3 important questions you never thought to ask about the Selangor Sultan’s MP painting.

Art has been used as a form of self-expression for centuries. But here in Malaysia, perhaps our more popular forms of art tend to be politically-based, which has been used to convey some of the dissatisfactions that we (or in this case, the artist themselves) have towards our administration/politicians.

But unfortunately, political artwork in Malaysia has always been a pretty grey area, and several artists here in Malaysia have gotten themselves in trouble with the authorities for this reason. So, imagine our surprise when we found out that the Sultan of Selangor bought a political-esque painting of our Dewan Rakyat that’s… a little bananas.

But while most Malaysians have been speculating about the reasons why the Selangor Sultan might have decided to buy this painting, we personally felt like there were bigger questions that weren’t being asked and therefore, left unanswered. For example…

1. Could the person who painted it be a famous political artist?

At the time of writing, the true identity of the artist remains unknown. Though when news of the painting first broke, some people started speculating on who might be behind the piece, with one of the names being Fahmi Reza, seeing as he is one of our most renowned local political artists. But we think otherwise. Here’s why:

1.  The painting doesn’t really seem to fit his (cartoonish?) art style.
2.  He’s had beef with royalty in the past.
3.  He’s clarified that he “doesn’t sell any any painting or artwork“, as almost all of his design work were political posters for protest purposes.
4.  He’s even made a post questioning why the painting was not considered “rude”, while his Mojo-Jojo artwork that he made as a response to this had landed him in Bukit Aman.

pic.twitter.com/HcpmVfkTuN

— Fahmi Reza (@kuasasiswa) April 17, 2022

That aside, some have also speculated if it might be other Malaysian political artists like Zunar but so far there’s not been anything substantial enough to prove that it might be him, especially due to the difference in art style. A few people even thought that it might even be Banksy, but that’s highly unlikely since he’s probably not even Malaysian. However, while people are speculating about who might be the one behind the painting, there’s a chance that only a certain number of people might know whose artwork this is, and that solely depends on…

2. Could the Sultan have purchased it from an art gallery… or an art dealer?

Depending on the method that the Sultan could have used to buy this painting, the identity of the artist that’s currently anonymous would probably only be known by the people who’ve been involved in the deal. And if you didn’t know it yet, buying art isn’t as simple as buying groceries from a supermarket; you can’t just walk into a gallery, take one of the artworks off the wall, and bring it to the cashier for payment.

Instead, there’s usually a long and complicated process that goes into wanting to procure a literal work of art… and yes, it’s as boujee as it sounds. Of course, it might differ according to the gallery, country, or piece you’re trying to get your hands on, but it could go one of a few ways:

• Buying a piece of art from an art gallery itself
• Attending an art auction
• Seeking the help of an art dealer to help you seal your deals
• Or, buying/commissioning it directly from the artist themselves.

But if we were to look at the possibilities, it’s highly unlikely that he bought it at a gallery. Even though it doesn’t seem like there’s been any sort of legal jurisdiction on whether political art can or cannot be exhibited in galleries, but the National Gallery has censored four artworks for having political content in the past, and an artist was quoted as saying that there’s “always a limit when a piece is meant for public viewing”. For all we know, it could have been the Selangor Royal Painter, but we can’t say for sure.

However, if we were to look at the piece itself, it really doesn’t seem directly political at first glance. Without context, it might look like a simple realistic painting of parliament… but with monkeys and frogs filling the seats instead of MP’s. Speaking of which…

3. Who are these monkeys and frogs supposed to symbolize?

After staring at the painting for close to an hour, there were a few things that we noticed about the piece:

First of all, the Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat, along with the two secretaries in front are not being depicted as anything specific. We think that this might be because the figure of the Speaker and the two secretaries represent impartiality in the Dewan Rakyat. The speaker also looks like Art Harun, which affirms that the painting must have been made pretty recently.

Additionally, that this painting seems to be somewhat inspired by Banksy’s Devolved Parliament piece, but we couldn’t help but notice that the artist decided to use different kinds of monkeys/primates instead of just chimpanzees like in the original Banksy piece, and also added frogs.

We know that you probably already know the reference, so we won’t delve into that. However, we couldn’t help but notice that the arrangement of the monkeys and frogs seem to be in some sort of order. Could it be just an artistic choice, or maybe it’s based on something else?

We don’t know for sure, but we’ll just leave the Dewan Rakyat seating arrangements here for you guys to try and figure out:

Like all pieces of art, it’s open for interpretation. For now at least.

‘Cause here’s the thing about art: It’s super subjective. Two people could look at the same painting and have completely different interpretations of the piece, and that’s kind of the beauty of it. So, in the end it’s really up to the artist to decide their own take on the piece. However with a painting like this, we guess the message is pretty clear lah, since it’s pretty direct and not an abstract piece.

However, since the identity of the artist is still unknown and no one has come forward to take the credit, we guess all the questions we have about the painting remain unanswered. Though, we’re pretty sure that the artist wouldn’t want to reveal themselves, considering that they might get hauled up to Bukit Aman right after. But even if their identity was revealed, we’re wondering if they would actually get in trouble considering that their work was bought by the Selangor Sultan himself.

In any case, if the person who made the artwork happens to be reading this, we’d love to commission you for a piece. Feel free to slide into our DM’s at [email protected]