Preserving Life, Terminating Life #2

Born in East Java, Indonesia, F X Harsono (1949) is one of the original members of the late 1970s avant-garde group Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement) whose agenda included a socially conscious art. Using symbols, signs, images, text and objects, Harsono employs the language of the mass media and popular culture to provide entry-points for social commentaries on socio-political conditions in Indonesia.

Painted in a realistic manner, “Preserving Life, Terminating Life #2” is from a body of works where Harsono juxtaposes his personal history against a communal tragedy. Images from this series are inspired by Harsono’s discovery of black and white photographs in his family house. The images on the left panel display familial warmth and happiness while the grimy images of skulls on the right are documentary photographs of the exhumation of the mass graves of Chinese, murdered after the Second World War. For him, the red thread connecting the two panels symbolizes lineage as well as unbroken line of history, often tainted by bloodshed.