Solo Exhibition – Suvi Wahyudianto
December 17th, 2019 – January 17th, 2020
Cemeti – Institute for Art and Society
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction | Artwork Images | Opening Documentation | Essay | Artist’s Biography
Introduction
THINGS WHICH RUIN into the self can simultaneously push out into complex expressions. Unoften, there is a need to contextualize private matters with the public events. If then ambivalence — the impact of that effort — influences the style of expression and also determines the process of enriching self-conception, can it be a possibility in seeing the relationship between personal struggle and existing social tensions? When responding to the issue of violence, an artist can consciously position himself as a representative of certain social groups that are in contact with other social groups. Framing the artist’s work on the complexity of his personal and social experiences can be another offer of poetic mapping of conflict awareness.
Positioning himself as a specific laboratory to unravel his subjective understanding of identity politics and experiences of violence, Suvi Wahyudianto (Madura, 28 April 1992) tried to uncover this possibility. As the heir to the ethnic conflict narrative that plagued the previous generation, his personal body has become a metaphor of the concept of a house with various bitter memories — about family, birthland, overseas areas, and social relations — jostling to hurry home.
As with the autoethnographic approach in the social science, Suvi addresses his body as a source of anecdotes that are necessarily connected to broader social, political and cultural meanings. In the house (body), instead of remembering, Suvi actually communicates — if not wrestle — with memories that return, then translates the results of the communication into a series of paintings and object installations.
Based on the findings while doing the Rimpang X Kelana residency in Pontianak, Kalimantan, June-July 2019, Suvi’s solo exhibition titled The Memories Hurrying Home is a deconstruction effort on the power discourse that has been working in the cultural environment that he received since birth, which certainly influences the way he builds relationship in and outside his nearest environment. The project also departs from experiments in the form of “pilgrimage” activities to Sambas, 20 years after the conflict, to test the limitations of his body (both psychologically and physically) when he “re-experiences” the discourse of violent conflict which is now latent. The Memories Hurrying Home offers poetic articulation about the meeting point between personal trauma that occurs in the domestic sphere and collective trauma that perpetuates in society.
Suvi’s visual works in this series are the result of visualization of various objects which he considers represent real experiences, self-identities, and models of social relations that exist outside. These objects are performative in the context of how they accommodate bitterness in the family environment, as well as perceiving (directly and indirectly) the phenomenon of social conflict in Indonesia. All of them imagine a quiet nuance but it also implies a very strong noise.
Artwork Images
Artwork Images
Landscape and The Last Chapter
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
52 x 57 cm
2019
Sempadung Horizon #1
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
156 x 85 cm
2019
Sempadung Horizon #2 (1)
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
44,5 x 22,5 cm
2019
Sempadung Horizon #2 (2)
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
44,5 x 22,5 cm
2019
Landscape and The Ruined Cow
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
79 x 60 cm (6 panels)
2019
Landscape and The Ruined Cow #1
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
79 x 60 cm
2019
Landscape and The Ruined Cow #2
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
79 x 60 cm
2019
Landscape and The Ruined Cow #3
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
79 x 60 cm
2019
Landscape and The Ruined Cow #4
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
79 x 60 cm
2019
Landscape and The Ruined Cow #5
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
79 x 60 cm
2019
Landscape and The Ruined Cow #6
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
79 x 60 cm
2019
Cow Eye Table 18:49 – 19:49
Ink on paper (60 pieces), iron table
19,5 x 13 cm (sketches)
240 x 117 cm (table)
2019
Sewing Paper
Sewing thread, watercolour, onionskin paper and iron table
96 x 71 x 83 cm (5 panels)
2019
The Cow and The Remains #1
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
106 x 79 cm
2019
The Cow and The Remains #2
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
157 x 53 cm
2019
The Cow and The Remains #3
Ink on paper, canvas and iron table
32 x 32 x 151 cm
2019
The Cow and The Remains #4
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
157 x 53 cm
2019
The Cow and The Remains #5
Watercolour and tobacco extract on paper
157 x 53 cm
2019
When the Darker Nights Come
Iron Chamber, crock and water
247 x 123 x 183 cm
2019
The Falling Blade
Watercolour on paper
100 x 70 cm (2 panel)
2019
Exhibition View
Opening Documentation
Opening Documentation
Photo documentation Exhibition Opening The Memories Hurrying Home, December 17th, 2019, Cemeti – Institute for Art and Society. (Photo: Muhammad Dzulqornain & Ika Nurcahyani)
Essay
Essay
Memetakan Kembali Pemetaan Puitik Suvi
oleh Manshur Zikri
INGATAN BERGEGAS PULANG dimulai dengan kerangka kesadaran mengenai tubuh sebagai subjek (sekaligus objek); tubuh yang padanya melekat begitu banyak narasi. Tubuh seakan menjadi wadah rekam peristiwa-peristiwa, yang mana peristiwa-peristiwa itu kerap diproyeksikan ke wilayah citra mental lewat ingatan-ingatan.
