Academia can be a cesspool of intrigues but in the clash of the pedagogues, the blood spilled will likely be those of the students. Scathing and provocative, Zulkifli Yusoff unleashes his venom on canvas and in sculpture figurines, with choice nicknames like Professor Katak or Professor Kangkong, or just plain Ahmad the lecherous fornicator with frequent visits to the border. The ‘katak’ here could also refer to the political ‘frogs’ who jump from party to party for lucre and expediency. A jumble of grotesque faces with graffiti all over. These works got full play in the exhibition, Powerful Dialogue, at The Art Gallery Penang in 2000, and reprised partly in Zulkifli Yusoff: A Historical Survey (1996-2009), at Art Salon@SENI, Kuala Lumpur. Zulkifli won the topmost Grand Minister’s Prize in the Salon Malaysia in 1992, apart from the 1st and 3rd Prizes in Sculpture. He won the Major Award in the Bakat Muda Sezaman in 1988 and jointly in 1989. He had taken part in the Venice Biennale twice, in 1997 under the ‘Modernities And Memories: Recent Works From The Islamic World’, and then again in 2019. He had taught at the Universiti ITM and Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Tanjung Malim, which won him the National Academy Award (Visual Art) in 2007. His credentials were the Masters at Manchester Polytechnic in England (1991) and Diploma at the Mara Institute of Technology (1989). He was selected for the 1st Asia-Pacific Triennial of Art in Brisbane in 1993, the Seychelles Biennale 1992, and Singapore Biennale 2013.