Anggun Priambodo’s latest exhibition is framed under the guise of a fictional character he created for his last movie of the same name, Maaf Senin Tutup (Sorry, Closed on Mondays) — an artist named Eva who is trying to establish herself in the art world with her first solo exhibition.
This breaking-the-fourth-wall approach is nothing new for the artist, whose work throughout his dynamic career as filmmaker, curator, music video creator and more, has included a lot of off-kilter experimentation.
His last film, 2014’s Rocket Rain was an almost meditative take on divorce and the growing pains of young adulthood, which featured colorful vignettes of dancing human reproductive organs and other peculiar imagery.
So it really isn’t a surprise that the conceptual approach towards Maaf Senin Tutup includes this particular exhibition.
What is a surprise is the sociopolitical nuance the film (and exhibition) has. While it isn’t explicitly stated or shown, Maaf Senin Tutup suggests ideas related to the riots of 1998 as well as the political turmoil surrounding it.
Eva, the fictional artist at the center of the story, is depicted as being 10 years old at the time of the riot, and not really understanding the happenings around her — only sensing something is off when she sees her father coming home from veteran rock band Kantata Takwa’s concert one day with a bloody gash on his head.
Read the full article at The Jakarta Post.
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About the author(s)
Kathy Rowland is the Managing Editor of ArtsEquator.com, a registered charity that she co-founded with Jenny Daneels in 2016. The site is dedicated to supporting and promoting arts criticism with a regional perspective in Southeast Asia. Kathy has worked in the arts for over 25 years, working in the areas of critical writing and arts advocacy, with a special interest in media platforms for the arts. She is the Project Lead for ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asian Arts and Culture Censorship Documentation Project, launched in 2021. She has written extensively on censorship of arts and culture in Malaysia. She was a member of the International Programme Advisory Committee of the 8th World Summit on Arts and Culture, 2019.
