This Saturday, Gajah Gallery launches Yunizar: Perspektif Baru, a comprehensive exploration of the illustrious two-decade oeuvre of acclaimed Indonesian contemporary artist Yunizar in Bahasa Indonesia. Yunizar will be present, providing a unique opportunity for you to meet and have your copy of the book personally signed.
Saturday, 27 January | 2.30 – 8 PM
Officiated by Iwan Kurniawan Lukminto from Tumurun Museum | 3 PM
Book Signings with Yunizar | 4-5 PM
Edited by the distinguished historian T.K. Sabapathy, the book brings together the writings by several renowned scholars: T.K. Sabapathy, Aminudin T.H. Siregar, Ahmad Mashadi, and Katherine Bruhn. Yunizar: Perspective Baru initially launched in 2022 under the title Yunizar: New Perspectives, marking a significant milestone in the art world’s appreciation of Yunizar’s remarkable body of work.
As Yunizar continues to gain momentum in the art world, he remains a singular voice in Indonesia’s contemporary art history. His artistic journey took off in the late 1990s, during a period when the fall of former President Soeharto triggered an art world heated with the socio-political issues of the time. Yunizar’s haunting early work, however, resisted the noise and didacticism of political art. He chose instead to focus not on grand, heroic narratives, but on the richness of the everyday. Radically subverting conventional notions of beauty, Yunizar imbued his canvases with smudges, muted earthy colours, and raw, crude lines and figures. The deceptive simplicity of this visceral style, paired with the psychological depths and elusiveness of his subjects, is ultimately what persists to make his works compelling.
The works on display capture the unique trajectory and milestones of Yunizar’s career: from his paintings of enigmatic figures in dark, archaic colours from the late 1990s, his Coretan works that infuse rhythmic, ‘unreadable’ scribbles and draw our attention to the expressive power of texts; to his bold, eccentric bronze sculptures that he developed in the 2010s. Yet, they also reveal how Yunizar’s evolution is far from linear. The complexities of these works are thus a testament to how there is still much to unpack in the works of Yunizar—prompting the need for ‘new perspectives’.
Yunizar: Perspektif Baru will be available from 28 Jan 2024. Preorder today for 20% off!
Any preorders before 26 Jan 2024 may request to receive a personal signed copy (The Gallery Team will reach out to you about this after your purchase).
