The western world is used
to its own ideas of apocalyptic decay
and future salvation. Endless movies,
novels, and even Fox news stories seem
obsessed with what the coming world's
end may look like, or more specifically,
what we may look like. An evil military
usually plays a role, and there are cyborg-like
developments in our everyday appearance.
Also typical is a quasi-religious savior
that springs from the very masses that
it must save. Think, Neo from the Matrix
series, or the tattooed child from Water
World.
When forced to think about these same
inevitabilities from an eastern perspective,
however, and one may fall back on some
common stereotypes: group think, mask-like
facial exaggerations, a mechanical military,
maybe a dragon or two. But when Heri Dono
envisions these spectacular times, he
proves that not only are our basic expectations
of an Asian end-of-the-world-rule correct,
but they are more correct than we could
have ever imagined, to an utterly creepy
degree.
Dono employs electronics repairmen in
Indonesia to build his lo-tech armies
of flying monkey-like creatures, cricket-hissing
heads, and twittering fossils. His world
is built from a mock past. Fiberglass
structures appearing as stone are engineered
with flashing lights and small, exposed
speakers.
The sculptures from Born and Freedom
are treated like ancient, unearthed artifacts
from a darker age. Their garish faces,
large toothless smiles, and tethered dogs
of the same ilk, are both carnival, and
deadly ritual.
Palace Guards, a free-standing
set of three sculptures, likewise presents
a dual image of puppetry and domination.
The torsos of three military figures of
considerable rank sit atop bike tires,
creating wheelchairs surgically attached
to their underbellies. From behind, thick,
heavy lizard tails extend to the floor,
implying a delicate, if not parasitic
existence of another fiend. The guards
posture as though in a parade, feigning
interest in the non-existence crowd with
a lazy wave of the hand.
Along side these gruesome images, are
angelic structures. One group, Flying
Angels, hang from the ceiling in
a chaotic formation, their wings slowly
grinding back and forth with a toy-like
noise. Their tiny genitalia hang like
silly ornaments, a useless, unthreatening
remnant of their evolutionary past. And
two other apparatuses, Flying in a
Cocoon, depict more serene visitors,
encased in a kind of paper zepplin. While
such other-worldly creatures would, in
Western tradition, be seen as saviors,
they are here presented as divine failures
deformed and damaged by the world they
were meant to save. Their childlike innocence
fades, giving way to the vulnerability
of their armless bodies. Their cocoons
serve as permanent incubators against
the outside world.
The apocalyptic world of Heri Dono is
not one that gets saved. The power of
good and evil is consumed by the more
powerful need for survival. Darkness and
light continue to exist in order to illuminate
each other, but neither side claims victory,
or even consistency. They tear apart and
rearrange each other into conglomerate
beings, delighting, it seems, in their
own devilish vigor.
—Michael Kiser [mkiser@sedaqa.com]
Heri Dono: Civilization Oddness
Walsh Gallery, Chicago
July 21—Oct 7, 2006
www.walshgallery.com
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