Turn Five

Indonesia offers many things to many people, and it’s always offering more.  There is a sense of endless mystery here, and it’s one of the most fascinating places on earth to visit.  It has long held a reputation for being a country that is vast and mysterious, holding exotic treasures and adventures, and while none of this is actually true, there are hints of the exotic here, and there are certainly adventures of a most contemporary kind.  There is still a great sense of hospitality in the luxury hotels.  Indonesia does have a flair for keeping the tradition of welcoming guests with a fantastic sense of graciousness, and it’s a pleasure to wake up to the splendor the accommodations hold.  Beginning your day here is a wonderfully fortuitous event, and speaks well for the rest of your journey.

There are many different sides to Indonesia, and depending on where you go, there are a multitude of adventures to be had.  In some of the larger cities, there is an enormously diverse cultural scene, creating some of the most interesting new works of art in the world.  There are plenty of new works, and new artistic movements, to see here, and it’s an incredibly diverse place for artists.  In Jakarta particularly, with its dense urban population, there is a sense of great excitement, restlessness, and frustration that’s leading toward new artistic directions, and it’s a very welcome thing to see.  One of its promising artists is a young man who works in charcoal, by the name of J. Ariadhitya Pramuhendra.
He lives and works in Bandung, and has had a number of recent shows that have been turning heads.  His drawings could be said to be intense reflections on identity and self, and play with the notions of memory and history.  They certainly do work with the notion of the self, and the way his drawings become photos in the act of disappearing are very profound and moving, and seem to be hitting on something quite revolutionary.  Art that does what it is attempting to mean is a fascinating form, and a very difficult trick.  His work is all this and more, where form meets function to investigate what it means to be a human being right here in this place, producing a pronounced melancholy that almost borders on sweetness.

Related posts:

1. Thai Buddhas
2. Chen Chong Swee: Artist and Educator
3. Jerom in Ibiza
4. Granada Surrealist Carlos Vega
5. EMACM in Malaysia

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