Artist Agung tackles some touchy taboos

Asip Hasani, Correspondent, Yogyakarta

Anything prohibited by religion, social customs and other societal values is deemed taboo. But these are the very subjects that artist Agung Kurniawan tackles in his drawings, currently at Yogyakarta Cemeti Art House.

The shock value in the show, titled Lick Me, Please!, is startling. There is a naked Jesus Christ, homosexual sex, masturbating men and other taboos in the show, which is open through Oct. 24. It is Agung's first exhibition of his works after a self-imposed hiatus of two years.

The male sexual organ is seen in almost all of his more than 20 drawings. He pictures penises in a natural, realistic way although he does not always confine himself to a sense of proportion.

It is as if we are looking at the erotic works of painters Basuki Abdullah or Antonio Blanco, but the difference is that now it is the man -- not an exotic, curvaceous woman -- who is on show. In the process, the viewer is forced to confront his own values and beliefs about male sexuality.

In his series of nine works, Your Underwear Reflects Your Personality, the potency of male sexual appeal is shown in the image of a man in his underpants, but with his genitals clearly seen.

Agung, who was born in a strict Catholic family in Jember, East Java, provides a few more shocks in his take on the Pieta, the famous work of Michelangelo showing Christ slumped in the arms of Mary.

Using paper as the media of his drawings and simple tools such as charcoal, crayon and pencil, Agung creates drawings which mostly emphasize the strength of his ideas. He captures the daily life of himself and people around him and pours them on the media. And this time, his ideas from which he captures the reality are sex, and lies in people's daily lives, hence his other title for his works, Pseudologia Fantasica.

Agung, who twice dropped out from Yogyakarta-based Institute of Indonesian Art (ISI) and twice received Phillip Morris Awards, can rightfully be called a rebel against the cause of the establishment.

In early 1996, he was one of few artists who dared to take political issues as their subject in creating pictures and paintings. After the fall of the authoritarian Soeharto regime in 1998, fine art works with political themes suddenly became the most wanted items, not only by art collectors but also the public.

Painters and other fine art artists became enthusiastic about creating artworks on political issues. Agung, dismayed by the crop of Johnny-come-latelies, totally stopped working for more than two years.

"It was disgusting. I became ashamed of my own works, and people continued to buy them," Agung said.

Now he is back, and his wife, Neny, said she was happy he had returned to doing what he does best.

The full extent of his anger at what occurred in the art community in recent years is evident in the title work of the show, Lick Me Please!.

He shows the famous communist revolutionary leader Lenin sitting, holding Communist Party books, on the leg of a prone man.

"Soeharto's fall from the presidency has brought us a boom in the publication of leftist books. In my view, I saw us asking Lenin to screw us," Agung said.