Indonesian contemporary artists feted at Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris

ANGELS FACE TO THE FUTURE”, 2007, Heri Dono
Trans-Figurations - Indonesian Mythologies is a new exhibition at the Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton in Paris which invites visitors to discover an energetic and effervescent generation of Indonesian artists, primarily living in Yogyakarta, a hive of artistic creativity. On display are eleven artists whose works have either be especially produced for the show or reconfigured for it.


For the exhibition Heri Dono, one of the top Indonesian artists known for his political commentary on Indonesia, has contributed three works: two paintings and one installation, his "Angels face to the future." Here again the artist finds inspiration in the Wayang puppetry to produce an army of strange looking robotic angels, made of recycled materiels. For the artist, angels represent the freedom to dream but, given his Javanese cultural heritage, they are not sacred being, and could be engine of good or destructive ones.

THE DARK WAVE, Arie Dyanto
Arie Dyanto has been primarily known as one founders of legendary comic group Apotik Komik, which made a great contribution to the development of contemporary fine arts – not only in Yogyakarta but also in Indonesia as a whole. Beyond his interest in comedy, Dyanto was also one of the pioneers of the street art movement among young artists in Yogyakarta, integrating street-vernacular techniques like stencil, print, and murals into Indonesian contemporary art. He introduced a new approach of doing street art to a younger generation of artists and encouraged them to express their “political” perspectives in making art. Today the activist street artist has mellowed and moved to a studio

Other interesting works include the videos "War of Java” and “Pilgrims and Plagues” by Jompi Jompet, who  evokes the spirits of the ancestors and transposes the traditional dances and processions into other spaces; the humorous hybrid figures that illustrate Eko Nugroho’s embroideries and wall paintings along with Mella Jaarsma’s “Fire-eaters” installed in the window display on rue de Bassano.



STRANGER ALWAYS LOOKS STRANGE”, Desi Suryanto




LAST FLOWER by Bayu Widodo