money culture

no money no hope, graphite, coffee stain on watercolor paper, wood, 2011

my online catalog

http://issuu.com/gamaliel_wb/docs/iwaneffendi

by ozwildlifestudio.com

Reviewed by: http://ozwildlifestudio.com/featured/iwan-effendi-featured-artist/

Iwan Effendi is a young Indonesian artist who attended art schools and has already had numerous exhibitions under his belt. I was immediately struck by the power of Iwan’s strong imagery and vivid colours. Before finding out anything about the inspiration behind this talented artist’s works, I loved the juxtaposition of his beautiful, sensitive imagery of nature and wildlife with more mysterious, disturbing elements which appeared to me as as freakish dolls or innocent, newborn children, missiles or alien spacecraft and tornadoes or nuclear clouds.

The Crane Song by Iwan Effendi

The picture you see above is what inspired me to have a closer look at this artist and his work and made me want to find out more about what exactly was going on in this artwork. Iwan said this about Crane Song “it is a diptych of opposing colours of blue and orange tones composed of a man who wears eyes as his cloak”

Iwan Effendi

Maybe we need to look back at history to see where Ivan’s imagery is coming from. Here is an entry from an article written by Marilyn Goh.

In 1965, Indonesia found itself once again at a political crossroads after having endured an extended period of political instability since securing independence from Dutch colonial rule. In the twilight of President Sukarno’s rule in 1965 marked by bitter ideological conflict and political polarization, a coup at the end of September triggered a widespread wave of violence that brought General Suharto to office for over 3 decades. Generations removed from these events after 5 decades, the suppression of dissident artistic voices in the Suharto’s iron-fisted rule mean that contemporary Indonesian artists have only in recent years, begun their cathartic response to the trauma.

Eye of the Messenger by Iwan Effendi

This artwork is a response to the turmoil: interrogating the construction of Indonesian history in political upheaval of the 1960s and ultimately acknowledges that the socio-cultural and political discourses surrounding these years are cultivated, cultured and fabricated.

The works in Eye of the Messenger are ironic and multi-layered: dismembered, colourful body parts float in the dimensional space of the canvasses and are tacked onto each other. They can’t be contained by the boundaries of canvas, spilling out of the seams and onto the surrounding white walls. Unlike the luminous simplicity and crack-quality of flat-faced satiric drawings that invite ridicule and laughter, Effendi’s cartoonish works cry out like multiple voices in a Greek tragedy clamouring to claim their own truth. In this context of use, reception and exchange, Effendi’s works accrue a varied interpretive history of – and perhaps even grant absolution to –those who have found finally regained their silenced voices.

“Long Lost Memories” by Iwan Effendi

Iwan describes “Long Lost Memories” as a piece of bulbous objects, bird eggs and birds that peer disconcertingly into nothingness. “But thank god, our eyes can’t lie,” Effendi further remarks. Ocularity and perception feature prominently in his canvases; the physical eye, and by extension, the visual experience, is used as a cautionary metaphor because of its ability to fall prey to yet simultaneously, resist manipulations.

Imaginative characters placed amidst the bright colors of a never-never land is the visual language of Iwan Effendi. Ofttimes we come across war-like visual elements in his works; aircraft, tank, which occasionally deformed in animal shapes. It allied closely to his fondness for war stories, such as the epic of the Second World War. It was into this tale that Iwan unravelled his ideas.

Iwan Efendi’s imagery also became characters in the form of puppets. His grandfather had been a puppeteer artist who devoted himself to the tradition of wayang. in He heard the story about the arrest of his grandfather, a puppeteer artist who devoted himself to the tradition of wayang. He, as well, understood that his grandfather was arrested for being alleged as a member of Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI).

Iwan's Puppet Show

Puppet Performance in the opening of Iwan Effendi solo show at Yavuz Fine Art

The opportunity to meet Maria Tri Sulistyani, a children’s book author who later became his beloved wife, has led him to visualizations of children’s tales from around the world. He did not stop there; he developed Papermoon puppet theatre, which was formerly initiated by Maria. Together with his wife, Iwan began exploring the medium of puppets. To Iwan Effendi, the expansion of his visual expressions into puppet theatre is an extraordinary challenge that would meet no end. Accepting and referring to the philosophy of puppet theatre—“sincerity of being nobody”—Iwan put aside his ego as an artist and surrender himself to the world of puppeteering. It had not been an easy start, yet lately he found it intensely addictive; puppet theatre has animated his visual figures. extract from an article written by Ade Tanesia

Sources: Ade Tanesia and Marilyn Goh

The “Missing” Eye of the Messenger

The “Missing” Eye of the Messenger

Astrid Reza

Let us imagine Indonesia in 1965 as a 20-year-old nation. A dynamic, intelligent, vigorous youth. Brave enough to refused the aid from United States. Believed in being revolutionaries to change the nation faith for the better. The political dynamic was in its heyday, with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI – PartaiKomunis Indonesia) seems to be winning the majority. Then suddenly after the night of 30^th September 1965, this youth changed dramatically. The eye of the youth changed into a dark gloomy desperate old eye. The youth body lost its spirit, oppressed and just stood there as to watched the bloodiest event in the modern Indonesian history. Millions were killed and gone missing, no one know the exact number. The effect of the event was tremendous that the rivers in Java and Bali turn to the color of blood red.The army took power under General Suharto. No one stop the killings under the name to exterminate the communist. Since then the word “communist” went missing from the tongue of Indonesian cause of fear and traumatized memories. It was an unstoppable mass killing unheard by the world maybe even until today.

