GALERIE CHRISTIAN HOSP is proud to present “Everything You Can Imagine Is Real #1” a show of new works by West Sumatra-based contemporary artists Handiwirman Saputra, Yuli Prayitno, and Yusra Martunus, running between June 24 and July 30 2011.
With new paintings, sculptures, and photographs, ‘Everything You Can Imagine Is Real #1’ offers an insight into the work of three key figures of the dynamic Indonesian contemporary art scene.
In this show, the trio’s European debut, their parallel investigations into form, material and substance range across conceptual and rational strategies. Compelling and richly-textured, the work presented here articulates common themes of subversion and re-appropriation through three very distinct practices.
Handiwirman, Prayitno and Martunus are all affiliated with the Jendela Art Group collective, a movement that first attained prominence in Indonesia during the 1990s. Eschewing the didacticism of the prevailing contemporary art scene and its primary focus on socio-political issues, Jendela’s perspectives revolved around questions of formalism and technique.
Handiwirman Saputra (b. 1975, Padang, Indonesia) is showing three pieces from his ongoing Tak Berakar Tak Berpucuk (No Roots, No Shoots) series of sculptures, fashioned from re-appropriated found objects. Included here are elements ranging from sponge, plastic and PVC to steel, fabric, aluminium corrugated roof sheet, plywood and Styrofoam. Handiwirman’s self-taught technique reflects his ongoing fascination with textures, colours and forms, a gently acerbic wit and non-didactic approach combining into new visual and physical rhythms and structures. For Tak Berakar Tak Berpucuk. Painting # 09, (No Roots, No Shoots) he first heats the fabric of the screen up and then applies puff ink on it, by that constructing an unique tactual an visual experience.
In Deer, I'm Going There, Yuli Prayitno (b. 1974, Bandung, Indonesia) also investigates the formal outcomes of material experiments with his series of deer antlers, rendered in soft, floppy silicon-rubber. His work probes potential alternate realities in which playful, yet pointed, scenarios emerge from dramatic subversions and skewering of superficiality.
Yusra Martunus (b. 1973, Padang Panjang, Indonesia) continues the show’s investigation into the boundaries of formalism and abstraction through a series of deceptively simple pieces. His sculpture incorporating a towel bar, in 09101 (lentur-series), or his piece titled 1101 (envelope-series) are analogies of formal constructions within a framework of social constructions. This is evident in the pieces making up the lentur series, each made up of two components, where one is in constant adjustment to the other. Such situations can serve as triggers for him to build imaginations of form within his works.
In ‘Everything You Can Imagine Is Real #1’, the artists channel the new wave of energy coursing through the South East Asian art scene, through exciting new approaches to formalism and media, making for a crucial contribution to international contemporary art discourse and debate.