Percobaan Suvi Mengeja Peristiwa
oleh Muhammad Abe
MELALUI PAMERAN TUNGGALNYA, Suvi berkesempatan untuk “pulang” pada ingatan-ingatan dari masa lalunya. Ingatan-ingatan yang selama ini “menghantui,” seakan ada hal-hal yang belum pernah selesai dibicarakan. Jika seni rupa hari ini berusaha memenuhi kanvas dengan warna-warni nilai-nilai estetis, maka Suvi memilih untuk bercerita dengan cara yang paling sederhana, melalui gambar yang menjadi ekstensi dari pengalaman tubuhnya.
Artist Profile
Artist’s Biography
SUVI WAHYUDIANTO (Bangkalan, Madura, 28 April 1992) is a young artist from Madura who now lives and works in Yogyakarta. After earning a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Language and Art, Surabaya State University in 2017, Suvi later won the UOB Painting of the Year 2018 award at the national (Indonesian) and international (Southeast Asian) level for his work entitled Angs’t , a mixed media work that abstractly articulates the concept of empathy in order to respond to personal experiences and collective memories of social conflict.
Suvi’s artistic practice includes exploring visual language through poetic approaches to broaden the possibility of interpretations of tragic events related to socio-cultural tensions in the past and today, as well as parsing issues related to identity politics. Through textual studies and participatory historical studies, as well as the elaboration of the autoethnographic approach into the art, Suvi’s focus creates works that seek to uncover new narratives as a counterpoint to mainstream narratives, in their efforts to deconstruct the discourse of violent conflict that has been happening in society, and encouraging ideas of reconciliation and raising empathic awareness in post-conflict situations. The poetic exploration is often translated into various techniques of creating and processing the medium, with a variety of results ranging from painting, installation of objects, to text-based works. One of his most recent work, Catatan Hari Berkabung, dan Satu Mata Sapi yang Menyedihkan (2019), was made based on the results of his research while undergoing the Rimpang X Kelana residency program in West Kalimantan. Presented at the Jogja National Museum for the Biennale Jogja XV – Equator # 5, 2019, the work frames a number of narratives that he collected while interacting with residents in Pontianak, Singkawang, Sintang, and Sambas; this work presents a critical reading of maps of collective memory that still exist between generations, in connection with experiences of violence that have occurred in these cities.
Suvi Wahyudianto has been involved in various national and international art events, including the 7th Biennale Jawa Timur – “Worlds A Hoax” (Prabangkara Gallery, Taman Budaya Jawa Timur, 2017), UOB Painting of the Year (UOB Art Gallery, Singapore, 2018), BA[KER]TAS – “Exhibition of Five Young Artists Selected by Ugo Untoro” (Galeri Kertas Studio Hanafi, Depok, May 2018), Manifesto 6.0 – “Multipolar: Visual Art after 20 Years of Reform” (National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, May 2018), Biennale Jawa Tengah II – “The Future of History” (Kota Lama Semarang, Semarang, October 2018), Pameran Besar Seni Rupe ke – 6 – “Panji: Penguat Karakter Bangsa” (Kota Batu, Jawa Timur, October 2018), Indonesian Contemporary Art and Design (ICAD) X: “Factor X” (grandkemang Hotel, Jakarta, 2019), and the Jogja Biennale XV: EQUATOR # 5 Indonesia with Southeast Asia: “Do We Play at the Same Playground” (Jogja National Museum, Yogyakarta, 2019) . He has also held solo exhibitions, including “Homo Sapirin” (C2O Gallery, Surabaya, 2016; curated by Ayos Purwoaji) and “ONGGHA” (REDBASE Foundation, Yogyakarta, 2017).
CEMETI 