Eddie Susanto
In a new series of works, the Indonesian artist demonstrates that the map is not the territory
Born in Jakarta, Eddy Susanto currently lives and works in Yogyakarta. Having studied and worked in graphic design he expanded his practice to produce larger-scale artworks in 2007 (or as he puts it, he moved from the world of books to the world of art). Focusing on the intersection between local histories and global narratives, his layered artworks explore the ways in which history and culture combine to create identity. In the past his works – which span painting, sculpture, installation and printmaking – have combined biblical narratives with episodes of Javanese mythology from the Babad Tanah Jawi (‘History of Java’), the art of Albrecht Dürer, the poetry of Dante, the signs and symbols of capitalism and colonialism, multiple languages and systems of belief. And hence, throughout, his works are deeply rooted in processes of research and translation. Not least between words and images.
The works that follow (all 2022) combine aspects of the Babad Tanah Jawi and the Pararaton (a Javanese history that translates as the ‘Book of Kings’) with maps of Southeast Asian cities – Batavia (now Jakarta) recorded in 1619, Kuala Lumpur in 1850 and Singapore in 1819 – whose growth and development were impacted or engineered by colonialism. Not least in the name changes imposed on the cities by colonial occupiers, which reinforce the well-known fact that, in the long run, many of these metropolises that seem designed to last forever are, in fact, transient structures. Palimpsests too. Alongside text from the Javanese histories, the works also incorporate adaptations of mannerist fantasies composed (between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries) by Jan Saenredam, Jan de Visscher and John Scott, which, as much as they revolve around measurements of land, inescapably gives these pen-on-canvas works, with acrylic embellishments, the feel of printed Western money.
The next iteration of Eddy Susanto’s map series will be presented by Artsociates at Art Taipei in October. That series will include maps of Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong, with some images related to Japan and America