The Evolution of Installation Art in Malaysia

Artworks in the form of “installation art” has become a wide range of artistic activities in the current art world. In the context of Malaysian art, the term was originally used to describe some of the art produced during the 1990s (although most are classified as mixed media). This article examines the development of installation art in the Malaysian art world and discusses several early works that could be proposed as an early impetus for installation art in Malaysian art practice. Clear historical contours and claims about the development of installation art require different research. However, this article is limited to examining three concurrency areas or important turning points in order to gain a clearer insight into the evolution of installation art as an artistic practice in Malaysia. The three areas that this paper will clarify are: (1) 2D and 3D participation or competition in the 1970s; (2) Young Contemporaries Award (YCA), as a platform for installation art participation, and (3) appearance site-specific installation art projects in the late 1990s.