Naima Morelli

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When you visit a museum in Australia, you have to consider the snake danger.
According to the Australian mentality, which is close to Hinduism in this sense, you shouldn’t kill any snake – after all a snake is still part of the wildlife and you have to respect it.
Anyways, being aware of the snake danger, I decided to go to the Heide Museum equipped with my Crocodile Dundee hat.
I hoped that my Indonesian boyfriend Lucas would have bring with him a kris and my Japanese friend Minako a katana but, alas, they didn’t.
“What about you? Didn’t you bring a mandolino with you?” Lucas asked me referring to my Neapolitan origins.
“How you supposed to kill a snake with a mandolino, genius?”
“Unless…” I mumbled making my way through the lianas separating us from the museum “you charm the snake playing  Torna a Surriento or something like that.”
Walking carefully, we finally arrived at the door of the Heide Museum without being bitten, which was good.
The current show was titled “Fiona Hall: Big game hunting”
Coming into the exhibition I took off my hat and I rapidly switched my attitude from adventurer to art critic.

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Most of Agung Kurniawan’s artworks are based on memory. In his famous charcoal work “Very Very Happy Victims” , part of Singapore Art Museum’s collection, he uses a raw irony to depict the situation under Suharto regime, from ’67 to ’98.

He explained me the genesis of this work during my visit to Kedai Kebun Forum:

“I made Very Very Happy Victims in 1995.  I was still a young an angry artist. It was a portrait of  myself and the society at that time because at that time Indonesia economy was one of the best in Asia. At the same time we lived in a kind of fascist regime. Everything was controlled by the government. Indonesia was the copycat of Orwell’s book 1984.
I asked my friends if they feel ok and they reply “Yes, I feel happy, I can eat at McDonalds, school is not expensive, I can have very cheap prize” . So I portrait my generation that felt very happy even though was oppressed by the government. This is the reason why I called it “Very Very happy Victims”. We were happy because we didn’t realize we were victims. If we realize it we can fight, that’s the idea. ”

More about Agung activities on: kedaikebun.com

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