The artist, the guard and the Venice Biennale
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
Art can sometimes be dangerous, it can be dangerous, and I mean very dangerous, for those who create it as well as those who collect it.
What we wish for is that we learn something from these stories or at least think about what these stories, which are of course real, are telling us. One thing they do is show us just how connected things in the world are, highlighting the similarities rather than the differences.
Here is a story of twisted logic which blurs the boundaries between what is good and what is evil, of what is just and what is unjust. There are juxtapositions that do not even begin to make sense and miscalculations of magnitude. In the end these things are for each of us to decide, but we need the foundations to ensure our decisions are wise, and it is here that things often go badly wrong.
Arahmaiani, Andrea and I are guests of our friends, the monks at Sera Jey Monastery in Karnataka. This is of course a place of peace and compassion, the monastery too has had its difficult histories, but this is a story for another time. We are all working together on a project in this gentle place. It is also a chance to catch up, to talk about life and the state of the world.
We sit in the Sera Jey Denma Khangtsen Prayer Hall, we go back to 20023 and I ask Arahmaiani about her work for the 50th Venice Biennale.
And so our discussion takes us back to the Indonesian National Pavilion of the 50th Venice Biennale. The collective exhibition of works by Arahmaiani, Dadang Christanto, Tisna Sanjaya, and Made Wianta was called Paradise Lost: Mourning of the World. Arahmaiani’s installation was called 11 June 2002.
Arahmaiani is many things, a performance and installation artist, an artist working with paint, with photographs, with words, with sound and with movement. At the very centre of Arahmaiani’s existence is her art and peace, empathy and compassion and the idea of bringing cultures together through her work and her search for a global justice and a global peace.
Arahmaiani is also brave.
This is why what happened to Arahmaiani in the US is startling. These events ask the question that in a time of stereotyping and prejudice, how do we move towards peace in this world?
These events also highlight the difficulties faced by international figures, like Arahmaiani, who want to travel the world to break prejudice and injustice and speak out about violence and environmental destruction and to create peace in this world. We share this passion which is even more important in 2025 and in a world more fragmented and incoherent.
Arahmaiani was back in the USA with her exhibition, Fertility of the mind, at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in Chelsea, New York in 2014 - reviewed New York Times by Holland Cotter, 31 January 2014.
What we wish for is that we learn something from these stories or at least think about what these stories, which are of course real, are telling us. One thing they do is show us just how connected things in the world are, highlighting the similarities rather than the differences.
Here is a story of twisted logic which blurs the boundaries between what is good and what is evil, of what is just and what is unjust. There are juxtapositions that do not even begin to make sense and miscalculations of magnitude. In the end these things are for each of us to decide, but we need the foundations to ensure our decisions are wise, and it is here that things often go badly wrong.
Arahmaiani, Andrea and I are guests of our friends, the monks at Sera Jey Monastery in Karnataka. This is of course a place of peace and compassion, the monastery too has had its difficult histories, but this is a story for another time. We are all working together on a project in this gentle place. It is also a chance to catch up, to talk about life and the state of the world.
We sit in the Sera Jey Denma Khangtsen Prayer Hall, we go back to 20023 and I ask Arahmaiani about her work for the 50th Venice Biennale.
And so our discussion takes us back to the Indonesian National Pavilion of the 50th Venice Biennale. The collective exhibition of works by Arahmaiani, Dadang Christanto, Tisna Sanjaya, and Made Wianta was called Paradise Lost: Mourning of the World. Arahmaiani’s installation was called 11 June 2002.
Arahmaiani is many things, a performance and installation artist, an artist working with paint, with photographs, with words, with sound and with movement. At the very centre of Arahmaiani’s existence is her art and peace, empathy and compassion and the idea of bringing cultures together through her work and her search for a global justice and a global peace.
Arahmaiani is also brave.
This is why what happened to Arahmaiani in the US is startling. These events ask the question that in a time of stereotyping and prejudice, how do we move towards peace in this world?
These events also highlight the difficulties faced by international figures, like Arahmaiani, who want to travel the world to break prejudice and injustice and speak out about violence and environmental destruction and to create peace in this world. We share this passion which is even more important in 2025 and in a world more fragmented and incoherent.
Arahmaiani was back in the USA with her exhibition, Fertility of the mind, at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in Chelsea, New York in 2014 - reviewed New York Times by Holland Cotter, 31 January 2014.
In this film we join Arahmaiani as she paints Grey by the Elo-Progo River in Central Java and in Singapore, Tony Godfrey, Equator Art Projects, talks to Arahmaiani about the grey paintings.
Borobudur lay hidden under volcanic ash and forest until Stamford Raffles, who was enthralled by Javanese history and collecting Java’s antiques, organised a dig to expose the long lost temple. The year was 1814. We are with Arahmaiani in Java.
A year or more has passed and we meet Arahmaiani again under a Javan sky to create the installation and performance once more, this time in a field on the banks of the Elo-Progo River in Central Java. Borobudur is close by this location.