curated by Alia Swastika
AKILI ART MUSEUM
23 January to 10 February, 2010
A Never Ending Effort to Remain Human
An artist might sometimes be incessantly struggling with something that we often consider as cliché (and that is why we tend to view them as a group of romantic people) and stubbornly offer something that they see as new. In our journey to appreciate the works, however, we come to know that sometimes it is not novelty that we are after, and sometimes we are aware that the idea of novelty is akin to the idea of ghosts. In the works by some artists, we seem to be forced into witnessing the same old thing and, without our being fully aware of it, we are disturbed by the terror of something that remain invariably the same.
S Teddy D is an artist who keeps bothering me with never-ending questions, as well as statements, about violence and war. Since I became interested to follow his artistic travails in 2000s, the issue of violence has been consistently appearing in a variety of forms and media. When preparing for this solo exhibition, Teddy told me that the issue of violence is still bothering him, especially during this latest creative period. He still wanted to present a provocative exhibition that can make people talk about this issue again, after the deluge of political issues and a frenzy of environmental jargon overrun it.
Almost fifteen years and he is still talking about the same thing—this, naturally, made me rather worried. During a discussion, however, he said something that convinced me about his choice of theme. “I feel that I’m not yet done with all the questions I have about war and violence. Perhaps others see me as working on the same old thing. But this is not about others. This is about my own questions regarding the curse of violence that we humans have upon us. I still need answers for myself, to help me understand the essence of humanity.”
Teddy’s answer still rang in my ear until a few days afterwards. I reflected on the reasons why an artist creates his or her art works. Of course, to be connected to people, to observe the surroundings, is something that we have always considered, or agreed upon, as the obligation of an artist. Teddy, however, makes me think that the essence of creative idea is ultimately about the self, the individual, and the personal restlessness. It constitutes the freedom of thought that has become so invaluable. This “same old issue” is representative of the terrors that lurk within an artist’s mind—and that of each one of us—that need to reach its final course, to be concluded. And so here we are now, observing how Teddy struggles with his questions about war.
***
The visual images about war that have been reproduced for as long as the history of civilization make us see war from the perspective of the victims. Antiwar campaigns mostly use pictures of the victims as the subject, with the heart-wrenching gazes or faces without any light of hope. Somehow, apart from the critical questions about why wars take place, we have been mostly encouraged merely to sympathize with the victims. Pictures about the First World War, and the films that we watch long after the war, mostly speak for the victims. Every now and then, among hopeless faces, we see a town ravaged, houses razed down, blood spilled, and many more unforgettable images.
Of course, such spread of images is understandable. With such pictures of the victims, we have been encouraged to extend our empathy, to support antiwar campaigns to stop the increasing number of fallen victims and to save civilization. Studies done in relation with visual codes regarding wars, especially over archives such as photography or films (whether fictional or documentary in nature), show the significant role of visual symbols in historical data. In the subsequent periods, it has spurred the emergence of image makers (including artists) that play an important role in supporting the antiwar stance of the oppositions. In the US at the end of the sixties to the seventies, the antiwar movements, especially the one that opposed the American invasion to Vietnam, provided a common ground for the artists to reflect on the role they played in the society especially according the creation and uses of art works to move the people in opposition to the government. Apart from attacking the policy of the American government to enter Vietnam, the artists’ movement also succeeded in defending the rights of the marginalized civilians such as the Blacks, the homosexuals, and the feminists.
Compared to the photographers and documentary makers, the visual artists naturally have a very different approach to view the issue of war, considering how the medium itself necessitated a different logic. In the anti-Vietnam-war of the seventies, along with the beginning of the new art movement in the West, the artists started to use novel strategies to create works that could be reproduced and become a part of the antiwar propaganda, enjoyed by many. Andy Warhol, for example, created posters with screen-printing technique, conveying antiwar and antiracism messages. This proved to be a significant experiment in Warhol’s aesthetic journey. Jasper Johns, meanwhile, created works of collage that show his critical stance toward the policies of the US government in relation with their military deployment.
***
Teddy’s works in this exhibition offer us a different visual approach to observe the phenomenon of war. While previously we have seen Teddy’s works that talk in a more general sense about war (which has also to do with the power relation between the state – the military – the civil society), today Teddy tries to have a sharper focus on the issue of war. War is a rich issue that is no less expansive than violence, and the two issues are undeniably interconnected. Although he has a profound empathy for the war victims, as he watches the loss of hope in the pictures and documentary films that he found in DVD rentals in Yogyakarta, he seems to want to present a distinct visual terror about war.
Since the creation of his attention-grabbing work at the National Museum of Singapore —Teddy himself seems to think that the work exceeds his own expectation—Teddy has been feverishly creating new works. His workshop is increasingly full of people, always busy with never-ending activities. There is always a new work being made, new ideas being executed, or new sketches waiting to be given shape in reality. It is in such a feverish period that the works about war are being made. Passion not only makes the artist reach for form and perfection, but also encourages him or her to keep on seeking answers for the haunting questions.
With all the works that are on display today, Teddy clearly shows that the grand issue in war is that of power. Acts of occupation and expansion are about how power is maintained, although with ways that create many victims. Albeit following many actual political issues rather intently, in his works during the last three to four years Teddy has mostly been showing the confrontations between anonymous parties. One cannot directly pinpoint who is the party in power or the one conquered. Perhaps the map of power that has become too complicated is too difficult to disentangle, so much so that we prefer to bring forward the more common phenomena.
