If you live in TTDI or in the nearby Damansara area, you’d know that there aren’t many art galleries around. But with the opening of KEN Gallery at TTDI’s Menara KEN, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. The gallery spans over 20,000 square feet and takes up a whole floor of the building – which more than makes up for the lack of galleries in the area – making it one of the largest private galleries in the city. Property developer, art lover and owner of Menara KEN, Dato’ Kenny intends for KEN Gallery to be a space to promote local art and where art collectors can display their collection, rather than keeping the pieces in storage.
The gallery is made up of three galleries – the main hall houses the permanent collection; and two other halls for temporary exhibitions and art events. The entrance to the main hall here is pretty unique; it’s slightly hidden and you’d have to ask the receptionist to let you in through an automated door disguised as the wall – kind of like a speakeasy, but for art.
At the moment, the permanent collection houses over 100 pieces of art from various local artists, many of them coming from Dato’ Kenny’s own personal collection. As such, some of them have never been seen by the public. This includes Latiff Mohidin’s 1962 artworks ‘Palm Leaves’ and ‘Pesta Laut’. Both the pieces are unique as Latiff has painted on both sides of the canvas, something that hasn’t been seen in any of his other works. Other notable artists who have their art on display here include Ibrahim Hussein, Juhari Said, Sharifah Fatimah, Chian Yu Chian and many more.
The main hall also includes a long corridor of cabinets filled with Ming and Qing period porcelain, well lit by the floor to ceiling windows that open out to a panoramic view of TTDI. And at the end of this corridor is the Oriental Pavilion, which has various works of Chinese calligraphy by Malaysian artists and antique Chinese furniture on display.