POOL PARTY! DODIT ARTAWAN
Dodit Artawan wishes to thank
Suherwan Abu TAKSU Singapore Rachel Ibrahim Gallery Asmudjo J. Irianto taXu art clinic Gede Mahendra Yasa Ketut Moniarta Agus Sumiantara Pan Suta Men Metri Toni Gunawan
Putu Wirayani Farrel Orva Stephanie Tabitha Pande Paramartha Kadek Sitiarni Octa Refa Komink Jerink Yuni Sabem Sudarwan
KUALA LUMPUR
SINGAPORE
BALI
17 Jalan Pawang 54000 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia T +603 4251 4396 F +603 4251 4331 kl@taksu.com
43 Jalan Merah Saga #01-72 Workloft @ Chip Bee Singapore 278115 T +65 6476 4788 F +65 6476 4787 sing@taksu.com
W Retreat & Spa Bali Jalan Petitenget Seminyak Bali, Indonesia T +62 361 4738106 F +62 361 4738104 bali@taksu.com
Gallery Hours Monday to Saturday 10am – 6pm Closed on Sundays
Tuesday to Saturday 10am – 7pm Sunday 12pm – 6pm
Everyday 9am – 9pm except Mon & Thurs 11am – 9pm
Juni Sancaya Koes Karnadi Nana Artana Tim Russo Steward Augusto Alit Mudita Assistants: Raka Marisa Apny Gabeng Wintara Nengah Suka Suteja
POOL PARTY! DODIT ARTAWAN
POOL PARTY! Solo Exhibition by Dodit Artawan 2012 TAKSU KL ISBN E-BOOK 978-981-07-1317-1
BARBIE DOES BALI GINA FAIRLEY
Wearing a black and white striped swimsuit that accented her cinched waist and voluptuous figure, the world was introduced to Barbie in 1959. She encapsulated a new teen culture, liberalism, a rising prosperity and with it glamorised consumption, but above all, the pursuit of leisure. What has changed in the ensuing fifty years, one might ask, looking across this suite of paintings by Balinese artist Made Dodit Artawan? Manufactured by American company Mattel, Barbie was one of the first toys that had a television marketing strategy, with the slogan ‘Come feast your eyes on Barbie...’ It is a curious phraseology and it slots within art history’s benchmarks, from Orientalise voyeurism in 19th century academic painting, to a feministic critique of the gaze that flourished during the 1970s, to the commercial vanguard of the 1980-90s explored by Barbara Kruger’s commercial slogan, for example, Jeff Koon’s images of his porn-star wife, and Vanessa Beecroft’s semi-naked tableaux of models. Kruger’s trademark “I shop therefore I am” (1987), unmistakably echoed Barbie’s penchant to accessorise and taps into the psychology of contemporary aspiration. Sitting within this lineage, Dodit ads a further clue to his choreographed bacchanalia, Indonesia’s homegrown version of ‘the car show girl’ colloquially known as SPGs or Sales Promotion Girls. Describing young, attractive girls employed to promote products, the SPG [like Barbie] embodies the age-old adage that sex sells. Barbie then as an SPG in Bali is a complex visual / cognitive equation explored by Dodit as an ethnographic meter. Dodit’s painting Living in America 2 (2011) stages this classic tableaux; Barbie adorns a Harley Davidson motorbike against a backdrop of American whiskey, iconic brands that have an ingrained visibility upon the contemporary landscape of Bali. As Dodit quips, “We all live in America.” However these paintings are not burdened with weighty moral lessons, rather like SPGs they have a pleasant disposition, a buy-in culture that you want to be part of. It is this confluence of sex and branded desire that sits central to these paintings and, one might wonder, offers a more subliminally parallel dialogue about the contemporary art market, highly driven by fashion, affluence and advertising?
