Reality is relative, with the real and the counterfeits becoming increasingly difficult to tell apart. Fake news, fake faces (literally) and boobs, fake art… The eye and heart are easily enticed by things flashy, never mind if shaped in skull heads, with Mickey Mouse ears and coloured plastic baubles as eyes, and what more decked with ‘royal’ crowns and fashioned in precious metals of gold and silver. In a mock Jeff Koons fetishizing whatchamacallit, Agus Suwage, one of Indonesia’s leading contemporary artists, turns out a set of work presumably art and / or jewellery and / or ‘award’ for the fervent seeker of memorabilia, with an edition of five to boot.
Agus Suwage likes to delve into his pet themes of identity, self-reflection and the inherent societal contradictions. In 2009 at the relative young age of 50, he was given a Retrospective at the Yogyakarta Art Museum, complete with a 670-page monograph, Still Crazy After All These Years.