Based on these thoughts, I chose the theme of the majesty and beauty of ancestral culture and the suffering that must be endured. I visualize majesty and beauty as a crown that symbolizes the Chinese people’s identity. It reminds me of the Crown of Thorns that the Romans placed on the head of Jesus Christ during his crucifixion.

“Crown”, derived from Latin, refers to a metal frame, flower, or branch worn on the head as a symbol of honour, dignity, or as an ornament. It can also be a symbolic recognition. On the other hand, “thorn” comes from the Latin term “spina” and has a variety of meanings and applications. One of them refers to thorns, tips, or stingers found in a plant’s vascular or woody tissues.

The Roman soldiers mocked Jesus as “King of the Jews,” crowning him with thorns. As a result, Jesus faced two trials at the same time, one concerning belief (the Jews) and the other concerning politics (the Romans). The meaning of Jesus’ Crown of Thorns is related to the Chinese people’s mockery. The first is related to the beliefs of the Chinese ancestors who came from China. The second is related to New Order politics, which discriminated against the Chinese people by imposing regulations that restricted the movement of the Chinese community in Indonesia.

I had the idea because I am a Chinese Indonesian who practices Catholicism despite not having a thorough understanding of it.

FX Harsono, 2023.

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The three characters in Chinese names normally consist of three elements of meaning. The first one is a surname or family name. The following two characters each refer to generational name and given name. The structure of the three characters of FX Harsono’s Chinese name can be reexamined to define the layers of representation in “Spinae/Duri”.

In the first layer, Harsono presents archives as material, or the processing of those materials. During the colonial period, archival documents marked Chinese identity as “Timur Asing” (“Foreign East”) and used it as a controlling tool.

The second layer is symbolism. The works in this exhibition highlight boats, crowns, and thorn reeds. The boat symbolically presents an interval between the past and the present, between the present and the future. Harsono marks his nostalgia towards the history with a non-existent memory or a nostalgia without memory.

The third is the given name, referring to the identity. In this third layer, Harsono gives subjective definition to the materiality aspects of his works. Through his subjective imagination, Harsono affixes an aura or pamor (prestige) in the thorn crown that is full of political meaning. Similar to pamor, power needs to be forged to obtain magical aura. In his paintings, the three elements are finally blended in. Historical documents or fragments, symbolism, and the artist’s imagination are not tangible boundaries in these works.

Hendro Wiyanto, 2023.