Keberangkatan

Artist Agus Suwage (Indonesian, born 1959)

Date1998

DimensionsSculpture: 98 1/2 × 94 1/2 × 33 in. (250.2 × 240 × 83.8 cm)
Canvas: 80 1/4 × 138 in. (204 x 350 cm)

MediumThirty leather head sculptures, light wood box, motor, charcoal on canvas

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2018.38A-OO

Not on View

Label TextA haunting and evocative work, Indonesian artist Agus Suwage’s multimedia installation Keberangkatan translates to “Departure.” It combines a large-scale charcoal drawing and a sculptural boat form containing sewn leather heads, eerily illuminated from beneath. Once an hour on the hour, the mechanism within the boat roars to life, activating the oars into motion, yet the boat remains in place. Corresponding with the work’s sculptural element, the charcoal drawing pictures a stationary boat on the floor of an empty room filled with headless bodies. A lightning- or river-like form bisects the drawing, and numbers and backwards words, in both English and Indonesian, are dotted across the canvas. These words include LOVE, NOT GUILTY, BOHONG (“lie”), SURGA (“heaven”), BIROKAT (“bureaucrat”), LOLOS (“get away”), and TAKUT MATI (“fear of death”). Known for his investigations of the interrelationships between multiple forms of identity, Suwage’s work speaks to issues of migration and displacement, commonality and isolation, homogeneity and the loss of self.Published ReferencesSupriyanto, Enin ed., Agus Suwage: Still Crazy After All These Years (Archives 1985-2009), Studio Biru, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2010, p. 101, repr. p. 108.Exhibition HistoryBandung, Galeri Padi,1998.

Yogyakarta, Jogja National Museum, Agus Suwage: Still Crazy After All These Years, 2009.