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December 19, 2024 – Review
“MuMoToMo”
Adeline Chia
Collectives have played an influential role in the history of Indonesian art, from the 1930s, when the twenty-member PERSAGI, or Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia (Union of Indonesian Painters), boldly declared a nationalist, anti-colonial agenda, to the now-famous ruangrupa, whose methods of resource-sharing and knowledge-building have become influential touchstones for a more egalitarian art world.
In contrast to these collectives associated with political and social action, this exhibition features an informal group of four artists from or based in Bali—Edmondo Zanolini, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih, Dewa Raram and Dewa Putu—whose concerns are profoundly personal and inward-looking. In the 1990s, they formed a commune-like group (some of them lived together) where they made art and formed a space to explore their fantasies, trauma, and subconscious. Although the styles of their output were very different, their works displayed similar motifs and subject matter, which could come from specific visual prompts (like photographs) which they used to stimulate creativity, or a more spontaneous process. The resultant body of work on show here are the strange, fascinating fruits of their collective dreaming.
“MuMoToMo” is an abbreviation of the artists’ names. The “ringleader”—whose house formed the gathering-place for this group—is Edmondo Zanolini …