Nagoya, Gallery NAF, The Nomura Cultural Foundation, Passing on Distance, 25 June – 24 July, 2005
Tokyo, Base Gallery, 'Passing on Distance' - Contemporary Art in Indonesia: The 4th Generation, March 23 - April 8, 2006

 

The painting is in good condition. The canvas is in good condition with a clear and taut surface and no retouching was detected upon examination under ultraviolet light. Paint layers are intact.
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The artistic intent of several important contemporary Indonesian artists seems to be focused on consciously disengaging their work from their art history and their socio-political environment. Handiwirman Saputra and fellow artists from the Kelompok Seni Rupa Jendela (Window Art Collective) have chosen instead to respond to the reality of objects and images that are common and familiar in the globalised world. They have been criticised by some members of the Indonesian art circle, yet the validity and reality of the expressions of this younger generation of artists cannot be denied. Perhaps frustration and uncertainty about their country's socio-political situation and the impotence of the country to implement any effective changes have l🔯ed to a generation of artists who seek refuge in internal worlds, devoid of socio-political comment and any direct reference to time and place. Contemporary Indonesian art is an intriguing negation, a kind of self-effacement sublimated by the comfort of u✃niversal symbols, a dream-like lyricism, and a longing for the highest humanist ideals.

Handiwirman cons൲tructs a beautiful, poignant and personal language of quotidian objects — cotton wool, plastic stool, string, wood, stone — that do not make any visual sense yet are still profoundly poetic, intriguing, confusing and ethereal all at the same time. Mental Series No. 8 is a kind of surrealistic still life about the nature of discordance and polarity, and their ultimate harmony and inseparability. In this painting, a rock-like base and a fleecy ball of cotton wool above it are tied together by a thin red thread. However the artist invites the viewer to undermine the perception of every material. The ambivalence and uncertainty of perception is one of Handiwirman's chief concerns. The solidity of the rock-like base is destroyed by the fragile red thread that seems to easily cut throওugh it, suggesting the nominal stone may in fact be a soft material like plasticine or playdough.

Similarly, the tension of the string would under realistic circumstances cut right through the cloud-like wad of cotton wool, yet it sits just beneath its surface as though it were made of a much denser material. The deliberate visual uncertainty of this work echoes the title of a series Handiwirman executed in 2004, called Apa-apanya Dong? (A coll🥂oquial Jakarta expression for "What's that?")

The ambiguous forms of Handiwirman Saputra's creations challenge viewers to rethink the power of visual interpretation. His works alway꧃s involve the exploration of objects and their connection with their🍰 surroundings. He studies the relationship between the extraordinary and the mundane, and more specifically, how the power of perception can seize imagination and alter one's impression of the ordinary. Perception gives forms their meaning and meaning is always open to interpretation.