Teddy also shows his belief that the biggest loss that our civilization suffers in the event of war is the loss of individual freedom. Teddy believes that human beings are creatures of thoughts and feelings. The event of war, which create fear and threats of loss, makes people lose the capacity to think and create. The many symbols of human heads, which are indeed characteristic of him, can be seen as his way to talk about the forced loss of freedom and human rights in war.
Teddy generally views the military (or militarism) as a legalized tool to inflict violence and justify wars. There is a slogan that says: “militarism is the theory, while militarization and war are the act in practice.” Military symbols are therefore dominant in Teddy’s works—the most prominent being the work The Butcher, a series of Ronald McDonald sculptures colored in military patterns (of the US forces), holding guns. The work cleverly illustrates the relationship between militarism and capitalism; how the military is the extension of the capitalists that are supported by the government.
Apart from the military pattern that has long been an idiom in his works, Teddy now explores army figures with uniforms that point at the levels of the different officers. Such idiom has been used in his previous works, in the form of a line of army officer figurines made of metal in the height of 25 centimeters. Today, Teddy reuses these figures, turning them into something that is entirely different visually. In the work of trident, titled Thought, Lied, Action, Teddy puts the figurine on a head, resembling hair decoration of the punk community, while in another head he puts them in such a way as to resemble Mickey Mouse ears, and yet in another work it is installed in the mouth to resemble a cigarette. This seems to be a fun play of arrangements of forms, in which the military figures and the shape of the head are in dialogues, and every time the army figurine changes place, it creates a different meaning, showing the strength of its semiotic power.
The same head shape is also applied in another work, to give shape to another idea, especially one related with the loss of individual freedom in the event of war. The metal box in which the head is stored can indeed be read as a prison, as implied by the title (The Prisoner of War). Apart from taking lives (the right to live), wars also seize the freedom of living, in which other rights—the right to education, health, and a happy life—are being detained by the power struggle. Another work that uses a box is The Truth Ways, with visual images that offer a form of cynical humor.
While other works present several visual elements that have been used in previous works, in Humankind Make Their Own Disaster, Teddy introduces a new element. Apparently, he wants to talk about the issue of nuclear war in this work, as he connects nuclear atoms (or balls) with one another, creating a galaxy of sorts. Interestingly, this galaxy-like connection of balls might remind us of the shape of human brain, so much so that, in relation with Teddy’s choice of title, we can understand Teddy’s idea that it is humans themselves, with their minds, that move our desires for all kinds of creations that lead to destruction.
Apart from creating three-dimensional metal works, Teddy also explores intriguing ideas by making use of replicas of ruins made of resin. Each fragment of the ruins is incised with the text that reads “war for whom”. The work Tragical Script also shows a distinct approach with graffiti in its simple definition of text on walls. The fragments of the ruins are then arranged on a bed that looks like hospital beds. Out of all the works on display today, it is in this work, through the use of a hospital bed, ruins, and the text, we encounter the perspective that represents the victims.
Teddy’s paintings that are presented in this exhibition show his tendency to return to the old pattern that he has once left for quite a while. In his “successful” paintings, the obvious pattern shows that he can distill his universe of ideas and convey it in minimal visual symbols, with adept mastery over color and form compositions. His huge creative energy encourages Teddy for the last few years to create numerous experiments in his style of painting. As normal for experiments, not all of them result in interesting works. As an artist, however, Teddy keeps on searching for new ways to define and create paintings.
We can see the results of the painting experiments in this exhibition today. In some of the paintings, we can see how Teddy still has a penchant for experimenting with dark and intense colors, combined with bright hues such as flame-like blend of red and yellow (that he then links with the issue he is exploring: war). His tendency to become an expressionist painter is evident in his sharp and strong charcoal lines. In the works that are based on portraits, the charcoal lines appear as a strong element of identity for his works, especially when he wishes to convey a certain expression. The faces in Teddy’s paintings might on the one hand seem terrible, but on the other hand they look as if they are crying for help. There are gaping mouths. The fear to enter the womb . Such models are certainly very much different from the usual images of war victims. Apart from the expressions of fear and loss, which are generally the basic impression created by images of war victims, Teddy also offers a distinctive perspective in which the humans appear as strong subjects that have the willingness to take a stand in relation to the war itself.
***
In general, the exhibition of “War” that opens Teddy’s career in 2010 today constitutes a path of return after his previous solo exhibitions in the last few years fail to show his great potentials as an artist. We see how as he has gained an increasingly stronger position in the Indonesian art map (and probably also that of the Southeast Asia), Teddy presents his creative ideas in progressively higher quality, with richer visual symbols that show a vast knowledge in a variety of disciplines. The art community has known Teddy as an artist who likes to read and knows a lot of things, especially because he is interested in the political issues that are related to issues of human rights.
Teddy’s works show the genuine quality of his artistic practices, in which he tries to reach something that has been haunting him precisely because he wants to find the answer that he has been seeking, without worrying about how the issues might affect his career as an artist. It is this answer, or to be precise the truth, that he wants to attain through the practice of art; perhaps not to contribute more to the myriad ideas that have been recorded previously in this world, but simply to affirm what has been there and spread it further and turns it into a source of inspiration for many. (ptw from
AliaSwatika)
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