Challenging the viewer through landscape and culture

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sun, 05/13/2007 7:42 AM  |  Life

Sascha Pries, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In their films and photographs Katia Engel and Faozan Rizal use stillness as an emotional trigger. Cultural contrasts work as a stunning, inspiring way of daring their audience.

The photographs that the audience face upon stepping into the exhibition do not seem overwhelming at first glance.

They are good pictures, indeed, in terms of aesthetics, but a deeper meaning does not easily spring to mind.

They show landscapes or forests, each paired with a mask that has been installed in the foreground of the picture. The masks have distinguishable origins, some African, another Balinese.

The reason why an initial impression of the exhibition did not seem to make perfect sense might be due to the order in which the material is presented: Still photos and then films and masks, the latter of which had actually been produced at an earlier point in time.

Culture by contrast

The masks that are placed in the landscapes convey a feeling of irritation with the viewer.

The artists have intentionally refrained from providing the photographs with titles or explanations, thereby making it harder for viewers to orientate themselves.

A leaflet from Goethe-Institute describes this as the landscapes' loss of a distinguishable culture. However, the stark contrast between the cultural realm of the landscapes and the masks can have a different effect, too.

One picture, for example, shows the new holocaust monument in Berlin with a mask on top of one of the pillars.

The diagonal axis of the picture as well as the contrast between the displayed cultural artifacts produce an emotional and cultural tension rather than deprive the photograph of its ability to provide a cultural explanation.

These contrasts and inconsistent images within the photographs force the observers to distance themselves from their habitual approach to art.

The basis of the viewer's conventional cultural horizons is highly challenged. Thus, the audience will ""hopefully experience the exhibition as an inspiration,"" Engel said.

Stillness as the essence

The artists first met in 2004 when they ran into each other by accident at Jakarta Arts Institute. Engel said she was ""fascinated by the stillness in (Faozan's) works"" at the exhibition opening May 3.

It is this very stillness that constitutes the recurrent theme of their collaboration, although their first joint works were films, in which Engel or other dancers performed in a landscape wearing a mask.

""Sometimes,"" Engel said, ""I hide beneath the masks. Sometimes the masks can express much better who I am.""

All of the three films shown in the screenings are characterized by slow motion, or no movement at all.

Within the years of their work, movement became increasingly rare; finally, it was dropped completely when they began producing photographs instead of films.

The photographs can hence be understood as the climax of their evolutionary trip toward the highest stage of stillness. Thus, the artists measure up to the exhibition's title, Dance without Moving.

Katia Engel is a German performance artist and sculptor. She has worked on her studies in Bremen and New York and put on performances in New York from 2000 through 2005. Born in Augsburg in 1970, she now lives in Berlin.

Faozan Rizal, born in 1973, is an awarded Indonesian artist with many faces. He had been working as a professional dancer for eight years before he started studying film and painting in Bali, Jakarta and Paris.

His cinematographic works and photographs earned him the Kodak World Cinematographer 2005 award and others.

Dance without Moving
Goethe-Institut
Jl. Sam Ratlangi 9-15, Menteng
Jakarta Pusat

finishes May 14

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