A member of the dissident artists collective, Taxu Art Clinic, first formed in 2001 among a group of student from ISI, Indonesian Art Institute Denpasar, it was the sewn-up structures and dominating style of Balinese art that was the focus of their criticism, rejecting the stereotypes of traditional painting [and its own tourist-driven commercialism]. Dodit started showing with the group in 2008 and his paintings of rice sacks, rice wine, sneakers and tattoos speak to currents with a fetish ritualisation that sits core to Balinese culture. Flesh and liquor were the natural progression in his investigations. It returns us to Barbie and her pool party. In true 1970s style Barbie acquired her first pool, updated with an ‘80s face-lift as the Dream Pool, and today is marketed as the Glam Pool Playset complete with a poolside bar ‘...for refreshing pinktastic summer drinks!’, its advertisement claims. This insistence of the pool as an accoutrement to middle-class aspiration and necessary tool of leisure moves from the personal backyard to the resort. For the Bali Resort ‘the pool’ is a major selling point, and the bar within this liquid landscape becomes the tropical stereotype. While we assign such popular global culture as being Westerntoned, pool party culture has been appropriated and massaged into its own vernacular with Bali, one that is no longer exclusively American. To rely too heavily on its definition as a contemporary import disregards Bali’s own history of tourism. Bali’s age of tourism dates back to the 1930s when this exotic island became a fashionable destination for tourists and artists and was marketed to the middle-class globally. The consumption of leisure and alcohol is not new with the proliferation of resorts rather it has become ubiquitous to Bali’s identity replacing its cultural traditions. It returns us to advertising. Jeff Koons produced a series early in his career “Luxury and Degradation” (1986) that featured precisely reproduced liquor advertisements and alcohol-related props in stainless steel. What Koons work, and indeed Dodit’s paintings illuminate, is the notion that commodities are laced with ideas and in their pristine state become iconic. However when placed in a different context, appropriated within another cultural nuances, the object is liberated beyond its ‘marketing line’ and takes on the patina of a society’s own set of values. This is precisely what Dodit is exploring.
Alcohol consumption is familiar to Balinese society, both rural and city, where rice wine, palm wine and arak are consumed as part of events, traditional and social, formal and informal. It fulfills a social function, which eventually extends to the famous international brands. Dodit explains, “In Bali, there are no restrictions for underage teens to buy liquors...Alcohol is everywhere [and] has become a serious problem in society.” And with the implosion of tourism, alcohol is a pawn for profit. We see it played out in his paintings Jeff Koons and Jack Daniels (2011) and Liquid Gold (2011). The latter seduces with its rich hues and reflections. The transparency of the glasses and bottles, their golden content, ice cubes, while aesthetically take advantage of Dodit’s photo-real style add a kind of alluring ‘sparkle’ again tapping into the psycho-semantics of advertising. They evoke the deeper question: how ‘transparent’ is this world of excess and indulgence; how real is its picture of life? Curiously Jack Daniels is produced in a county that is ‘dry’, Lynchburg Tennessee; the distillery only selling commemorative bottles. The symbol stands in for the object. The compulsion to consumer is stronger than the ‘reality’. It echoes Kruger’s credo “I shop therefore I am”. Our desire to have, even just a little, becomes a validation of our own acceptability, our own sense of who we want to be. Carefully orchestrated in their theatricality Dodit’s paintings play out this mythology. We carry these images, these stereotypes, deeply embedded within our global psyche so that they are no longer culturally specific or burdened by local mores. Resort life in Bali acts the same way; we buy into that ‘culture’ and opulent life. It is the new exotic other. It is superbly enacted in Dodit’s Pool Party 1 (2011), where a trio of babes pose poolside, their disproportionately long legs lounge in martini glasses served up as some exotic cocktail. Fantasy [sexual fantasy] is entwined with reality. The artist’s girlfriend is the subject of Young, Sexy, Naughty # 3, presented on a colourful inflatable pool-prop. The relationship between the real and unreal, fact and illusion is further complication. Their theatricality becomes a pun to their photo-real style, a deeply orchestrated reality. Dodit’s obsession for detail exacerbates the mythology. Furthermore, their preferred perspective viewed from above, surveys the scene with a level of scrutiny. Technically it emphasizes illusions of depth, distortion, and cast of light that makes these still-lifes ‘magical’, but more importantly it places the viewer in a position where they must stand back and observe, and in turn question the ‘reality’ in front of them. Dodit Artawan has given us a deeply layered and erudite exhibition.