Forty-six years later, we found this same eye lingering still in Iwan Effendi’s paintings. At sixty-six years old, Indonesia became the fat old corrupted image of an old man. But the eyes, the same dark gloomy desperate old eye stayed the same. It stayed as to wait for judgment day. Some say, the eyes are the key of the heart. These eyes represent the Indonesian heart struggling with their unresolved histories.

In the series of paintings by Iwan Effendi together with the poems of Maria Tri Sulistyani, this “missing” histories making their way to be re-interpreted by the generations of Indonesian who are lost in the knowledge of their own history. For to understand ourselves today is to dig into our own history, on where we come from and how are we standing here today. Iwan uses the metaphor of eyes, heads and birds throughout his paintings to describe his perception of the event in 1965. The lost of hope in the sad eyes, decapitated heads everywhere and rumors around the event (“kabarburung” in Indonesian means “news bird” or to be translated as gossip surrounding the truth). While Maria’s poem seems to sing away in a melancholic tone accompanying the paintings. If Iwan’s painting could sing, Maria’s poems are their voices.

While working on his works, no matter how bright the colors Iwan’s trying to put in his painting, the gloom of the work atmosphere always stays. The process for him is like taking off a dark veil of his own nation. Like what Maria said because this matter could not be taken lightly that it’s not a bright happy thing to be brought up. To talk about the killings, the sadness, the anger, the silence and the lost of hope from such a long time, had never been an easy thing to do for anyone. To express the poems for her is to mourn the faith of the unheard victims.

These works are an attempt to reread the history of a nation, of what had gone wrong, putting a puzzle together to convey a message from the past for a better humanity in the future. It is a reminder for us that the same thing could happen again. Humancapability of destruction and violence could create such a hellish moment in a nation’s memories. Finding the truth of the event is very important as a learning process for every single human being. For the hope someday the eye of the messenger could flicker and brighten. That an old body could maintains its young spirit and optimistic heart. That hope could never be completely lost.

Yogyakarta, 10th September 2011

Eye of The Messenger is Reviewed on Daily Serving-New York

By Marilyn Goh

Tags: Indonesia, Iwan Effendi, Singapore, Yavuz Fine Art Gallery

Eye of the Messenger

Iwan Effendi, The Crane Song, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 100cm x 150cm. Image Courtesy of Yavuz Fine Art.

The joy and plight of many contemporary, Western-centric cultural practices today is the recognition that artistic shouldering of the collective burden of history does not necessarily attribute any value to the work. At worst, it is unfashionable and counter-productive to contemporary discourse; at best, it provides a vague notion of plurality and diversity that benefits a particular portion of the arts patronage. On the contrary, contemporary Asian art’s transformative power and value in the region, almost always lies in recollection of the memories of post-war political independence, the marvel at socio-economic progress and sorrows of rapid industrialization.

In 1965, Indonesia found itself once again at a political crossroads after having endured an extended period of political instability since securing independence from Dutch colonial rule. In the twilight of President Sukarno’s rule in 1965 marked by bitter ideological conflict and political polarization, a coup at the end of September triggered a widespread wave of violence that brought General Suharto to office for over 3 decades. Generations removed from these events after 5 decades, the suppression of dissident artistic voices in the Suharto’s iron-fisted rule mean that contemporary Indonesian artists have only in recent years, begun their cathartic response to the trauma.

Eye of the Messenger by Iwan Effendi at the Yavuz Fine Art Gallery is such a response, interrogating the construction of Indonesian history in political upheaval of the 1960s and ultimately acknowledges that the socio-cultural and political discourses surrounding these years are cultivated, cultured and fabricated.

As Walter Benjamin wrote, the craft of storytelling, does not aim to convey the pure essence of the thing, like information or a report, [but instead] sinks the thing into the life of the storyteller, in order to bring it out of him again. Similarly, a desire to contribute his own gesture of political resistance and social commentary underlies Effendi’s surrealistic images through a combination of word-and-image binary that is part-storytelling, part-myth and part-reality.

Iwan Effendi, Long Lost Memories, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 70.5cm x 150cm. Image Courtesy of Yavuz Fine Art.

Iwan Effendi, The Bird Who Feeds The Fish, 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 70.5cm x 150cm. Image Courtesy of Yavuz Fine Art.

“Here I tell you, my friends,” Effendi writes in his catalogue, “a story where history was buried.” A large green tree with all-seeing eyes dominates Treasure Hunt (2011); The Crane Song (2011) is a diptych of opposing colours of blue and orange tones composed of a man who wears eyes as his cloak; Long Lost Memories (2011) is a piece of bulbous objects, bird eggs and birds that peer disconcertingly into nothingness. “But thank god, our eyes can’t lie,” Effendi further remarks. Ocularity and perception feature prominently in his canvases; the physical eye, and by extension, the visual experience, is used as a cautionary metaphor because of its ability to fall prey to yet simultaneously, resist manipulations.

Iwan Effendi, Eye of the Messenger 2011, Installation View. Image Courtesy of Yavuz Fine Art.

The works in Eye of the Messenger are ironic and multi-layered: dismembered, colourful body parts float in the dimensional space of the canvasses and are tacked onto each other. They can’t be contained by the boundaries of canvas, spilling out of the seams and onto the surrounding white walls. Unlike the luminous simplicity and crack-quality of flat-faced satiric drawings that invite ridicule and laughter, Effendi’s cartoonish works cry out like multiple voices in a Greek tragedy clamouring to claim their own truth. In this context of use, reception and exchange, Effendi’s works accrue a varied interpretive history of – and perhaps even grant absolution to –those who have found finally regained their silenced voices.

***

Eye of the Messenger is on show at the Yavuz Fine Art Gallery until 13 November 2011.

EYE OF THE MESSENGER

COMING SOON........betrayed by me...

asterix series

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2011

holy knight

Holy Knight, acrylic on canvas, 300 x 150 cm, 2011