Telah Terbit

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. While working with New Art Movement, Harsono completed an illustration titled 'Telah Terbit' in 1975. Executed in cartoon strip format consisting of three rows and three columns, Harsono features the image of Raden Ayu Kartini (1879-1904), an Indonesian national heroine best known as a leading feminist, who fought for Indonesian women's rights. Accompanied by images and anagrams from mainstream media and commercial advertisements, the images of Kartini move vertically in the columns. In the bottom centre box, the fading image is accompanied by the word 'dangdut', a popular music genre that had become ubiquitous to Indonesia's mass culture. Through this work, Harsono explores how feminism has been so exploited by consumerism, that even an important national heroine was not spared. This work was reconstructed in 2006.