SNOBS BEHIND KETCHUP
Exhibition Lombard Freid Projects · New York · September 2011
Snobs Behind Ketchup Eko Nugroho's first solo show in New York: murals, embroidery, sculpture and a comic-collective pop-up shop.
One September evening in 2011, I went to the Lombard Freid Projects opening of "Snobs Behind Ketchup," the first New York solo exhibition by the Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho. I walked into a room where the walls were talking back.
Nugroho is self-taught, and he works in almost everything: painting, embroidery, sculpture, site-specific murals, shadow puppets and video projection. His inspiration is his homeland. The images and installations carry Indonesia's politically charged present and its long artistic history, peopled by surreal characters that fuse human, machine, animal and plant, in worlds that are uncanny and darkly funny at the same time.
His visual language quietly names the dysfunctions of contemporary Indonesian society and the troubles of the wider world. But he never tells you what to think. He leaves the interpretation open, so the meanings peel back layer by layer as each viewer is ready. The work speaks of hope and violence in the same breath, and it starts a real conversation between the art and whoever is standing in front of it.
His comic- and graffiti-inspired imagery makes the work easy to step into, and that is part of its power. He draws on traditional Indonesian forms like wayang kulit shadow puppetry as much as on street art and comic books, so a joke and a protest can share the same wall.
Where he'd been by 2011
By the time he arrived in New York, Nugroho's work had been gaining international attention for several years:
- Transfiguration & Contemporary Mythologies, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2011)
- 10th Lyon Biennale, France
- Beyond the Dutch, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands
- SAM Art Projects, Villa Raffet, Paris
- ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
Why ketchup? Because it makes anything taste like more than it is.
The title is a satirical metaphor. Ketchup is what you add to disguise or inflate the flavour of something. Nugroho aimed it at the snobs, the politicians and the self-important elite who talk big on television and pump up their own importance, without ever solving the real problems. It sits right alongside the murals' speech bubbles: wars suck, crises suck, politics sucks.
The Daging Tumbuh pop-up
For the run of the show, the back gallery became a Daging Tumbuh pop-up store. Nugroho founded the Daging Tumbuh comic collective in 2000; the name means "growing flesh," a tumour. It is a community of Indonesian artists who collaborate on limited-edition figurines, T-shirts, notebooks and patches.
The collective also publishes the Daging Tumbuh comic books, and photocopying is the printing method of choice, on purpose: it keeps the work cheap enough to reach as many people as possible. It's the opposite of the snobs in the title, and maybe the real point of the show.
Lombard Freid Projects also hosted the American launch of Eko(Space)Nugroho, a limited-edition book by the artist.
Since 2011
New York turned out to be a beginning. In 2013 Nugroho was among the artists in Sakti, Indonesia's national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. That same year he showed in Writings Without Borders at Lehmann Maupin in Hong Kong and in the California-Pacific Triennial, curated by Dan Cameron at the Orange County Museum of Art. Louis Vuitton commissioned him to design a scarf for its Foulards d'Artistes collection for Autumn/Winter 2013: a long way, and also not so far, from photocopied comics.
The gallery that gave him his New York debut is now the Jane Lombard Gallery.
Quick answers
Who is Eko Nugroho?
A self-taught Indonesian artist who works across painting, embroidery, sculpture, site-specific murals, shadow puppets and video. His surreal hybrid characters, part human, machine, animal and plant, carry dark humour and political commentary on Indonesia and the wider world.
What was "Snobs Behind Ketchup"?
Eko Nugroho's first solo exhibition in New York, at Lombard Freid Projects (now Jane Lombard Gallery) in September 2011, with murals, embroideries, sculpture and a Daging Tumbuh pop-up store.
What does the title mean?
Ketchup stands for something added to disguise or inflate flavour. Nugroho used it to mock elite snobs and politicians who talk big on television without solving real problems.
What is Daging Tumbuh?
A comic collective Nugroho founded in 2000. Indonesian artists collaborate on limited-edition figurines, T-shirts, notebooks and patches, and on photocopied comic books made to keep the work cheap and widely available.
