As promised, here’s the second installment of Eko Nugroho’s work in 3-d. This stunning bronze pair was a part of “It’s all about Coalition”, a project commissioned by the National Museum of Singapore earlier this April. Photo of the bronzes courtesy of National Museum of Singapore.

The two other images below are from “The Golden Years”, an installation consisting of over-sized golden skulls, embroidered flags and mural from the Sea Art Festival at Busan Biennale this year. This work is an absurd take on the turbulent years of Indonesia’s history. Eko is pictured in both photos as the shots were taken during set up.

We interrupt this blog to quickly divert your attention to thirtyfour in perspective, an event organised by thirtyfour, a Kuala Lumpur-based design collective, on Tuesday, 18th Nov 2008. As advertised on facebook and in their e-invites, this one-night only event at the historical Chin Woo stadium, located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, showcases their “explorations in skin” over the past 18 months. The result is a collection of hand-made leather accessories –bags, clutches, belts, cuffs, wallets, sandals, slippers, card holders– that has cultivated a niche following, the hip urban audience who are looking to stand apart from mainstream cookie-cutter society. Functional and minimally stylish, thirtyfour’s designs combine bold shapes, lines and contours with unusual textures such as chicken skin among others and daring bursts of colours. While we loved their door gift and went equally glazy-eyed over their designs, it was their “out of the ordinary” installation, created out of scaffolding, bubble wrap and stenciled cardboard boxes, which won a RogueArt thumbs up. Go thirtyfour!

One of RogueArt’s favourite artists and persons in the world, Eko Nugroho opened his latest solo exhibition at Galeri Semarang on November 8th. Woohoo! While we are sorry we couldn’t be there to cheer him on, we do however have images from the exhibition to share with everyone.

We want to adopt the green hippo.

A versatile artist who works across numerous disciplines and media, Eko began experimenting with 3-dimensional life-sized forms in 2007. Cast in polyurethane resin or bronze, the artist’s stable of part-man part-machine creatures and objects made their first public appearance at his solo exhibition with Ark Galerie in Jakarta in March 2008. They have also graced the Glass Atrium of the National of Museum of Singapore for a special project commission in April 2008 as well as the recent Sea Arts Festival at Busan Biennale 2008 in September. We’ll post more Eko pictures next week. Promise.

Trivia: The title of this exhibition is based on one of his large scale embroideries from 2007 at VWFA’s Project Room show, “In Wonderland”. Here’s an image of the embroidery during the set up.

We thought we’d post this painting by Yogyakarta-based artist, Bambang “Toko” Wijacksono for some old-fashioned fun. The simplicity of its design and style evoke pleasant childhood memories of Mad magazine, Where’s Waldo and good old Ladybird storybook illustrations. And the piggies are just so adorable that we might be tempted to huff and puff and blow their house down! Hee!

Trivia: “Toko” in Bahasa Indonesia means “a shop” or “a store”. One of Bambang’s solo projects during the earlier part of 2000 focused on the notion of bartering. He transformed Cemeti Art House into a ‘market’ where members of the public were invited to trade their wares with him. Incidentally, Bambang is the go-to person in Yogyakarta if you ever need to find or buy anything. Seriously. Guaranteed never to disappoint!

Psychogenic Fugue belongs to Patricia Eustaquio’s latest body of work, inspired by JS Bach’s piano exercise, The Well Tempered Clavier. This haunting crochet sculpture, cast from an existing piano, is part of a series of 12 works, silent odes to the sublimity of Bach’s music, recently unveiled at Patty’s highly anticipated solo exhibition Death to the Major, Viva Minor at SLab (Silverlens Lab) on October 16th.

Quick trivia: the existing piano belongs to Nona Garcia’s grandmother.

Our other favourite work from this show is Untitled (Piano), made of tooled leather and ceramic keys. Patty worked with leather craftsmen in Marikina to create the body and the piano keys are shaped from delicate ceramic.

SLab is the latest (and sexiest) addition to Manila’s new contemporary art spaces opening along Pasong Tamo Extension in Makati -Finale Art File and Manila Contemporary are in the vicinity. Those of you who have seen and experienced the bridge will know what we mean by sexy. It’s very Diego and Frida! SLab is dedicated to presenting contemporary Filipino art and is a part of the Silverlens Group, helmed by the formidable Isa Lorenzo and Rachel Rillo. To find out more check out http://slab.silverlensphoto.com

SLab interior

Hooray! RogueArt opened our very first exhibition project on 1st Nov 2008! Gimme Shelter is a special fundraising exhibition with drawings in charcoal by our dear friend, the renowned Malaysian artist Ahmad Zakii Anwar. This exhibition is in aid of Intan Life Zone Welfare Society in Johor Bahru, a home to over 25 men, women and children, the majority of which are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Ahmad Zakii is a co-founder of Life Zone and full proceeds from the sale of this exhibition will go to building an after-care center where former residents will receive training in basic income-generating skills such as gardening, carpentry and car washing. The center will also provide former residents with small business opportunities.

We are happy to announce that all twelve portraits are now sold! The portraits were also produced as limited edition prints, a number of which were picked up by several generous supporters that evening. A big THANK YOU also to all our guests and friends who showed up at the opening, and for so graciously contributing to our donation jars. There are still sets of these beautiful prints available for interested collectors and supporters.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

view of exhibition on opening night

Guest of honour Prof Adeeba, President of the Malaysian AIDS Council and Ahmad Zakii Anwar

Liza and Snow signing in

Hamir and I-Lann

Life Zone outreach worker Fong with his portrait

Prof. Adeeba, Beverly, Ai Lin and Jackie

John, Leonard and Johnni

For those of you who missed the opening, please do visit the exhibition at no. 19 Jalan Berangan (behind Changkat Bukit Bintang), Kuala Lumpur. We are open from 10am – 6pm, Mondays to Saturdays. The exhibition closes on 15th November 2008. Call us at +016 266 7413 if you would like to make an appointment.