GALERI PETRONAS

This guide to GALERI PETRONAS in Kuala Lumpur traces an unusual choice by a national oil company in 1998: tucking a free art gallery into a shopping mall at the base of the towers it had just built to announce Malaysia to the world. It follows the gallery back to its earlier home across town, through decades of exhibitions and a growing collection, and into the work of Malaysian Modern Masters like Syed Ahmad Jamal and Ibrahim Hussein. The circular gallery space was designed so the art wouldn't compete with the towers pressing in from outside.