The Heart Of Darkness

Praised for his unflinching artistic interrogations of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965 to 1966, Dadang Christantos first solo exhibition in Malaysia, Missing, has arrived at Wei-Ling Contemporary. The Indonesian artist speaks to The Peak about his countrys violent past, peering into the depths of human brutality and the power of remembrance.

- Renyi Lim

Dadang Christanto sits in a corner of Wei-Ling Contemporary, eyeing an assortment of kuih that’s just been set down in front of us. “Now, I shall be greedy and take more than one!” he exclaims, his eyes gleaming with impish humour. It’s mid-July and the Indonesian artist is making his first of several visits to the sixth floor of The Gardens Mall, scoping out the gallery in preparation for his upcoming solo exhibition, Missing.

Christanto’s debut exhibition in Malaysia, on now until 4 November, stands in stark contrast to his gentle personality. His art is steeped in the bloodstained history of Indonesia’s mass killings of 1965 to 1966 and its countless victims of political violence. Repeated motifs of blood, disembodied heads and anonymous faces – symbols that highlight the ease with which crimes against humanity can be committed – carry the same chilling, highly unsettling qualities that run through Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Hell, Annie Leibovitz’s images of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and Vann Nath’s paintings of Cambodia’s notorious S-21 prison.

“Dadang’s work leaves an indelible mark on your mind and visually, too,” says Wei-Ling Lim, the Gallery Director of Wei-Ling Gallery. “This is not going to be a pretty exhibition. It’s not a show that’s easy – it is confrontational. But who wants a show that’s easy? Robert Rauschenberg once said: ‘The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history.’ Someone like Dadang has got such a strong voice – not just in Indonesia, but internationally as well – because he’s being honest and truthful. He’s showing and talking about issues that people want to ignore.” Christanto’s pieces, it must be noted, are as much a warning as they are a memorial to the dead.