Picture(s) of the Week: JENDELA knives

We took a road trip to Singapore last Wednesday to attend the opening of JENDELA group’s exhibition “A Play of the Ordinary” at National University of Singapore (NUS) Museum. It was a spur of the moment decision as we wanted to kill a few birds with one stone: 1) cheer our friends on 2) see Handiwirman’s ‘knives’ which we’ve heard so much about during our recent trip to Jakarta and 3) get our ‘mee-pok‘ fix. Hee.

This show is a big deal for the group as it is their first major exhibition outside Indonesia. Combining old works dating as far back as 1999 with new ones, “A Play of the Ordinary” traces the group’s development over the past decade. Working in a distinctive visual symbolic language, using still life and landscape forms,  these five artists from West Sumatra have differentiated themselves from a predominantly figurative-based and socio-politically driven Indonesian art context and are now leading figures in their own right. Kudos to curator Enin Supriyanto for his sensitive and well thought-out presentation. As we walked through the thematically curated rooms, we witness their sense of humour and wit, their close friendship as well as the influence they have on each other’s artistic development. As for the knives, there were not 2 but 3 knives on show -a pair of pointed slicing knives from Handi, measuring 2 meters long each, and a giant cleaver by  Rudi Mantofani which miraculously turned up 2 hours before opening.

Here are the pictures. We’ll let you decide if you think they were worth the trip.

Useful info: Kelompok Seni Rupa JENDELA or JENDELA Art Group members are: Jumaldi Alfi, Handiwirman Saputra, Rudi Mantofani, Yunizar and Yusra Martunus. The word ‘Jendela’ means ‘window’ both in Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia. (AO)