Laughing at ourselves: Artist Anggun Priambodo’s 4.01-minute video work Sinema Elektronik (video stills above and below) which won the BaCAA Grand Prize, makes fun of sinetron. Courtesy Of Anggun Priambodo The jury announced the winners of this inaugural award for artists under 40 years old at the open-air grounds of Lawangwangi Arts and Science Estate in Bandung, on Jan. 28.

Priambodo (born in 1977) was rewarded for his ability to identify and mock our zeitgeist with fresh and amusing parodies of sinetron, using the same medium that transports millions of Indonesians each day into a fantasy world of melodrama.

Conceived by Art Sociates — a foundation established by Andonowati in 2007 to help talented artists enter the international world of art — BaCAA pioneers a new way of qualifying talented emerging artists. The standards set ensure prizewinners are rewarded for their innovative, creative and skillful abilities when expressing their concepts through adequate language and visualizing these with technical adequacy.

BaCAA’s jury includes artists (Agus Suwage and Mella Jaarsma), an art writer (Carla Bianpoen), art curators (Hendro Wiyanto and Rifky Effendy), and art collectors (Syakieb Sungkar and Wiyu Wahono).

Three special prizes, each consisting of a choice between a three-month residential abroad or art travel, went to Erika Ernawan (born in 1986), Erianto (born in 1983) and Aditya Novali (born in 1978).

Erika Ernawan’s work Mirror Sees Me, which consists of three panels reflecting her existence as a woman whose body is prone to the other’s gaze, was honored for its exceptional strength in putting forward the gender issue combining a variety of unusual media and techniques.

Crushing stereotypical views regarding the female body, she smashes the mirror covering her images, thus deforming her body and stating she alone is in control of it.

Optical illusion: Today Parcel, an acrylic on canvas by Erianto, wins a Special Prize from BaCAA. JP/Carla Bianpoen Erianto and Aditya Novali have both pushed the limits of painting in an exceptional manner, evoking a sense of urgency to rethink painting as it used to be practiced.

In Today Parcel, Erianto paints cardboard packages of various sizes on canvas creating the illusion the packages are real, a feat that could signify the end of painting itself.

Aditya Novali’s assemblage of 18 canvas-covered pieces of rotatable bars in Tomorrow, which belongs to his Mooi In(die) series, divides and at once exceeds the horizontal plane of the canvas. Members of the audience can play with the bars, and shape their own image based on each person’s mood, experience, vision, or intention. It is this playful element that has a value-added quality.

More than 400 works were put forward for this award. The works of the 25 finalists will be on show at Lawangwangi Art and Science Estate, Bandung, Mekarwangi until February 18.

To ensure sustainability of the award, which will go regional next year, the 25 finalist works will be auctioned.

Fifty percent of the auction proceeds will go towards funding the next awards, while the other 50 percent will go to the artists.

 

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The auction will be held at a Special Sotheby’s event on March 3, at 7.30 p.m. at Ciputra Marketing Gallery, Jl. Prof. Dr Satrio, kav. 11, Jakarta.

Preview is on March 2, from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m., and March 3, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The auction will be preceded by a banquet Dinner.

For banquet reservations, sms +62 121476946 or email Andonowati at andonowati@artsociates.com