Past Solo Exhibition
Melati Suryodarmo: Memento Mori 24.11.2019 — 24.01.2020
Information
Event has ended
24 November 2019 - 24 January 2020
About The Exhibition
STPI is pleased to present a solo presentation of a new body of print and paper works by seminal Indonesian artist, Melati Suryodarmo, exhibiting from 24 November 2019 to 24 January 2020.
A bold leap from her distinctively performance-based oeuvre, Suryodarmo’s new explorations in print and paper during her residency at STPI have resulted in a range of two- and three-dimensional works that retain traces of her performative marks. In particular, the artist examines the volatile relationship between matter and memory, and personal expressions of displacement. She takes an investigative and excavational approach towards abandoned spaces and the histories they carry, creating haunting yet beguiling impressions and forms that bring transformative relationships between site, body and memory to the fore.
About the artist
Melati Suryodarmo
Residency in 2018
Melati Suryodarmo (1969, born and based in Surakarta, Indonesia) examines the relationships and boundaries between the self and its environments—cultural, societal, political—through her primary medium of performance. Drawing from the body as a vessel for memories, lived experiences and perpetual transformation, as well as a mediator between external and internal worlds, Suryodarmo explores universal themes such as love, failure, alienation and belonging. She has been recognised as one of Indonesia’s most significant contemporary artists since the late 1990s.
Born to prolific Javanese dancers, Suryodarmo’s early immersion in traditional movement and meditation practices informed her later training in the Japanese dance-theatre form butoh and performance art in Germany. These experiences honed her acute sensitivity towards the capacity of the mind and body, enabling her to perform often strenuous durational pieces. In I’m A Ghost in My Own House (2012), Suryodarmo situates herself within a vast mound of charcoal which she continually collects, crushes and grinds into dust for twelve consecutive hours. Through this, the artist physically and symbolically strips away energy from both the charcoal and her body in a process of liberation, catharsis and destruction. The work reflects her feelings of displacement following her return to Indonesia after decades of living in Germany.
Suryodarmo obtained her BFA and MFA in Performance Art from the Braunschweig University of Art in 1991 and 1992 respectively. Her work is found in major collections including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Akili Museum of Art, Jakarta; Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum MACAN, Jakarta; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery Singapore; Singapore Art Museum; M+, Hong Kong; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; and Tate Collection, London.
Notable solo exhibitions include Tidak Apa-Apa (2024), Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto; Fracture (2023), Jendela Visual Arts Space, Singapore; Passionate Pilgrim (2023), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; I'm a Ghost in My Own House (2022), Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; Why Let the Chicken Run? (2020), Museum MACAN, Jakarta; Loneliness in the Boundaries (2006), Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire (2022), 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi; Escape Routes (2020), 2nd Bangkok Art Biennale;
We Do Not Dream Alone (2020), 1st Asia Society Triennial, New York; An Atlas of Mirrors (2016), 5th Singapore Biennale; APT8 (2015), 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane; and So Close Yet So Far Away (2009), 3rd International Incheon Women Artists Biennale.
Suryodarmo had her residency at the STPI Workshop in 2018, resulting in the exhibition Memento Mori (2019–2020).
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