‘CREATIVE CITY ~ Kuala Lumpur: Small town networks, big city ideas’.by Adeline Ooi, © IDN Magazine, number 2, vol 13, 2007, pp 46, 52-53.
If you speak with Abdul Multhalib Musa, he will tell you that he is not a conventional sculptor. “I don’t toil and sweat blood over my work,” he says. Rather, you will most likely find him behind his computer, trying out new forms or surfing the Internet. Best known for his fine finishing and sleek forms in laser-cut steel, Multhalib is recognised as one of Malaysia’s emerging stars in contemporary art, but he does not see himself as an artist only – “I still consider myself an architect.” This is what he was trained for and his work and identity perch on a unique threshold between art and architecture.
Naturally, given his training, his process of realising an idea is driven by an architectural approach, “yet it does not have the constraint architects normally face”. Ideas often begin with something instinctive, an artistic urge if you like, and are later distilled with logic and calculations. Multhalib’s forms are often inspired by nature, clouds, mathematical theories or geometrical shapes, entangled in a complex and symbiotic relationship of binary opposites – the organic with the scientific, the linear with the non-linear, the tangible with the intangible.
When asked to give an insight into his working process, he says: “I like to think that I do not design the final works themselves, but am more oriented towards conceiving the possible relationship between solids and voids, positive and negative space, or the obvious and the hidden. I prefer to consider this process as parallel to generating an organised system in order for the tectonic idea to be workable.” Planning the construction of each form is key: “The planning process is important in the realisation of an idea as practical approaches are required. Just as in architecture, which stresses the importance of ease of construction – and that means using the right materials, minimal wastage and using the right tools for the job.”
Multhalib will also tell you that he thinks his work lacks any particular sense of identity: “It is Malaysian in the sense that it is made by a Malaysian, but that is a superficial association. The forms designed have no association with roots or place of origin, and the lasers and materials I use are imported from Japan. The demands of globalisation have formalised my work. It lacks identity – but only because it is developed extensively through technology. And technology is universal.”
So, does he see them strictly as sculptural forms? “Well, it is said that one way of differentiating art and architecture is their different responses to objective requirements. If art is seen as speculative thinking, then what I am doing must be art by default since everything I do is conjectural, non-functional, and self-directed – though I am not implying that architecture is already art, or vice-versa.”
“Tectonic” is perhaps the best way to explain them in that “the works themselves are certainly ‘end products’ in their own right. Basically, the final built objects are finite, well-defined and are more or less free from the imperfections of the production process. Nevertheless, I still consider the ‘finished works’ to be incomplete, schematic, trapped in the midst of their production, with potential to be further developed. “Seen from this perspective, the work is left as if merely to engage other students and professionals within the field of art and architecture. However, as built and finished works they also have the opportunity to engage the public for whom they were meant and any subsequent unanticipated public.”
