Curatorial text_ITB Class show - Google Docs
- 1. May contain criticism 16 - 22. December 2016. Titik Temi Space, Bandung Exhibiting artists: Mochamad Hasrul Indrabakti, Yuta Inten, Hasbi Putra Agung, Ahda Yunia Sekar Fardhani, Astiti Ramdani Elmanisa, Michael Eliza, Debora Patricia Glorya Ram Moz, Angga Aditya Atmadilaga, Dey Irfan, Mladen Jankovic, Norie Paramita Curator: András Heszky The group exhibition May contain criticism shows works of 11 artists of ITB’s master class of 2016. The exhibition intends to evolve into a series of shows, where the diverse interests and focuses of the artists, and the many differences in the use of the media are planned to get closer to each other. In the process of this convergence, the group tries to acquire a more homogenous profile in order to attain a certain cohesion and coherence which is usually missing, when the idea of exhibiting together precedes a conceptual selections of works according to a curatorial idea (as it could not happen for in this exhibition). However, after a closer look at each of the works, there is already some similarities to discover. As a sort of a guideline in reading the particular artworks, their critical approaches could already offer itself as a certain rhetoric, which they share as a common quality. Hence the title, which recalls the vague statement on foods that warns people before consuming certain goods (those who are allergic to peanuts, for example - as “May contain peanut” became a common phrase). By playfully referring to the accidentality of critical attitude of the works, the curatorial concept avoids the accusation of being too general or vague, but on the other hand it maintains some claim for a coherent idea. My curatorial job was to find some of the possible readings of the works and ways of interpretation, where the idea of criticism can be extracted and articulated. Mochamad Hasrul Indrabakti engages with the idea of transparency and adds a critical note in observing the the mechanism of news and streaming of live events. The black box, in this case could stand for the unmediated, yet unapproachable, ultimate truth, which one can only encounter in the form of mediation, at low opacity and necessarily without some of its original dimension. The three-dimensional kinetic object, which could signify the never ending mantra of news and the infinite line of stories, complicated political events, appears only as a two-dimensional, flat visuality on the TV and this way it confronts the viewer with the deficit this streaming mechanism implies. In the era of “post-truth”, where the representation of real life events and their interpretation precedes the originality of the real source, the work can be seen as a critical remark on such phenomenon. Yuta Inten is graduate of textile-design at ITB and as an artists, in her first time exhibiting, she decides to use critical gestures, not just in deconstructing and reconstructing a wedding dress, but by reflecting on the institution of marriage as such. The bridal-gown,
- 2. which first she sewed herself, now stands as torn and resewed piece in the exhibition space. This way, the work refers not just to a subtle transition from crafts to arts, but also reflects a possible private life event, where one is forced to acquire an inferior position and thus forced to deal with hurt feelings, being torn apart and being vulnerable by aggression. Despite the promises of marriage, which guarantees an equal role between man and woman, reality very often can turn into a disastrous disappointment. The sculpture like dress, which critically reflects on the promise of eternal marriage and at the same time stands for objectification and the disability of movement and individual freedom, uses a theme of fairy tale that is interpreted in a gothic and dark manner. Meanwhile, the technique of reseweing the torn dress with a golden thread goes back to ancient Japanese technique of restaurating ceramic objects with gold. This gesture signifies an extreme strong will for personal recovery and a nostalgic commemoration of the once-existing belief in personal well-being. Hasbi Putra Agung makes a critical remark on one of the bad urbanistic habits in Indonesia. In his works, which is his first one that does not depart from personal matters and or more formalistic practises, he chooses to build a tree and to it put into cement - a material which is often used in cities to prohibit tree from growing and regulates its organic life in order to prevent the streets from damage. The work deals with the cohabitation of non-human beings, like trees and humans and thus it questions the borderline between nature and culture, the role of trees in human environments and cities. The artificial matter of cement contradicts the logic of pure vegetation, which in urbanist planning practices might be seen just as a sheer object, an obstacle, therefore an unnecessary thing. This bad attitude directly leads to human activities, like destroying the rainforest (e.g. in Kalimantan) which as a superior and aggressive act not just accelerates global warming but also contributes to endangering the life of different species, most known, that of the orangutan. This era, the era of anthropocene, where human history is already closely related to deep time (the time of the Earth) calls our attention to an inter-species solidarity where human hubris should lose its ultimate role in governing the world and give voice to other natural actors of the planet in order to avoid a sinister and threatening outcome. Ahda Yunia Sekar Fardhani, like Yuta, has an education background in textile designs. In her work, she gives a critical voice about the industrialisation of the traditional handcraft technique, the batik. By using aluminium, a very rigid and industrial material contrasting both the flexibility of the textile and the free hand-movement reflected by the drawing, she attributes qualities to the industrial production which in their brutal character, are totally alien to this traditional art. Also her work calls the originality of mass-products into question, and commemorates the old technique which is far richer in visuality than the uniformal tendencies of production may tell. In the interlock technique, one could find the metaphor of batik being trapped or imprisoned by modern-day technology, which, after all, changes its unique character of the art old form. The kawung pattern is said refer to the structure of the universe as well as it can recall the four elements of the world (earth, air, water, fire). Both meanings are extinguished by industrialisation, that only reflects the logic of the faceless and homogenous production and strict calculation. This way, Ahda’s work is a
