The concept of medium specificity has a long-lasting impact on the art world since it was introduced. It has been a contention between Modern Art critics and historians because of its unreliability (as it was a social convention) and often seen as a quest to subscribed to the idea of artistic hierarchy. Oxford English Dictionary defined ‘specificity’ as ‘the quality or fact of being specific in operation or effect’, or ‘being specific in character’. In terms of art, the medium is understood as ‘any raw material or mode of expression used in an artistic or creative activity. Combining these two words, ‘medium-specificity’, create a composite meaning as ‘the quality of being specific, in operation and effect, to the character of the raw material being used as a mode of artistic expression.’ Championed by art critic Clement Greenberg, he described medium specificity hold ‘the unique and proper area of competence for a form of art’ matches the ability of an artist to manipulate those features that are ‘unique to the nature’ of a particular medium. In this sense, medium specificity is based on the distinct materiality of artistic media; however, these categories are primarily defined by convention. Rosalind Krauss, an avid critic of Modern Art theory claiming otherwise, said that artists must invent their own medium. In order for art to ‘think itself’, it must reconstruct as a language, a set of propositions akin to a speech. Today, the notion of medium specificity has been explored and expanded. Medium is defined as both materials that the artist uses to make their work and the set of conventions to which they refer. Medium is neither inherent nor immutable, but a set of devices which aspect can be utilised and operate as a form of documentation, information, communication, participation, and interaction. This essay considers the strategic use of materiality in the latest works of Zulkifli Lee where he explores the concept of medium specificity as a tool. Blurring the distinction between material and medium to create its own ‘history’ and meaning.

For the past few years, Zulkifli has been continuously working with the natural medium, by using organic materials such as corrosion patina, sand, soil, limestone, and spice in an effort to investigate the dynamic relationship between human and nature. The growing interest in the tactile aspect of his work resulted in the expansion of his usual two-dimensional oeuvre and subsequently focused on sculpture works in this show. His three-dimensional works examine the notion of interdependent relationships. He uses materiality and forms as the dichotomy of elements, to show shifting entanglement of relations. He looked at material as a mechanism that is capable to produce its own meaning and value. As described by philosopher and physicist Karen Bared “To engage with materials also means to formulate a critique of logocentrism and predominance of written language as a tool to generate and communicate meaning.” This furthers his approach to avoid engaging his work in a representational and anthropocentric way. Working predominantly in wood and metal, he engaged materials directly to present its true character. The wood and steel were never painted or treated. This is seen as a way of accepting and embracing both its beauty and imperfection, so the essence of the matter is not altered and distorted. He liberated himself from an illusionistic approach and invested in the natural inherent character of his materials. Perhaps the quote from the founder of Gutai group Jiro Yoshihara, best to describe this attitude: “They are an illusion with which, by human hand and by way of fraud, materials such as paint, pieces of cloth, metals, clay or marble are loaded with false significance, so that, instead of just presenting their own materials self. They take on the appearance of something else, under the cloak of an intellectual aim, the materials have been completely murdered and can no longer speak to us.”

For Zulkifli, the medium is also the matter of its employment; a system of interdependency that embodies intrinsic value and function. His choices of material; wood, soil, and metal inherit different connotations. The combination of natural and man-made materials reveals the artist’s thought process pertaining to the relationship and harmony between the contradictory opposites. Fundamentally, the selected material’s ontological form is oxymoronic and superlative, pushing the paradoxical “coincidentia oppositorum” (coincidence of opposites). The artist’s reconfirming an appeal of the familiar interconnected relationship. It presents the entangled binary relation, between disturbing and comforting, human and nature, space and forms, void and mass, singularity and duality, beauty and utility, perfection and imperfection, regular and irregular, to name but a few. Thus, the manner of Zulkifli’s material is both autonomous and dependent at the same time.

