This is a tumblelog, kinda like a blog but with short-form, mixed-media posts with stuff I like. Scroll down a bit to start reading, or a bit more to read more about me.
Betina, jika di barat nanti
menjadi gelap
turut tenggelam sama sekali
juga yang mengendap,
di mukamu tinggal bermain Hidup dan Mati.
Matamu menentang – sebentar dulu! –
Kau tidak gamang, hidup kau sintuh, kau cumbu,
sekarang senja gosong, tinggal abu…
Dalam tubuhmu ramping masih berkejaran
Perempuan dan Laki.
Wok The Rock, ‘Golden Love Songs’ (2012), ‘I Burned Your Life’ (2011).
Multi-tasking between his roles as an artist, graphic designer, musician, and indie music producer, Wok has continually been making crossovers between two worlds, music and visual arts. Burn Your Idol is an interdisciplinary project that he has been developing since 2009, part music research and part visual art project combining photography, multimedia, graphic/web design, and a viral cultural campaign. It is a tribute to music (a product of the global pop culture) itself that he regards as a major part of the construction and memory collective of the young generation in Indonesia.
He continued the premise of Burn Your Idol in his ‘Golden Memories’ project during a recent residency in Melbourne, in which he applied a similar approach to focus on the Indonesian diaspora in Australia. The work ‘Golden Love Songs’ is one of the products of the residency, so I chose it along with one of the outputs of Burn Your Idol, a picture book entitled ‘I Burn Your Life’, an integral part of the whole installation that also serves as an autonomous piece that can speak for itself.
Tandun, ‘Observing MJ Rolling’ (2012), ‘Observing Paul K’ (2011).
Around Jakarta creative circles, Tandun is more well-known as a graphic designer, videographer, and digital image artist, with works ranging from cover art and publicity photos for indie musicians and from advertising to video music production, especially with a group called Satellite of Love. He has been deeply engaged with the independent subcultural movements generated from his alma mater, The Jakarta Arts Institute, since the late ‘90s – which played a very significant role in shaping the visual trajectory of the Jakarta creative industry after the 2000s, from art and design to film.
The work I selected for this exhibition is his ‘Observing’ series, based on a work that he created in early 2000s, in which he made a portrait of his daily life with himself multiplied in several poses and activities in one frame, interacting with random objects with the scenes depicting one ‘clone’ observing what the other is doing, or all of them together watching the same object. The work can be taken as a metaphor of the increasingly ambiguous, blurring notions of individualism in the contemporary urban life, and one’s personal desire to be able to multiply oneself to see each other from different angles, as well as seeing one thing from multiple perspectives.
Paul Kadarisman, ‘Wish You Were Here 1’ (2007), ‘Walking Wounded’ (2008).
Paul can be said to be one of the most prolific artists of his generation focusing on making art solely with photography, starting from way back when he was still studying at The Jakarta Arts Institute. He also stood out for choosing exhibitions outside the commercial gallery circles, being a regular favorite at Galeri Foto Antara, (the gallery of Indonesian National News Agency) and Oktagon, an independent art space specifically focusing on photography in West Jakarta, which was significantly active during early to mid-2000s.
The Jakarta urban culture and neurosis are the basis of Paul’s photos, which often capture its landscapes, facades, people and objects whether in natural, candid or staged settings with an authentic sense of dark humor, cynicism and irony towards life that most young urbanites in Jakarta can relate – all of them skillfully adhering to strict photographic principles and techniques. For this exhibition I choose one of his ‘Wish You Were Here’ series, a set of portraits of completely empty streets and buildings in Jakarta – moments/scenes that are extremely rare in the eyes of everyday Jakartans and anyone who have been or lived there, perfectly revealing the alienation, loneliness, and melancholy usually hidden under the urban sprawl and noise. I also selected ‘Walking Wounded’, one of his standalone pieces that further strengthens the above effects, while nicely corresponding to Keke Tumbuan’s ‘Untitled’.
