megan wilson subtext

Sunday, April 26, 2009

jogja highlights: makeup workshop

JOGJA HIGHLIGHTS: OCTORA'S MAKEUP WORKSHOP AT CEMETI ART HOUSE

As always Jogja's art scene is booming! We have been lucky to see (and participate in) a variety of really great work. I'll be sharing the highlights in a series of posts. The first week we were here we were lucky to be invited to be a part of Octora's Makeup Workshop that was a part of her residency with the Cemeti Art House (Cemeti has been at the foundation of the contemporary arts community here in Jogja since 1988).

About Octora's work for the Cemeti Art House residency:

'Project of Intimacy' (OCTORA)

The body is the prominent subject of almost every thought and idea that serves as the foundation for Oktora's creative works. In considering the sequence of her creative work, the stages of her creative process, we can not ignore the factors of her personal experience. For example, once she studied how to illustrate the human body or torso in the department of painting and sculpture; always with a unique and personal method encouraging, pushing forward her characteristic expression; in the form of perceptions, interpretations, reflections, or revisions of her conceptions of the body. In a very personal way, Octora contemplated her revisions by exploring Yogyakarta on her bicycle for three months. Reclaiming her ability to ride a bicycle in the midst of the busy-ness of the city, after more than two decades of driving a car in Bandung, Oktora expressed her rage like a small child who was continuously adjusting to the physical changes in her body. How the human spirit becomes susceptible when our car places us as a moving shell that is often overprotected while driving. Thus, during the three month residency, Oktora contemplating while bicycling through the urban Yogyakarta neighborhoods; imagining a free body, 'naked', unimpeded, knowing her potential and recalculating her strength. Meanwhile, the body became the shell that protected her spirit.

Workshop in progress

The Landing Soon residency is a period of production, contemplative production, idea production. Often the artists make use of analysis and experimentation to review their entire creative process.

Oktora revised her ideas about the body beginning with the questions: Why must it be continuously protected and defended? Isn't it tiring, weakening and often silly? Why don't we ever 'celebrate' the body? Free it from the social constructions, the indifference with the political, social and economic norms of this country?

Octora collected dozens of kinds of action dolls (dolls that had become bridges for physical personification) from the owners. Oktora wrapped and shaped them one by one with love that was very fashionable and stylish. She collected several women's pants and affixing fashionable, protective accents. Oktora's works leap far away from the discourse of craft fetishes towards craft as a discourse and expression of experience and provocation of norms.

Nindityo Adipurnomo, 2009
Cemeti Art House

Nindityo Adipurnomo and Mella Jaarsma

participants

Ned Branchi

Ned and Benny

baby, baby, baby

Octora

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Jogja

JOGJA

Return to Via Via with Mie and Ingville

awwwwww my reunion with Jogja ashtrays

Great performance by Frau

Our shimmering pink bike

On safari in the mall ...

Monday, April 13, 2009

Return to Indonesia

RETURN TO INDONESIA

Ubud Bali Indonesia

Back in Indonesia ... it's been three years since my last visit here ... hard to believe! Eliza and I arrived on Bali a week and a half ago to the scent of incense and diesel, and a rush of heat that settled in our bones, making us very happy... and very sleepy (or rather snailey) - not to mention the jet lag. We spent four days in Ubud and three on the coast in Amed. This is my usual routine here - to spend a week on Bali before making my way to Jogjakarta. However, I think next time I'll break the routine and come straight to Jogja. While Bali has the perception of being a relaxing transition space, it's really more like being dropped off at a large tropical outdoor mall. Though I also understand the necessity for it being this way - it's completely tailored to tourist demands and expectations and it's become critical for Indonesia's economy and survival of the island's residents, and those on neighboring islands.

So here we are ... grateful for the opportunity to balance ...

Agung Cottages, Ubud

Eliza after her banana pancakes

Amed

Amed ... Scrabble tournament ... thinking, thinking, thinking

still thinking ...

still waiting ...

and the drum roll ... please ... no really ... REALLY! ... SNAILEY????!

Really! ... Notice it's now dusk ...

I'll write more about our arrival in Jogja tomorrow. We're off to Sam and Ade's now.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Hack at NYT

Deconstructing the Shoddy Journalism of April Dembosky at the New York Times

Deconstructing the sloppy and unethical journalism of April Dembosky: Yesterday I read the article "Street Art Comes in From the Cold" by April Dembosky, who interviewed me for the piece. I was shocked to see that my words had not only been inaccurately quoted, but taken completely out of context to serve Dembosky's personal viewpoint.

Several weeks ago I received the following email:

Hi Megan,

I am a correspondent for the New York Times in the Bay Area. I'm currently working on a story for the paper about murals in San Francisco and would love to ask you some questions about Clarion Alley. Is there a chance we might chat over the phone sometime today, Monday (preferable) or tomorrow morning?

Many thanks,
April Dembosky

--
April Dembosky
Reporter/Radio producer
San Francisco Bay Area
(c) 415.517.3795
(e) april.dembosky@gmail.com

I responded that I'd be happy to speak with her.

When Dembosky called me the following day, I sensed that she had an agenda. Initially she asked me about Clarion Alley and the philosophy of CAMP. I responded that to my understanding CAMP was created to provide a platform for all artist perspectives and that the "philosophy" was not to have a set "philosophy." She pushed further, asking how CAMP is different from Precita Eyes Mural Project and I reiterated that I couldn't speak for CAMP because CAMP is comprised of many artists' voices and it would be wrong for me to make a blanket statement speaking for anyone but myself, as an artist who has equal weight with every other artist who has painted a mural on the Alley.

I could feel myself getting frustrated because it was clear to me that I wasn't providing the responses she was hoping to get. So I asked her straight up what was her angle for the article. Finally, some clarity. Dembosky filled me in that she was actually writing a piece about the Kerry James Marshall exhibit as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and that she was interested in how murals traditionally painted on the street translate in the museum setting. She felt that a number of artists believe murals created within institutions lose their credibility -- like graffiti reproduced in a gallery. As she said this, I was thinking to myself - ugh, this is such an old and tired subject, already beaten to death in critical discourse. But I was a trooper and went along, hoping to provide her with a broader perspective on the topic.

I communicated that I hadn't seen James Marshall's work at SFMoMA yet and couldn't speak to the piece specifically, but as a big fan of his work, I was really looking forward to it, especially since my dear friend Marina Perez-Wong had been one of the painters for the project.

I told Debosky, again I could only speak to my own experience as an artist who paints public murals/wall paintings - on exteriors and interiors. So this is where my quote actually comes from:

I went on to explain that creating any work is about CONTEXT (which Dembosky seems to only know how to take things out of) and that of course, a work that is created in one environment will have a different context in another. I then said, speaking about MY work (her quote wasn't even accurate) and the installation I had just completed as the Sun Valley Center for the Arts:

"I don't think of them as murals when they're in a gallery or arts institution, I think of them as wall paintings."

The entire conversation took up a good half an hour of my time, and I provided her with additional contacts and told her I was happy to provide additional information if she need it ... etc.

So of course, it felt like such a slap in the face to read Dembosky's article for the New York Times yesterday and see my words not accurately quoted AND taken completely out of context to fit the statement that SHE wanted to make:

Still, some argue that his art violates the philosophy of public art that many San Francisco street artists hold dear.

"I don't even think of them as murals when they're in a museum," said Megan Wilson, a local artist and muralist. "They're just wall paintings."

To April Dembosky:
A correction needs to be made in the Times and you might consider an introductory course in journalism.