95: A solo exhibition by chi too
28 October — 15 November 2020; 80, The Zhongshan Building

About the project

The setting: a middlebrow restaurant next to the ████. chi too and I are having fish and chips while Snow is having pho. The waiter brings over the pho before the fish and chips, and when he asks which one of us it’s for, chi too says, “It’s pho her.” 

While waiting, I interview chi too about his latest body of work, 95, a set of 95 A4-sized works made simply with pen on paper.¹ The works are part of what he calls the “universe” of Bukan Budaya Kita (Malay: “Not our culture”), a universe that began four years ago and which is supposed to culminate in the as-yet unfinished magnum opus of Bukan Budaya Kita, the titular series recreating historical sites of civil disobedience around Malaysia. 

But in the meantime, there’s just a lot of procrastinating — his word, not mine. In the process of making Bukan Budaya Kita (the series), chi too began a number of sub-series (or sub-sub-series?) of works that deconstruct the form of BBK. For “research” purposes, supposedly. With equal amounts of affection and self-deprecation, he calls these side quests his “Procrastination series”. Canvas on Bitumen (2017) was a series of photographs of canvas sheets thrown onto various roads in Kuala Lumpur, identifying sites of major street rallies, while Sometimes When We Touch (2017–18) was his investigation into painting with bitumen, the material used to paint roads. Since protest is a form of mark-making, 95 is chi too’s own exploration of mark-making in its most minimal form, i.e. straight lines.

The works in 95 were created with a careful methodology. Before starting anything, chi too created a chart of three “arrangements” for his straight lines, which were: permutations of how the lines can overlap, permutations of how the lines can be arranged equally in the A4 space, and permutations of how the lines can meet.

As he’s explaining the Bukan Budaya Kita universe to me, Snow interjects, “You know what I think?” Stirring her pho, making eye contact with me but not with chi too. “I think it’s quite psychological. He’s a control freak. He’s a robot and this series is super robotic. When I’m trying to shirk from work, I just clean the house.” She continues talking as if he’s not there. 

chi too turns to me as if Snow’s not there. “Let me AirDrop you the artwork photos.” 

Snow persists. “If you look at the progression of the Procrastination series, it exactly parallels our relationship.” 

“If you keep saying stuff like that he’s going to dock our percentage.” That’s me. 

Earlier during the discussion with ███ in ████, chi too had said that he doesn’t want a curatorial essay because he wanted to leave the works open to any and all interpretation. That the whole point of the works is that they’re not trying to say anything. They are a statement against the artist statement, a form that artists abuse as they attempt to make their work speak for something that it simply does not. 

As we’re wrapping up with lunch, I ask, “So how do you feel now that the series is finished and ready for exhibiting?” I don’t get it yet: for me, it’s still about feeling. 

“I don’t feel anything,” he says. “I’m not supposed to feel anything: that’s always been the point. If I think or feel anything as I’m making a work, then I lose concentration. The whole point of the series is that my entire mental faculty is supposed to be dedicated to the sole task of drawing the straight lines. The work is pre-determined by the charted permutations and I have no say about its outcome.” 

It’s a very meditative and zen series, but Snow has her own theory about that. We end the lunch talking about split costs, percentages, and the production budget. There’s nothing else to talk about. 

EL 
15 January 2020 

NOTES 
¹Although the pen chi too used was a cheap one, he always ensures that his paper is acid-free. We discovered this lately when he accused Snow of pricing his works lower than another artist’s. I had said, “That guy uses fancy paper… You just used some normal printer paper, right?” No, wrong. (19 October 2020)

95
An artist book by chi too

In conjunction with the exhibition, there will be an accompanying artist book that features high-resolution illustrations of all 95 works on show.

Details:
◦ Hard cover
◦ 100 pages, including description and colophon pages
◦ 224 × 309 × 17 mm
◦ 700gsm
◦ Edition of 95 + 5 AP
◦ MYR 200

Interested in owning a piece of chi too in hardcover form? Contact +6012 753 7250 to purchase your copy.

Artist bio

chi too (b. 1981, Kuala Lumpur) is a self- taught multidisciplinary artist whose educational background is in Mass Communication and Sound Engineering. His practice demonstrates confident exploration of humour, satire, and visual poetics. It is at times difficult to say exactly what he does as an artist, largely because his artworks touch on a large spectrum of themes and issues. His practice vacillates between the high-minded and the frivolous, the social and the personal, the transparent and the esoteric.

His experimental music, performances, and playful self-organised public art projects such as Main Dengan Rakyat, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, and Lepark display an interest to engage with urban spaces and audiences that form part of his complex multifaceted approach to his practice. chi too was also a member of the disbanded art collective The Best Art Show in the Univers. He has since participated in various exhibitions and performance events in Malaysia and abroad, on top of being an artist-in-residence at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art (NTU CCA) Singapore in 2017 and a Nippon Foundation Asian Public Intellectuals (API) fellow in 2011. 

He has held five solo exhibitions to date: Sometimes When We Touch, OUR ArtProjects, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2018); Like Someone In Love, Lostgens' Contemporary Art Space, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2015); The Artist chi too Looks at Artworks as He Contemplates the State of the Nation’s Institutions a.k.a. How Can You Be Sure, Art Row @ Publika, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2013); State of Doubt: Seven Actions Towards Dilemma, Art Lab AKIBA, Tokyo, Japan (2012); and Longing, Black Box, MAP @ Publika, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2011). He has participated in OPEN GATE 2017, Sapporo International Art Festival, Japan; OPEN GATE 2016, Aichi Triennale, Japan; and OPEN GATE 2015, Hin Bus Art Depot, Penang, Malaysia. His works have also been included in The Body Politic and The Body at ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2019); Stories We Tell To Scare Ourselves With at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); The Breathing of Maps at the Yamaguchi Centre for Arts and Media, Yamaguchi, Japan (2018); and If the World Changed, the 4th edition of the Singapore Biennale, Singapore (2013).

In his free time, chi too serves refreshing beverages and works in the arts, and news and documentary.