They Exhibit The Process, Not The Artists

I went to see an exhibition last Sunday: Tribe Art Comission/Julian Opie/Jakarta. This is probably one of very few exhibitions held in town with such strong concept that every item displayed bear consistent message. Only the works of five people were displayed, work of which to stare at, marvel at, and dig for hours. The longer I stared, the more disturbed I was. Bono said once what you don’t know you can feel somehow. Mr.Know-It-All as I am —very not in a good way—, I stayed staring and hoped something is there. Aha experience then hit hard.

Hannes Schmid’s Room
(of whom I know nothing of)
In that room were played four short movies —hyper short in fact (only seconds), each in repeat mode. First movie: long shot of a guy standing firm, slowly steadily lifting up his left leg and lowering it down again. Second movie: close up of a guy staring at us still, his hair was wind-blown in sudden. Third movie: close up of guy, eyes closed, before his face was water pouring down. Fourth movie: A swimming pool with a F1 racing car completely drowned in, a guy swims by. I think every model is F1 drivers.

Each movie is looping over and over but there was no way I could find the break. That means the maker are in control of the first guy leg motion, the second guy’s hair, —here’s the scarriest part— the third and fourth movie’s water. How on earth can someone control nature? I stared for hours looking for a end-start frame and tried figuring out how they made them possible. I did it in vain. But something else came out. I think I figured out the meaning of each movies. F1 pushes drivers to endure same lap over and over and over again, which explains why the movies were set in repetitions. The leg guy represents strength, the hair guy represents speed, the eyes-closed guy represents durable concentration, and fourth pool water represents constancy![1]

Alastair Gibson’s Room
(of whom I know nothing of)
In this room only two items were displayed: Two perfect small scale shark sculptures made out of leftover machine parts of F1 cars. The details are insane. I wish I went there with competent mechanic so I would know the names of the part Gibson used for the sharks’ anatomy —the eyes, the fins, the skin, the tails, the bones, the lungs, the teeth, the every parts attached. I think the two masterpieces represents problem solving. Even when things go wrong —which are unacceptable—, everything, including leftovers, are set to make the best.

Phillip Albera’s Room
(of whom I know nothing of)
His was a 9-audience theather playing a documentary about the work in pitstop, entitled Pitshop. The exhibited version is sadly a tightly re-edited version of the original. Still, it conveyed a strong message about F1 pitstop. It explicitly depicted the hear-beat pace of the crew tweaking the cars, but speed is not what the movie is all about. In the interview, one of the driver said that when he docked, he is the one responsible for making all the crews work comfortably. That was one big surprise considering I always thought it was the other way around. I even thought that the driver-crew relationship goes vertically. Such documentary with strong and shocking truth about ‘The Pit’ deserves the award Albera won.

Julian Opie
(of whom I’ve saluted since 1997)
The most advertised room of the event. Out of the people whose works are exhibited, Julian Opie is the only one I am familiar with. His artistic style put both generic and specific elements in balanced. His drawing is highly concise. He draws line as needed —no more no less— as a wise man speaks as required with most clarity. With strong lines and blocked colors, audience can identify what or who he drew in precise. He broke people’s mindset of association between details-neurotic and generic-minimalist (visit http://www.julianopie.com/).

But to my surprise, I put my highest regard not to Opie, but the F1 people who hired Opie in the first place. I think they knew exactly Opie, extremely observant as he is, as their number one choice. I read several interviews (sometime, somewhere) where F1 drivers confessed that when high-speeding, everything became so focused and clear. And Opie has the exact style[2]. Of course my suspiscion may later on be proven wrong.


PS:

• I wish I knew how to upload a picture for my blog, so you can see what I mean.
• I wish I knew more about F1, so I would tell you names instead of this guy, that guy, the driver.
• Too bad the organizing committee didn’t provide required guides, otherwise I wouldn’t have to spend hours staring looking stupid. And to make the exhibition is everything about Opie is, I think, missed the whole point of the message. The show was metaphorically the F1 being a well systemized orchestration of expertises and commitment, not about exhibiting works.
• Speaking of exhibition, I don’t agree that it was an exhibition in the first place. It was a temporary museum. If only those people knew how valuable what they showed off.
  

[1] That made Heraklitos’ remark (Panta rei – never will the same current streams twice) obselete, huh?

[2] When Blur released The Best Of Blur and had the cover designed by Opie, I smelled fishes in the air. Knowing Damon Albarn not being a popularity freak as the Galagher Brothers are, I know there is something more to it about the cover. Later on I found out the concept of the that ‘best album’. The best that can come out from blur-ness is clarity (focus). That is something only Julian Opie can put to paper perfectly.