Lot 126
Zulkifli Yusoff
b. Kedah, 1962
Martial Art Training, 1997
signed and dated (lower right)
acrylic on canvas
213 x 152cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Selangor
ESTIMATE RM 50,000 – 80,000
PRICE REALISED RM 123,200.00
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The politics of strife and dominance and perhaps more so, belonging, is the holy grail of existence. As Barbra Streisand sang in her song, People, ‘People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.’ Yet, she derides in her next stanza: ‘We’re children, needing other children. And yet letting a grown-up pride Hide all the need inside. Acting more like children than children.’ Yes, while Zulkifli Yusoff’s The Power installations (now in the collection of the Singapore Art Museum) mock at the institution of power through the chessboard of tin-cast characters with Daumier thrusts, his painted works of The Power II take on a broader and more humanistic trajectory of social foibles and the awkwardness of interactions which demands a high EQ (emotional quotient). This piece Martial Art Training is an important major work.
Zulkifli showed his installation, Don’t Play During Maghrib (1997) at the Venice Biennale under Modernities And Memories: Recent Works From The Islamic World in 1998. He won the Major Award in the Young Contemporary Artists in 1988 and 1989 (jointly), but his biggest triumph was the Grand Minister’s Prize in the Salon Malaysia III in 1992. He also won the National Academic Award (Visual Art) in 2007. He made the selections for the Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia, in 1993, the Singapore Biennale and Art Stage Singapore, both in 2013. Trained at the Mara Institute of Technology, Zulkifli graduated with a Masters at the Manchester Polytechnic in 1991. Zulkifli Yusoff is among the four Malaysian artists featured at the national pavilion in the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale in Venice, Italy. Zulkifli masterpieces were showcased in Art Expo Malaysia 2018 & 2019, and received extremely good remarks.
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