FX Harsono and the Complexity of NAMA

FX Harsono explores the present implications of identity through examining the fate of an ethnic minority, rendering NAMA – his new solo exhibition presented at Tyler Rollins Gallery.

NAMA from the Last Survivor / NAMA Dari Penyintas Terakhir, 2019 , collage, hand embroidery, crochet on tablecloth on canvas, pencil drawing and acrylic on kebaya encim blouse on canvas, Image Courtesy of Tyler Rollins Gallery and the artist.
FX Harsono has been a towering figure in Indonesian contemporary art for more than four decades. His harrowing political works and performances created during the dictatorial Suharto regime were the pinnacle of bravery. Since then, he has turned his attention to more personal matters, namely his Indonesian-Chinese identity, but still with an eye towards the political situation of this embattled community.
In this exhibition, titled NAMA, the Indonesian for “names”, he memorializes and commemorates the fate of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia who suffered violence and discrimination despite having lived in that country for generations. During the Suharto administration from 1967 to 1998, they were forced to give up Mandarin and their culture, including a mandate that they change their names from Chinese to more typical Indonesian monikers. But, this community had suffered going back to massacres that occurred during the national independence movement of the 1940s when they were accused of siding with the Dutch. Both periods are the focus of Harsono’s latest exhibition.

NAMA that Flow within History / Nama yang Hanyut Dalam Sejarah, 2019 , collage, hand embroidery on paper mounted on aluminum, Image Couresty of Tyler Rollins Gallery and the Artist.
Using collage, installation, video and lightboxes, Harsono creates an environment of mourning. A key to understanding the overall exhibition can be found in the series of framed collages, titled NAMA that Flow within History/NAMA yang Hanyut Dalam Sejarah, 2019, in which pairs of names–Chinese translated to Indonesian–are embroidered over identity documents from the 1940s, news accounts of the discovery in 1949 of mass graves as a result of the massacres and photographs of the reburial of the bodies at memorial sites around Java. A large installation, Monument of NAMA/Monumen NAMA, 2019, highlights the names of 174 victims of the massacres, each on a small rectangle of paper mounted on aluminum, like ghostly bricks filling a wall. From Ang Ke Biok to Liem Thiam Hok, the white text on white background cannot quite convey the scale of the violence, but provides a site for contemplating loss.

Monument of NAMA / Monumen NAMA, 2019, Debose home made recycled paper mounted on aluminum, Image Courtesy of Tyler Rollins Gallery and the artist.
Other works also serve as reliquaries such as the series of nine lightboxes, NAMA in the Box of Memory/NAMA Dalam Kotak Ingatan, 2019. Each one contains candles and tea cups and secret objects wrapped in silver paper placed in front of vintage photographs of long lost ancestors, similar to shrines typically found in Chinese homes. Here, the works pay homage to the dead with names cut into black backgrounds shimmering in the dark.

Nama in the Box of Memory / NAMA Dalam Kotak Ingatan, 2019, 9 box wall installation, Image Courtesy of Tyler Rollins Gallery and the Artist
But the highlight of the exhibition is the moving and thoughtful video, NAMA, 2019 in which a choir of young Indonesian singers bring the names of lost ones back to life. The performers are dressed in white shirts and blue-and-white batik skirts, characteristic mourning-wear for ethnic Chinese living in Indonesia. They begin by chanting out the proclamation by General Suharto in 1966 requiring Chinese citizens to change their identities. They then proceed to sing out names, first in Chinese, then in Indonesian, finally offering the name’s original meaning, all to the chords of Catholic liturgy. (Harsono himself is Catholic.) The faces of the performers speak volumes about the fluidity of national identity while their mournful voices provide a funereal soundtrack to all the other works in the exhibit.

NAMA, 2019, single channel video, 5.1 surround sound , 12 min, Image Courtesy of Tyler Rollins Gallery and the artist.
As a representative of the Chinese-Indonesian community, Harsono explores his own identity through these works and expresses his personal sense of loss of a rich culture that has been subjugated by political forces. Forever an “other” in the country of his birth, he has created a powerful statement from this position and once again places himself at the forefront of Indonesian contemporary art.