That blog title post looks really awkward. Anyways, before I catch some zzzs, thought I'd pose a question. How many of us Indo-Sino-Pinoy-YBA-FrenchImprezzo-Koonster freaks know next to nothing about Malaysian contemporary art? Raise your hands! In a kind of teaser to the inaugural 1 Malaysia Contemporary Art Tourism Festival in July (don't worry Biennale/Singapore Art Show folks, they say it's not gonna be like that at all), I'm here in KL for the presser tomorrow to launch something big. In the meantime, the small international media group (I was the only one from Singapore. The three other press folks were from Hong Kong. What's up with the snub local press? Not big enough an event isit?) had a nice chat with the charismatic husband/wife collector tag-team of Aliya and Farouk Khan. Topics covered: a condensed history of Malaysian contemporary art, "projector art" (and why art crtics are so scared to discuss this issue), contemporary art as tourism, Nanyang Art (in Singapore and Malacca) as Decorative Art, etc etc. Since the mid-90s, the couple has been championing Malaysian contemporary artists. They've got over a thousand works by around 80+ artists from the mid-80s onwards. Farouk's also Singaporean. And yes, I asked him why he doesn't collect Singapore art. Er, let's just say he said he'd rather pass. A truly inspiring evening that made me think twice about collectors and Malaysian contemporary art. And underscored why documentation is so important. You see, they love MCA so much that they're publishing a huge-ass book on their entire collection. Here's a sneak peek.