Oky Rey Montha is an interesting pop-surrealist artist from Indonesia.
I already wrote a post about one of his painting “Dark Venice” here.
Oky just had a big solo show in the Galeri Canna in Jakarta. The title of the exhibition “Brigitta Queen” is referred to his new character, a mysterious girl from Moscow with her face constantly hidden behind a mask.
Here you are a gallery of photographs from the exhibition that can give you an idea of Oky Rey Montha’s visionary world:
Robberto is a young artist based in Rome, native of Sardinia. I met him at the Pastificio Cerere, in Rome, and I soon find out that he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti as well. He gave me this painting of Nietzsche – charcoal and chalk on wood – as gift. The back of the wood is slate, so the artwork is super-heavy. I needed some help to carry the artwork home.
Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher, his writing is incredibly powerful. He said “I’m dynamite” long before the AC/DC.
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In Melbourne one of the first questions people ask you is “where do you come from?”.
It makes sense in a city where hostels are flooding with drunk people swearing in so many different languages.
There are backpackers coming here with a sheer party mentality, europeans seeking for a well-payed job as waiters and wannabe adventures romantically compelled by soil their hair with red dust, possibly riding through the desert on a rusty jeep (that’s me, and I sadly found out that there is not that much desert in Victoria).
The prosaic reality of Melbourne city clashed so hard with my fantasy – eating Kangaroo on a red rock with aboriginals people – that I decided to keep myself busy with what is supposed to be my main job: contemporary art.
Well, the truth was that I was already in Melbourne to complete the last stages of my reportage about Indonesian contemporary art, so I found myself turning on the recorder and listen to the artist Tintin Wulia.
It was the first interview here in Melbourne and one of the last interviews for my reportage about Indonesia Contemporary Art.
Her work and her experience as an artist epitomized the core of my book: there is no such a thing called Indonesian art, there are some practices born in a geographical segment called Indonesia, and there are some artists born in Indonesia that are making art.
The edges are so sharp just on the map – ideas and aesthetic are much more fluid – yet these borders matter incredibly when comes to bureaucracy, biennales pavilions and personal identity.
Leave a trace. Recall a feeling. Mark our own path. These are the key needs of a human being.
Among the centuries men modified things all around them, sometimes without utility, just to fight the sense of loss. Basically, this is the reason why the Art started.
This urgency of conservation could show itself as a quick sketch of a bison in Lascaux Caves, or a line “Anna was here” in your school bathroom.
Many contemporary artists work on that concept as well. We can say without any doubt that Richard Long is one of them.
In a private visit to Locarn O’Neill gallery’s last exhibition with a friend of mine, we were struck by the work in the Locarn’s showcase, in the window display between Via Orti d’Alibert and Via della Lungara.
This display is a secondary space where the Locarn Gallery gives a preview of the main attraction in the primary space. The showcase was of a circle of stones pieces, perfectly in line with Long’s way of working. Land Art and other stories like that.
The installation’s name was “Trastevere Spring Circle”, a name that thrilled my friend Mira, who has an obsession with aliens and crop field circles. “This Richard Long… I never heard of him, but maybe he could be one of the Messengers”
“Who are these Messengers?” I asked her
She stared at me, stunned by my ignorance.
A Giacarta non si vede un capello biondo nel raggio di miglia, invece, al Ranch Market Cafè, dove mi sono data appuntamento con Fx Harsono, ci sono diversi occidentali.
Il posto, dal look volutamente rustico/chic, si trova nella zona Kemang, una zona dove si potrebbe anche passeggiare, nei limiti che il termine “passeggiare” assume in una città trafficata come Giacarta.
Mi trovo a queste latitudini per realizzare un reportage sull’Arte Contemporanea Indonesiana.
Il giorno prima, fortemente irritata per via del collegamento internet mal funzionante che mi impediva di mandare una mail di conferma all’artista, avevo scaraventato per aria un piatto di riso nel prestigioso centro commerciale “Grand Indonesia”. Fortunatamente il mio compagno di viaggio, il fotoreporter Lucas Catalano, era corso ad interrompere le mie mani mulinanti e a tapparmi la bocca e spingermi con un calcio in bagno, prima che la polizia musulmana mi mettesse al fresco per un’eccessiva espressione di personalità.
Censori.
Alla fine la mail è passata e l’appuntamento è stato fissato.
Mi sembrava giusto cominciare la mia serie di interviste da uno dei pionieri dell’arte contemporanea indonesiana.
Fx Harsono arriva un po’ trafelato, saluta un suo amico musicista al tavolo vicino e ordina da bere.
Comincia a parlare in maniera concitata, spiegandomi con dovizia di dettagli ogni passaggio della storia indonesiana, senza dare nulla per scontato, dimostrandosi sinceramente intenzionato a diffondere la conoscenza di qualcosa che gli sta molto a cuore. Essendo uno dei portabandiera dell’arte contemporanea indonesiana, mi stupisco quando mi racconta di non essere un artista a tempo pieno, e di lavorare come professore e come graphic designer: “Mi dedico all’arte il sabato e la domenica. So che potrebbe sembrare un compromesso, ma proprio per il fatto che l’arte non costituisce il mio sostentamento posso evitare di farla piegare a compromessi.
Tutto è cominciato nel 1965. Mi è capitato di esporre anche prima, nel ’62 e nel ’63, ma ho cominciato a fare seriamente nel 1965. A quei tempi ero uno studente, ed in undici demmo vita a questo movimento chiamato New Art Movement. Quello è stato il primo momento importante nella mia vita artistica.
I found this big collage on canvas hidden behind a bookcase in Joseph Meo’s studio in Massa Lubrense.
It’s an artwork of Joseph Meo’s early production, the date it’s 1986.
With stubborn, laborious persuasion I conviced the artist to give it to me. Now it’s one of the favourite pieces of my personal collection.
Let aside the impressing collage technique, the subject itself is very charming. That rebelious woman in leather jacket has something berlinesque and
reminds me to the Marianne Faithfull of the Broken English period.
Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