In his work, meaning or value is not only determined by the singularity of an object but also the consisting element merges into an articulation of a system, allowing both medium and form to become dependable and may constitute and reconstitute each other. The intermediary between wood and steel create a juxtaposition of solid mass and structural construction, occupying each other space in a repetitive geometrical pattern, informed by the systematic compositional scheme. The patterns structured in his works generally are modular combinations of a mathematical conjecture of simple basic forms such as the cube, block, diagonal, horizontal, and vertical lines in space. Mathematical order was used to distinguish the connection both spatially as well as physically. The Mathematical approach is primarily a use of processes of logical thought towards the plastic expression of rhythms and relationship. Artist have sought, in the authority and order of mathematical laws, a similar relief from the responsibilities of personal freedom. The solid wood and constructed steels interlocked and integrated into an equilibrium, pulling in and out, actively nullifying the presence and the absence of shape and form. It’s like a process of giving and accepting, a negotiation between volume and void. The space is protruding and recedes from each other. No dominance of positive over negative space. It’s designed so that unity of part is directed toward the unity of the whole and vice versa. As he explained: a small unit interlocked with other units to form a larger interdependent whole. Each unit can stand on its own while simultaneously existing as a part of a larger macro form.

Sculpture naturally creates a certain form of interaction with the audience: an intellectual situation, in which the audience acquires an understanding of space and volume as a prerequisite for analytically or figuratively possessing the form; and a sensuous mode of acquisition and possession. The tactility of Zulkifli’s sculpture works embraces the real space or place– the place where you can access, interact, and communicate physically. The occupation of the object within the space influences the viewer’s relationship with that space. Normally an object is identified through their setting, where the arrangement is designed to encourage the audience to interact or to participate. The participatory aspect in his work emphasis the empiricist view and haptic interaction explored by the artist. This element is a primordial natural behaviour related to direct bodily sensation. The work can be activated by the people and in return, the people activated by the work. Hence, expanding the consciousness, perceptions, and awareness as the result of those experiences.

He presents this set-up in one of his pieces titled Bentuk dan Kelakuan (literally translated; Form and Behaviour), where the audiences are invited to interact with the steel balls placed on top of two cubical carved wood. Through touch, the audience is able to feel the real physics of the objects, for instance, their weight, resistance, and textural features. The medium might speak back to us even though we try to channel it with or without any purpose. This is an area that might extend our senses into a great height, as touch is systematically intricate. It connects our visceral and intellect sensibility. Touch infers an enhanced form of interaction, as it implies reciprocity and multiplicity. The presence of the viewer and their perception triangulates the relation between the artist and their intention. Even though art is deeply a private experience, it’s also a collective one. This approach established an exchange between personal and collective ideas. Artist’s role here is to investigate how communication can be apprehended and how the art object establishes a connection with the audience.

As for Zulkifli, a work of art can be the paradigm and the presentation of truthfulness – not just a self-reflective decorum but also an inclusion of external reality, other than self. It acknowledges the interdependency between human and non-human elements and the relation it has with one another. Our consciousness of our own reality is how we understand and organise the complexities of its existence. In this sense, Zulkifli’s work is a "modulation" of life and operates along with those contexts. In addition, this “modulation” serves both as a means to process incoming information, but also as a filter. It is not only determining the understanding of what we perceive as reality but what it means and how it operates.

Zulkifli’s sculpture works involve some mixture of sensory and perceptual elements. Each element interconnect and influence each other’s existence, both in their similarities and opposites traits. When two things collide in a dialectical way some new meaning, forms and value emerge, uncovering new possibilities. A medium is not only a specifiable essence dictated by elemental materiality or by techniques or technology, it also can take account of our skills, habits, social spaces, institutions, and markets. It’s like an exquisite mixture of different elements come together. Zulkifli’s sculptures not only provide an outlook of the versatility of medium but also inquire about the significance of materiality that increasingly takes over our daily interaction. Zulkifli operates in a manner of genuine curiosity, exploring the cerebral aspect of material and form as a vehicle to convey his inquisitiveness upon the phenomenon of the real world. The way the artist incorporated this nature through his medium embodied and realized the complexities of life. Acknowledged the shifting relation of value and function we had, between each other, as a way to celebrate and embrace a true spirit of unity.