Kindred by Choice #1

ARNDT Singapore at Gillman Barracks
4 July 2013 – 30 August 2013
Opening on 3 July, 6:30pm to 9:00pm

Please join Fair Director of Art Stage Singapore, Mr Lorenzo Rudolf, in conversation with Entang Wiharso and Matthias Arndt at the opening of Kindred by Choice #1.

Jumaldi Alfi – Martin Kippenberger
Fendry Ekel – Andy Warhol
Entang Wiharso – Daniel Richter

ARNDT Singapore is pleased to announce the 3rd project in its Gillman Barracks space, Kindred by Choice #1.
It is the first of a new series of shows which aims to showcase Asian artists face-à-face with one artist of their choice on the same platform. Goethe’s novel of the same title is also translated as Elective Affinities from the original German title, Die Wahlverwandtschaften. The terminology, elective affinities, is a “scientific law according to which elements of innate affinities will choose, or elect, to bond together, even if they must break out of previously formed unions in order to do so.”  The characters in the book, Kindred by Choice, were attracted by way of these elective affinities.
In the Singapore gallery, ARNDT aims to create a prolific juxtaposition by placing Indonesian artists in the same arena with artists from Germany and America, to demonstrate elective affinities or the kindred choices of today. In Kindred by Choice #1, three established Indonesian artists - Entang Wiharso, Fendry Ekel, and Jumaldi Alfi – will conduct a visual conversation with three artists they chose personally - Daniel Richter, Andy Warhol, and Martin Kippenberger.

Jumaldi Alfi (born 1972 in Lintau, West Sumatra, Indonesia; lives and works in Yogyakarta) is the co-founder and a member of the Jendela Art Group who in the early phase of their artistic career, dealing with themes which were distanced from socio-political issues as well as from artwork which capitalized on sophistication of a painterly execution of realist paintings, surprised their audience. Alfi will conduct a visual dialogue with Martin Kippenberger through their self-reflective oeuvres. How they conclude with their conversation is to be seen, through the handwritten messages from the artists, which will be revealed through the artists’ discourse.

Martin Kippenberger (born 1953 in Dortmund, Germany; died 1997 in Vienna, Austria). Kippenberger produced a rich and diverse body of work from the mid 1970s until his untimely death at the age of 44 and is now regarded as one of the most influential artists of his time. He was a master appropriator who consistently absorbed, challenged and transformed the world around him. His work draws on popular culture, art, architecture, music, politics, history and his own life – where no subject remained sacred.

Fendry Ekel (born 1971 in Jakarta, Indonesia; lives and works in Amsterdam, Berlin and Yogyakarta), explores the dark side of human ambition in his paintings. Often painted after black and white photographs which depict portraits and architecture, he investigates the use of art, architecture, and figuration as a means of propaganda for ideologies and confronts himself where the border of ethical and aesthetical values crossover, through his monumental, layered canvases. In Kindred by Choice #1, the artist, whose subject matter is at times, remnants of events occurring in the past, will have a conversation with Andy Warhol. Ekel appropriates images from our collective memory, as Warhol has in his famed prints, as if to conjure up memories of these frozen moments or personalities within the walls of our gallery space.

Andy Warhol (born 1928 in Pittsburgh, PA, died 1987 in New York City, NY) is a leading figure of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. He is known for his prints of mass-produced images from American pop culture such as Campbell’s soup cans, as well as portraits of celebrity figures such as Marilyn Monroe. His work was created in his studio, called the Factory, which became a hang-out for artists, actors, and musicians.

Entang Wiharso (born 1967 in Tegal, Zentral-Java, Indonesia; lives and works in Yogyakarta) is one of Indonesia’s most provocative and engaging artists of today, and is one of the artists representing Indonesia in the Venice Biennale this year. He creates paintings and installations which combine Javanese mythology with personal and public memories. Through his work, Entang casts a critical eye on multiple issues including international politics, environmental issues, and stereotypes prevalent in cultures. Entang will face Daniel Richter. Will Entang, with his distinct depiction of human figures, at times clothed, at times naked, clutching onto themselves for dear life or viscera loosely reaching out to other life forms, have a lesson to teach Richter, in all of his psychedelic depiction of the world?

Daniel Richter (born 1962 in Lütjenburg, Germany; lives and works in Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna) is a renowned German artist that works with an eclectic fusion of the genre of history painting and contemporary imagery taken from newspapers and magazines. His path to fame was launched with his “psychedelic” colorful abstract work in the 1990s, and shot to fame later on in the decade with this large-scale, figurative works.

Please click here to view a list of exhibited works.

For any further information or press images, please contact Mariko Owen (mariko@arndtberlin.com; +65 67340775).