Dadang Christanto: 1965
Confronting and cathartic.
Overview
Fifty years ago, the events of one night changed Dadang Christanto's life. Now, he's an Indonesian-born, internationally acclaimed artist who has exhibited around the world; then, he was an eight-year-old suddenly forced to cope when his father was taken away and his home was burned to the ground.
He's still coping, as his work makes clear. Indeed, his latest collection reflects that ongoing personal process and recognises the cathartic role creativity can play in coming to terms with trauma. More than that, it renders the horrific realities that characterised his homeland from 1965 until 1998 onto canvas.
If it sounds like confronting viewing, spanning a time when death and imprisonment without trial were all too commonplace, that's because it is. In the aptly named 1965, pieces old and new combine to speak not only of Christanto and others who suffered five decades ago, but of "everyone who has suffered the misfortune of systematic violence," as the artist so devastatingly puts it.