- 3. critical response of today’s relationship to batik that became a bare visual form, and to which we lost our more personal engagement. In her work, Astiti Ramdani Elmanisa goes back to one of the most well-known literary pieces in European culture, Dane Alighieri’s Divina Commedia. The drawing, which she is appropriating, is an illustration by Paul Gustav Doré, who made a name an an engraver and illustrator of the Bible, the works of Balzac, Milton, or Edgar Allan’s poem The Raven in the second half of the 19th century. The original drawing is an illustration for an English edition of Inferno, the first book of Divina Commedia, where the protagonist Dante journays through Hell, with his guide, the roman poet Virgil. On their route into the depth of the darkness of the underworld, they are going through every circle of Hell - each a place where the souls are suffering as a punishment according to their sinful lives on Earth. Among them some contemporary figures and friends of Dante can be found, as well as almost every figure of the literary, mythological or biblical tradition of Europe. Doré’s drawing, which Astiti is appropriating, illustrates the fifth circle of Hell. After the fourth circle, where they saw greedy people, who once were obsessed with material goods and fortune (among them catholic priests, clergymen, cardinals or popes), in the fifth, souls are suffering in the river Styx, due to their hatred and wrath. Some of the figures on Astiti’s appropriation appear now in Muslim dress and there are also recognizable changes in the background (which would be reminiscences of the destroyed cultural heritages by islamist extremism, as happened recently), which gives a critical reading of any excessive and false religious belief of certain groups, that use and appropriate religion falsely to legitimize their sinful activity. Astiti’s own reading of the scene in Dante’s Hell asks us to question the righteousness of every extremist belief of this kind. Michael Eliza has been practising as a canine artists, as he likes to call himself. His artworks (which sometimes as bigger oil paintings or smaller drawings depict wolves, dogs, foxes etc. in harmonious, ideal surroundings) are not totally separable from his personal life, if we consider that he has been running a dog sanctuary but also has an art gallery in his house, which as well gives home for many rescued dogs. In his work for the show, for the first time in an exhibition, he chooses a different way to depict animals by referring to the aesthetics of fandom furry. The dog seen at the end part of a sperm-formed sculpture (intended to recall some sort of identity) is standing on his feet and is wearing a t-shirt suggesting he is undergoing doctorate studies. By putting the dog into an educational context, this anthropomorphic depiction of the animal critically-ironically plays with the pejorative connotations, usually attached to the subculture of furries. While furries usually face an act of condemnation for being “freaks”, “deviant” or “non-mainstream”, their world is nevertheless very rich in creativity (“fanact”, “fan labor” etc). Their most important value is art, which is distributed on the internet or at conventions in the form of fanzines, hand-crafted furres, sketchbooks, games, gifs that sometimes also have erotic dimension. This fantasy world could be realm for some who otherwise could not accommodate themselves in “normal” life. With the gesture of putting the anthropomorphic border-collie as an avatar from a fantasy world into real life-context, Michael is relativizing our concepts of “normal” and “eccentric”.
- 4. Debora Patricia Glorya Ram Moz has an education background in graphic design, and now as a member of ITB master class 2016, she decides to reflect on her entry into the institution of the artworld. This world, in the opinion of the artist, is too often overloaded with harsh competition, individualism and narcissism. The mirror she exhibits, with its rich cultural connotations both as a metaphor for vanity or as something magical that reflects a more profound truth which is hidden, delays the personal introduction of the artist and turns the attention to the context she is about to enter. The slogan, which is a paraphrase of the fairytale Snow White (“Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”) suggests a contemplative position which asks question about the institution of the artworld as well as the individual ars poetica of the artist, who, in this way, seems to be in a pursue of artistic identity. In the world of Angga Aditya Atmadilaga, mythological creatures, beasts, heroes, dragons, snakes are depicted in constant battle. As a technique, he chooses to carve on metal plates which lends a certain noble quality to the works. Angga is using both Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian mythological characters and incorporates ancient iconography to deliver meanings for the battles (e.g. greed versus innocence, evil and good.) Mythology has always been a tool for describing the universe and for give an account of the structure of the cosmos and the ontology of humankind. According to the artist, this mythological world which consists of binary oppositions could seem to be a relevant artistic program even to talk about dualism in contemporary life, when it comes to corruption, poverty, freedom, military suppression, state hostility or the fading of traditional aesthetics. In the recent years, Dey Irfan has been experimenting with different techniques by incorporating them on the same picture plane. He usually chooses acryl or photography print depicting a landscape and applies lines, or grid forms with embroidery to deconstruct the pure vision. With subtle and fine execution, he filters the outer reality through more abstract elements, like cubes or expressive, colorful brushstrokes whose volume often prevents the viewer to get engaged with the background visual. The landscape thus become fragments and only reminiscence, thus the works blurs the borderline between the world and the subjective perception and individual preservation of a moment. The abstract forms conjure a confusion in the vision, often in a way that they themselves become canvases of smaller fragments and cut-outs of nature from different angles and perspectives, lending a kind of cubist quality to the pictures. Gradually, Dey has become more minimalistic in his practice, and the once alien abstract forms, now with white background, in ethereal space tend to gain more natural impression on their own. As folded and prism-like elements they remind of relief maps or minerals. In his latest compositions, Dey preserves the consequences of his former works by depending on the tension of figrativity and abstraction, mental states and the outer world. The triptych he is showing in the exhibition depicts people under the influence of drugs. In each case, an icon hints at the kind of the drug they are using, which in its gesture goes back to ancient Egyptian manner of representation of people under the influence of the flower lotus. The drawings of people in this trans state juxtaposes the two qualities (mental events, memories and the outside, natural, material world) to the extreme, and tries to find the proper visual articulation of mental events in the context of the artist’s own aesthetic interests.