BRIGITTA AND THE EXPEDITION OF BORROWED SIGN
In visual art, the mixture of ‘local’ and ‘imported’ signs has occurred long before the rise of ‘glocalization’ and the discourse of globalization. Although the pattern of ‘borrowing’ instead of ‘mixing’ sign is more familiar in the olden day’s art practice , the history of (western) modern art shows the long history of the ‘east’ of the ‘exotic’ sign adaptations. These signs mostly taken from the indigenous craft from the Africa and the Pacific islands.
Before the development of digital media, the practice of visual adaptation started with a ‘tourist’ method , where the artist travels to foreign lands. However, after the growth of the virtual world and the digital world domination, experiencing exotic signs need no physical displacement.
Today, sign- collage is a rapidly growing trend , as fast as a copy-paste action. Through out these accelerations, Oky Rey Montha who is geographically based in Jogjakarta, Indonesia is a fluent voyager who use virtual spaces to go on a picnic, adapting signs, observe, capture and manipulates his ‘data’ to adress his personal narratives.
Oky Rey Montha which is also known with a nickname _Kyre_ grown in conditions that have gone through phases of global and local clash. Kyre tends to struggle with heavy information flows. Regarding this flow, Kyre resembles his brain to a data base that stores visual and text as a data base. Each of these data is not the absolute truth, it is merely a data that could be used as a weapon of personal expression.
Armed with this data base, and with the flexibility of mixing low-art and high art sign in contemporary atmosphere, Kyre works with the flexibility of hopping between signs. In his earlier sign-hopping, Kyre mixed pop culture icon, text, and traditional ornaments. the global-local data bustling around a visual explosion.
His Flexibility of using signs could be adapted from his previous design education where the individual and visual is a blended force in the midst of market and visual branding. In this condition, Kyre believes that the depth of an artist still exist despites the noise of the complex relations.
Brigitta, the woman depiction in this series, hovering with another figure with mask . Both figures hovering over the world’s cities exploring new territories. Ornamental traditional mask that oftenly explored in kyre’s previous work has changed it form to an Italian-like masks. The only traditional elements, gently appealed in kyre’s 3 dimensional work where Brigitta covering some part of her body with a batik cloth.
the role of a female figures that often appear as ‘alter-ego’ Kyre in this series played by ‘Brigitta’, a representation of the pressure, as toxic ,and sometime a hurdle to the masked men . These fantasy-like scene is also ornamented by the appearance of surelistically deconstructed animals that functions as the ride of the misteious masked man. Beside these figures, Kyre repeatedly inserts images at the melting clocks, pot of gold and weapons boxes and figures that seemed to enjoy his authority over the luxuries material.
Furthermore, after the quest in Kyre’s sign, where should an individual take his authority in this simulated world?
According to Baudrillard, in the intersection of signs in contemporary life and the world that is created by it, it is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real . it is called the world of simulacrum , the lost of all ability to make sense of the distinction between nature and artifice. It is the world where reality replaced with pseudo reality and fiction. In the middle of the sign interplay , Kyre may be a fluent player of the sign. In the middle of his simulation Kyre is constantly move to find a concept of a self. His authority is taken in his hand as he has the freedom to adapt sign that is not necesarilly based on his geogaphical habitat or on etnicity basis. in this journey, Kyre hasn’t anchored his ship, as he sails an expedition of sign where he digest and produce a simulation of signs that represents his ‘reality ‘.
Galeri Canna
Jl. Boulevard Barat Raya Blok LC 6 No. 33-34 Kelapa Gading, Jakarta Utara 14240
T: (62-21) 4526429 | 4522536
Opening : 17 July 2013
Exhibition : 17 – 31 July 2013
