Artworks by Indieguerillas,
at Biasa Art Space, Jl. Raya Seminyak No.34, Seminyak. Tel: 8475766.
The exuberantly colorful, dynamic, and cartoonish work of the husband and wife team of Santi Ariestyowanti and Dyatmiko Bawono (Miko), referred to as ‘Indieguerillas’, is presented at the Biasa Art Space in their exhibition ‘Fools’ Lore: Folklore Reload’. “Fools’ Lore is an intentional slip-of-the tongue appropriate for their tendency of exploring folk tales, subverted for different uses”, explains curator Sudjud Dartanto. “It emphasizes an intensity of fooling around and highlights surprise, symptomatic of creation. As much as they can, ‘Indieguerillas’ are moving away from any stability of meaning”. Within the context of this exhibition, the meaning of the word ‘fool’ is equivalent to the Bahasa Indonesia term ‘pandir’: stupid, idiotic, humorous, but not without charm.
Santi and Miko created ‘Indieguerillas’ in 1999, after graduating from the Fine Art Faculty of the Indonesia Art Institute, Yogyakarta. Santi in Visual Communication Design and Miko in Interior Design. Inspired by local culture and daily events, ‘Indieguerillas’ work with video, digital art, wood, glass, resin, and acrylic on canvas.
‘Indieguerillas’ enjoy quoting, parodying, and simulating ancient folklore. They are interested in re-evaluating various symbols found in the folk tales, fairy tales and epic tales known throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Not only do they re-present representations of the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics, Javanese myths, and established legends, they also like to incorporate in to their work contemporary cult icons. Therefore, it is not surprising to find in their art popular culture images, such as movie stars, music celebrities, and fashion icons. The traditional folk tales are re-polished and re-mixed with more up-to-date popular images.
The Wayang shadow puppetry of South East Asia may no longer be popular among the younger generation, but, ‘Indieguerillas’ beg to differ. While most shadow puppet performances use archaic forms of local tongues, often difficult to understand across ethnic or generation divides, ‘Indieguerillas’ like to create new contemporary visual versions. Their aim is to popularize Wayang among youth with new images, new mediums, and new techniques.
Humor has always been the vehicle of delivering wisdom in traditional storytelling. It is the court jesters providing comic relief who have the audacity and artistic license to critique the elite and speak of taboo issues. Consequently, in works such as ‘Heavy Make Up For The Amnesiac’ and ‘Skip You, Start Me’, we find much use of theatrical ‘masks’ being stripped away, to reveal a fundamental underlying truth. Due to the clash of random and unexpected images, these works prove that the Indonesian folk tales, interpreted by ‘Indieguerillas’, can bring a new discourse to the ‘colonialist’ East-West juxtaposition. Perhaps, in a subversive manner, ‘Indieguerillas’, as image scavengers, are aiming at disrupting the perception of Indonesian culture and history.
Essentially, what lies at the heart of the art of ‘Indieguerillas’ is an ongoing investigation into East and West cultural clashes. In today’s global popular culture, signs can easily cross over. Their boundaries can transverse a landscape of meaning. An ‘Indieguerillas’ painting, such as ‘Srikandi And The Happy Paranoid Boys Club’, ‘Punker Agraris’, or, ‘Hello Andy, This Is Indie’, may start with a recognizable folk tale, but, incorporated into it may be the face of ‘Kiss’ singer Gene Simmons. The Queen of England, Marilyn Monroe, and other Andy Warhol images such as cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, may also find a place in the canvases. Along with movie characters such as Freddy Krueger and Hannibal Lecter. ‘Indieguerillas’ recombine East and West imagery into a new configuration. The question of which sign is West and which sign is East becomes no longer important. The signs are now blurred, which disrupts the stability of their meaning.
French philosopher Roland Barthes has stated: “Orient and Occident cannot be taken as ‘realities’ to be compared and contrasted historically, philosophically, culturally, and politically. I am not gazing towards an Oriental essence. What can be addressed, in the consideration of the Orient, are not the other symbols, another metaphysics, another wisdom. It is the possibility of a difference, of a mutation, of a revolution in the propriety of a symbolic system, which is important”. Through their inventive use of appropriating and representing traditional Indonesian folk tales, and then combining and juxtapositioning them with appropriated Western imagery, the ‘Indieguerillas’ are successfully revealing new possibilities and new pleasures to be found within the original stories. A pleasure, as found by Roland Barthes, when he said: “Our gaze can fall, not without perversity, upon certain old and lovely things, whose signified is abstract, out of date. It is a moment at once decadent and prophetic, a moment of gentle apocalypse. An historical moment of the greatest possible pleasure”.
And, yet, simultaneously, ‘Indieguerillas’ are also creating new symbols, and most importantly, new narratives. Thus, the viewer becomes an active consumer, creating relationships and critically participating in the work. Although their message is conveyed in a playful manner, the ‘Indieguerillas’ exhibition presents new ways of constructing, reading, understanding, and relating to old and found imagery. Imagery which has multiple interpretations, and is left, finally, to the understanding of the viewer.
As an adjunct to the exhibition the ‘Indieguerillas’ are also displaying a short video entitled ‘Banyan Tree Lounge’, with music by Ari ‘MidiJunkie’ Wulu, a Yogyakarta based sound artist. The video has a funky beat, which makes you want to dance. It is this vitality which personifies the entire show.
