shah Alam hospital, he hugged me, instead of me hugging him. He said: “Kaulah satu-satunya murid aku.” That really touched me.

---

Pakhruddin Sulaiman
Art collector, essayist, lawyer

In an interview, art historian T K Sabapathy commented that Piyadasa worked in spurts, in a way that did not allow his paintings to be commodities. What effect did this have on collectors who were trying to buy his works?

Collectors love their artists to produce consistently -- a solo every two years or so, or even once every five years, like in Latiff Mohidin’s case -- because they like following the artistic development of the artists they are collecting.

The thing with Piyadasa is that most of his works were ephemeral and not meant to last. For example, the coffin work in response to 1969 (“Two Views of May 1969”, acrylic on plywood and mirror) went missing from the original exhibition “The New Scene” (1969), held at the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. It had to be reconstructed for his solo retrospective at the National Art Gallery (April 5th to August 9th, 2001), and for “Redza Piyadasa: Works Past and Present” (Valentine Willie Fine Art; October 29th to November 15th, 2003).

The coffin work looks dated to us now -- but, at that time, to produce a work that was not meant to last was something new for the Malaysian art world.

Not many people bought his work, until after the 2001 retrospective. He did not manage to build a strong following for his work among most other collectors, due to his work pattern -- and the nature of his work. Whereas his peers collect five figure sums per artwork, Piyadasa was still struggling at RM50,000 at the time of his retrospective. He once mentioned to me that I was one of the extremely few individuals who bought his works.

Piyadasa told me that a few collectors (such as Dr Krishna Gopal Rampal) were trying to start a fortnightly group on arts writing, to build more and improve on existing Malaysian visual arts criticism. Collectors seem to have enjoyed a close relationship with Piyadasa. Can you describe this relationship? How did Piyadasa build this relationship with his collectors?

Well, I was not part of that fortnightly group. But he had dangled the idea to me; he had a very active mind, and was always jumping from one idea to another. He took an interest in art collecting, here. At the time of his passing, he was also working on a book on Malaysian collectors and the seminal works in their collections. He had asked me to assist him on it.

Piyadasa also wanted to develop a secondary art market in Malaysia. But I told him: “Your idea is far ahead of our time.” For that to happen, we need the infrastructure: proper documentation and better arts writing. Part of the reason for the success of artists such as Syed Ahmad Jamal and Jailani Abu Hassan is due to the good doceumentation and writing on their artworks. Unfortunately, successive generations of artists have not had this.

Due to these limits, most of Piya’s ideas have, unfortunately, remained at a conceptual stage.

How do you read the general reaction to Piyadasa’s passing?

The response of political leaders and the Malaysian public, in general, has been disappointing.

Piya was the nearest we had to a public intellectual, if I may say so. Yet the Berita Harian only had one mention; the Utusan Melayu had two articles: an obituary to and a column about Piya -- written by just one writer, Azman Ismail. The Sunday Star had a wonderful tribute by Eddin Khoo, but the other main English-language daily, the New Straits Times, had nothing much.

---

There were hardly any political leaders who attended Piyadasa’s funeral. That’s why, Azman wrote in his May 24th column (entitled “Di Antara Redza Piyadasa dan Octavio Paz”) about how, during the funeral of Nobel prize winner Octavio Paz, the Mexican president was in attendance, and the whole country was in mourning.

I mean, we’re talking about a poor country here, you know. I think, in the pursuit of financial riches, we’ve become so culturally poor, as a nation.

I hope they don’t add to the insult by giving Piyadasa a posthumous award, like a datuk-ship. More so, considering that Piya’s stamp series featured a portrait of 1983 national laureate Usman Awang (“Tribute to Usman Awang 2”, acrylic on canvas; 1980). That work was Piya’s tribute to the close relationship he had forge with the country’s literary artists -- and to Usman, whom he felt should have been honoured with a title very early on.

~

Datin Marion D’Cruz
Dancer, choreographer, founding member of arts collective Five Arts Centre

How did Piyadasa influence the Malaysian performing arts?

I can’t comment much on Piyadasa’s earlier influence, as I only met Krishen and Piay in 1974 and 1975 -- which was after their 1970 response to the riots of 1969. I only heard about what had happened from them, later on.

Piya was in that first group that formed Five Arts Centre. At that time, he was involved in the discussions that we had about theatre, and in making sets for productions. So, in terms of FAC, his contribution was in the early years, where the collective didn’t seek to focus on only one areas of the arts, and aimed to develop a Malaysian identity in the arts, in general.

I think very few artists of any kind combined theory and practice, and I think Piya and Krishen were examples of these few. I mean, if you look through Piya’s works -- such as his reaction to the 1969 riots -- you can see that very clearly.

Piya left FAC, not because of any fights or any disagreements, but because he felt that FAC was becoming more focused on theatre. He still kept in touch with us, and dropped by, now and again, to see us. He also did sit in some plays -- but I am not sure of which ones.

After Krishen’s passing, it was Piya who was the one who said it, in the papers, that Krishen ought to be given a posthumous award. I am not sure whether it was because of this remark -- but, afterwards, Krishen was indeed bestowed a posthumous datuk-ship.

~~~

Arts writer Veronica Shunmugam is now Editor of Kakiseni.