12 December Kuala Lumpur
I slept in, then fixed a small breakfast. A Grab
taxi took me northeast to Ilham Gallery in a glass-faced high-rise
http://www.ilhamgallery.com/ where I
took in the current shows (free admission) on the 3rd and 5th floors. “Boom Boom
Bang: Play & Parody in 1990s K.L.” told about how artists used parody and play
to express themselves through videos, installations, sculptures, and paintings
during a time of Malaysia’s rapid development. Film: “A Night We Held Between”
by Noor Abed had a strange sonic archive from the Popular Art Center in
Palestine to accompany images of dancers filmed at ancient sites of Palestine; I
found the shaky 16mm film unpleasant to watch.
Next I wandered west on
foot amid a maze of towering skyscrapers and construction sites to Kuala Lumpur
City Centre, a park and large shopping center at the base of the Petronas Twin
Towers, an interlinked pair of 88-storey skyscrapers standing at 451.9 meters
(1,483 feet). They ranked as the highest in the world from their construction in
1996 until 2004 and are still the world’s tallest twin towers. They still look
very contemporary with attractive patterns of dark glass and silver. On the
third floor of the Suria KLCC shopping center I sought out Galeri Petronas,
which presents changing shows of Malaysian contemporary art, much of which
relates to aspects of Petronas, the Malaysian multinational oil and gas company
headquartered in Kuala Lumpur. I hurried through exhibits of racing motorcycles
and racecars to the more interesting—for me—paintings, photos, and sculptures in
other galleries. Some of these portrayed aspects of protecting the environment.
Suria KLCC has lots of food options, and I went with South Indian idlis and
a vada at Saravanaa Bhavan. As darkness fell, a crowd gathered around a lake of
the 50-acre KLCC Park in anticipation of a fountain show. I stayed for two shows
of the elaborate fountains, illuminated by colored lights, the first silent and
the second with music. A bit of rain fell toward the end of the second
presentation, but I had a folding umbrella in my pocket and the show went on.
Lastly I caught a Kuala Lumpur Light Rail Transit (LRT) to the big KL Sentral
station, then walked back to my Airbnb.
On to Day 3: Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia & National Mosque of Malaysia