Angga creates new genre in graphic art
Angga creates new genre in graphic art
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
Narpati Awangga is proving that contemporary graphic art is
enjoyable for practically anyone. People don't have to scrunch
their eyebrows to understand the works he displays at the French
Cultural Center.
On entering the exhibition room, visitors will be greeted by
some 3 meter by 12 meter bright colorful murals and acrylic
paintings. They are set in such a way that they look like a
single artwork that flows smoothly along the wall from one end to
the other.
Titled Dipaksa Oomleo (Coerced by Oomleo), the exhibition
actually features only three acrylic-on-canvas paintings.
However, the way they are set on the wall and intermixed with the
murals (paintings on the gallery's wall) is what has made this
particular exhibition different and worth visiting.
"I made the murals correspond with the three acrylic paintings
in order to make them more interactive for the audience," Narpati
Awangga, or Angga as he is usually called, told The Jakarta Post
after opening the exhibition last week.
To do so, for example, Angga put on the wall next to a
painting a huge title, much bigger than the painting itself. The
title has been written in different colors brighter than the
painting itself.
In Power So Good, for example, a painting dominated by pink
hues featuring Rupuz, a funny orange comical cartoon character of
Angga's own creation, is put against the wall while a spot of
yellow paint spills onto the floor right under the canvas. It
gives the impression that the yellow spot has just flowed out of
Rupuz's body.
On another part of the wall, next to a painting "Something
dropped to the ground", is also written in large lettering.
"I had a dirty thought as I made it. I imagined a man's semen
drop to the floor during intercourse. But I make it look decent
by making it very decorative," said Angga.
"With this work I mean to show that something suggestive can
be presented artistically without the viewers feeling offended,"
he said.
The mural, too, according to Angga, was made to accumulate all
things that happen at the exhibition into a single and special
format of a graphic arts game named "swinging ball".
"This (the game) is what is supposed to make everything here
communicate with the visitors," said Angga
To play the game, players are required to swing, not throw, a
ball hung with a tiny rope in front of a mural featuring
different characters of Rupuz as the targets. There are four
different targets offering different musical sounds as rewards.
Born in Jakarta on May 8, 1978, Angga who is currently
completing his study at the Graphic Arts Department of the
Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI) Yogyakarta, is renowned
among his fellow artists as a graphic arts game specialist.
The ongoing exhibition is his fifth solo.
"I plan to publish a book containing a collection of graphic
arts games that I have created since 1996 when I first started
the work; two years from now at the latest," said Angga.
Angga, who claims to have been strongly inspired by American
graphic artist Keith Haring for his comical characters and
Italian graphic artist M. Escher for his works' interactivity,
likes to create simple things.
"I don't like talking about complicated things. That's why my
works are all simple," he said.
Angga wants everything he creates to be interactive and to
appeal to both adults and children.
--The exhibition at Yogyakarta French Cultural Center (CCF),
Jl. Sagan No. 3 (tel. 0274-566520) will run until Aug. 31, 2002.