Courtesy Heri Dono and Rossi & Rossi, London
Works by Heri Dono, like "Going to the Angels' Freedom" from 2011, draw on the influences of animation and Javanese puppetry.
JAKARTA — Two schoolboys stood outside the National Gallery of Indonesia
in Jakarta one recent day, seemingly enthralled by the artist Heri
Dono. While sitting at a covered picnic table for an interview, Mr. Dono
gently tried several times, unsuccessfully, to shoo the 10-year-olds
away.
"Three Presidential Candidates," by Mr. Dono.
“They remind me of me when I was their age,” said Mr. Dono, one of
Indonesia’s most internationally recognized contemporary artists. The
giggling boys eventually distanced themselves, but they appeared to
remain entranced by the artist’s calm presence.
Mr. Dono’s mild and jovial demeanor is in stark contrast to much of his
art, which often features fierce and distressing visions of political
and social issues like military interventions, political corruption and
environmental tragedies.
“He is charming and engaging, and I think that is what attracts people,”
said Fabio Rossi, the director of the London and Hong Kong-based
gallery Rossi & Rossi,
which represents Mr. Dono. “There is a multifaceted personality to his
work, where it is almost aggressively political but there is also a lot
of humanity and humor. He is a storyteller.”
That capacity to tell stories has captivated curators, critics,
collectors and audiences worldwide for more than two decades. Mr. Dono
was arguably the first contemporary Indonesian artist of his generation
to break into the global art scene, in the early 1990s. The artist’s
works, which are heavily influenced by his deep knowledge of animation,
cartoons and Javanese puppet theater, mix fantastical and incongruous
images with sociopolitical commentary.
From his base in Yogyakarta, in central Java, Mr. Dono, 52, has traveled
the world, doing residencies in Australia, Switzerland and the United
States and participating in exhibitions and biennales in Venice, Taipei
and São Paulo.
This year has been no different: in January he was a
featured artist at the Indonesian Pavilion at Art Stage Singapore; at Art Basel Hong Kong this week, the Jakarta-based Edwin’s Gallery
will exhibit several of his paintings, along with a new installation
titled “The Narcissism of Dono Raurus”; and in June, a show called
“Contemporary Fiber Art from Indonesia” will display another of Mr.
Dono’s new installations at Textile Art Berlin, before moving to the Grassi Museum in Leipzig from July 5 to Aug. 31.
“If any curator wants to do a serious exhibition of Indonesian
contemporary art, he is one of the first names — if not the first — that
they put down,” said Mr. Rossi, whose gallery will also exhibit at Art
Basel Hong Kong. “I think he is very ahead of his time.”
It is no surprise, then, that Mr. Dono has been awarded numerous art
distinctions over the years, including a Unesco prize at the Shanghai
Biennale in 2000 and the 1998 Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands
for his contributions to art.
The artist was born in 1960 and raised in Jakarta during some of the
darkest times in modern Indonesian history. He pointed to this as a
reason he was drawn to exploring political and social injustice in his
paintings, installations and sound and performance art. “Maybe if I had
grown up in Bali, I would have other ideas and motivations like focusing
on spiritual aspects,” he said. “But I grew up here, in a fairly tough
life where I could see things like crime and violence all the time.”
In 1980, Mr. Dono moved to Yogyakarta to study painting at the Indonesia
Institute of the Arts. He spent seven years there, using painting as
what he calls a “language without any text,” a way of organizing his
installation and performance art pieces. A few months before he
completed his studies, however, he decided to drop out.
“If I had studied to be a doctor or a lawyer or an architect,” he said,
“I would need a diploma, because without it I would be a criminal if I
practiced.” He continued, “No institution can guarantee that with a
certificate, you can be an artist. So I did an experiment for myself to
see if I did not get a certificate — could I still be an artist?”
He turned his attention to wayang kulit, or shadow puppet theater, and
studied for a year with one of the country’s top masters in the field.
“Music, dance, performance, visual art — there are many disciplines
involved in a theater puppet performance,” Mr. Dono said.
The stories told through shadow puppetry can also serve an educational
purpose, the artist said: “You can explore hard-to-discuss social issues
like domestic violence or censorship.”
Mr. Dono’s deep knowledge of shadow puppetry greatly influenced his
later works, in which he depicts and recrafts the puppets, which were
traditionally made of leather, in paintings or installations, often with
humorous yet grotesque characters. At one of his first high-profile
international shows, at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England, in
1996, his “Blooming in Arms” installation featured half-men, half-tree
figures carrying guns and standing on prosthetic legs.
The piece represented an environmental policy put forth by the
government of President Suharto, the military strongman who ruled
Indonesia from 1967 to 1998, that encouraged people in Indonesia to
plant a tree, a Rossi & Rossi catalog explains. At the same time,
the country allowed multinational companies to deforest the jungles of
Kalimantan and Sumatra.
“He always explains it, that his sense of humor and works were like the
Kris, the south Malay/Indonesian dagger,” said David Elliott, who
curated the show in Oxford in 1996. “The blades are wavy, so it is not a
straight thing that gets right to the point, you have to go around it. I
think that working in a violent totalitarian society, which he was
then, you had to be careful.”
Over the years, Mr. Dono has sought to mix global issues and local
context in his works. In the painting “The Last Sarimin” (2008), for
example, which depicts a King Kong-like character standing on a
skyscraper with planes swarming overhead, the character’s face resembles
a Balinese mask. The painting is a commentary on the many species that
face extinction, despite improved knowledge of their habitats and
advances in technology.
“He uses theater and popular culture to, in a way, imply an
awkwardness,” said Sacha Craddock, a London-based curator who wrote the
text for the catalog of Mr. Dono’s solo show at Rossi & Rossi in
London in 2011. “He plays the innocent, he plays the fool, and that is a
clever tactic.”
Mr. Dono admits that while many people initially view his works as being
like “colorful candy,” they actually hold much deeper, and sometimes
darker, meanings. “Art is not just about exploring the beauty or the
aesthetic but to give awareness to the audience,” he said. “Artists have
a moral responsibility to add to the conversation, to make people aware
of injustices.”
Despite his global success and influence, Mr. Dono leads a fairly simple
life in Yogyakarta. His primary mode of transportation is a bicycle,
and he zips around the city in a T-shirt, sarong and sandals. At his
vast studio, covering 2,100 square meters, or 22,600 square feet, he
employs local artisans and is an active supporter of the city’s cultural
life.
“He is very engaged in the local artistic community,” Mr. Rossi said.
“Whenever I see him at events, he always has a group of younger artists
with him and he will introduce them, saying, ‘Oh, he is a great artist,’
or ‘You should meet her.’ It is wonderful to see an established artist
be so supportive of younger ones.”***
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