See the history of art in Malaysia at this exhibition

Chia Yu Chian’s Jalan Yap Ah Loy (oil on canvas, 1985). Photo: National Visual Arts Gallery

There are not many artworks that manage to be more bewildering to the casual art gallery visitor than those comprising a single dot, a lone squiggle, or a puzzling splotch of red paint.

But at Mapping: Malaysian Modern Art History, an exhibition now showing at the National Visual Arts Gallery (NVAG) in Kuala Lumpur, there is an artwork that might just surpass the reputation of these usual suspects: a blank canvas hanging on one wall, with its accompanying caption boldly confirming: “Canvas Kosong/Empty Canvas”.