previous page; detail; After Party #3 (People Love Poison) oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
right; After Party #4 oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2012
After Party 2 oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
Jeff Koons and Jack Daniels watercolor on paper / 50 x 70 cm / 2011
left; Young, Sexy, Naughty #2 oil on canvas / 200 x 150 cm / 2011
right; detail; Young, Sexy, Naughty #2 oil on canvas / 200 x 150 cm / 2011
previous page; left; Pool Party #1 (Come Join Us) oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011 previous page; right; Pool Party #2 (At The Pool) oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011 right; Pool Party #4 (Poolside Bar) oil on canvas / 150 x 280 cm / 2011
left; Pool Party #6 (Magenta Inflatable) oil on canvas / 260 x 200 cm / 2012
right; Young, Sexy, Naughty #3 oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
previous page; left; Pool Party #3 (Young, Sexy, Naughty) oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
previous page; right; Glamour oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
right; Living In America #2 oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
My Dolls Rock N Roll oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
Pool Party #5 oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2011
left; Abith watercolor on paper / 70 x 50 cm / 2011
right; Enjoy Responsibly oil on canvas / 200 x 150 cm / 2011
DODIT
e d u c at i o n
g r o u p
ARTAWAN
1997 Indonesian Art Institute, Denpasar, Bali
born 1978
s o l o
2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
BATUBULAN BALI
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
e x h i b i t i o n s
Pool Party! TAKSU, Kuala Lumpur Pool Party! TAKSU, Singapore Sneakerhead Painting: Double Fetishism SIGIarts, Jakarta (De)fermented Spaces Semarang Gallery, Semarang The Pleasure of the Eye Langgeng Icon Gallery, Jakarta
s e l e c t e d
c at a l o g u e s
Rifky Effendi, (De)fermented Spaces Semarang Gallery. Semarang, 2009 Hendro Wiyanto, The Pleasure of The Eye Langgeng Gallery. Magelang, 2008 s e l e c t e d
b o o k s
CP Artspace, CP Open Bienalle 2005: Urban/Culture CP Artspace. Jakarta, Indonesia, 2005
Red Box oil on canvas / 150 x 200 cm / 2012
e x h i b i t i o n s
Painting for Painting’s Sake Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy Artissima 17 - International Fair of Contemporary Art, Torino, Italy Bazaar Art Jakarta 2010 Pacific Place, Jakarta Reality Effects Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta Percakapan Masa Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta Super Imposed D’Gallerie, Jakarta Contemporary Art Turn SBin Art Plus, Singapore The Birth of Colors Syang Art Space, Magelang Pose Historia Vannesa Art Link, Singapore Halimun Lawang Wangi Artsociates, Bandung Almost White Cube CG Artspace, Jakarta Common Sense Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta Art Singapore 2009 Singapore Objective Border Srisasanti Art House, Jakarta Taxu 2008: Painting Rejuvenation SIGIarts, Jakarta Tekstur Dalam Lukisan Jogja Gallery, Yogyakarta Space/Spacing Semarang Gallery, Semarang Manifesto Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta Survey Edwin’s Gallery, Jakarta Domestic Art Objects & Stillife Jogja Gallery, Yogyakarta Langgeng Contemporary Art Festival Langgeng Gallery, Central Java Consciousness of Here and Now Biennale Jogja VIII 2005, Yogyakarta Apakah Kita Berbeda Nusantara Exhibition 2005, Nasional Gallery, Jakarta TRANS-it Biasa Art Space, Bali Urban Culture CP Biennale II 2005, Museum Bank Indonesia, Jakarta INITIATION Gaya Gallery Ubud, Bali …Membaca REALISME Nava Gallery Denpasar, Bali Cooking & History Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta Rememoration Klinik Seni (Art Clinic) Taxu, Denpasar, Bali Caution! There Is A Taxu Ceremony Klinik Seni (Art Clinic) Taxu, Bali Retrofigure Sanur, Bali On Human The Association of Visual Art Students of Indonesian Art College, Denpasar, Bali The 23rd Bali Art Festival Art Center, Denpasar, Bali With Pis Bolong Group, Ndag Studio, Ubud, Bali With Silang Group, Art Center, Denpasar, Bali Sesari Kuta News Anniversary, Denpasar, Bali
POOL PARTY! DODIT ARTAWAN
POOL PARTY! Solo Exhibition by Dodit Artawan 2012 TAKSU KL ISBN E-BOOK 978-981-07-1317-1
All rights reserved. No part of this brochure may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior consent from the artists and gallery.
TAKSU team Editor Theresia Irma Essay Gina Fairley Photography Koes Karnadi Graphic Design Jeffrey Lim, Studio 25 Printer Unico Services Brochure Š 2012 TAKSU Artworks & Images Š 2012 Dodit Artawan
TAKSU is a leading contemporary art gallery and specialist in Southeast Asia. Representing selection of fine art with distinctive urban edge, we are at the forefront of contemporary art in this region. TAKSU works to forge a platform for established and emerging artists to share their pool of creativity and knowledge through its residency programs and exhibitions. Encapsulating the true meaning of the word TAKSU; divine inspiration, energy, and spirit. Suherwan Abu Director, TAKSU Galleries
ISBN E-BOOK 978-981-07-1317-1
POOL PARTY! DODIT ARTAWAN
POOL PARTY! Solo Exhibition by Dodit Artawan 2012 TAKSU KL