NYAB Event - Erik Pauhrizi Exhibition

Erik Pauhrizi Exhibition

Chair and the Maiden

This event has ended.

CATM chelsea and Fund Art Now present Erik Pauhrizi, the most important artist to emerge onto the Southeast Asian art scene creating formidable work on a level competitive with any Western rival; work transgressing all boundaries.

The poison of our sins, our being defined as the indeterminable numbers guilty of colonialism and imperialism, both past and present, is akin to buried nuclear waste whose seepage is slow, consistent and enduring. It is the accumulation of insult and injury to all innocents bullied into suppression by the powerful West that Pauhrizi addresses his most recent work.

Pauhrizi, in an attempt to leave behind the summation of predecessors and events that has predetermined his very existence, has reached a level of maturity with his present exhibition that breaks all cultural bias and realizes equality in a predominantly Western Art world.

Riding the 21stC trend of the glorification of death and martyrdom, Pauhrizi, who only values his own self-demise, makes something so dark in nature into something shiny to bedazzle and grab at.

With a need to tear oneself apart and reexamine oneself's origin and physical existence, Pauhrizi has developed a sarcastic, bitter wit beyond his years. He manages a scathingly liberating commentary intrinsically inseparable from that very origin which he seeks to understand. His work easily translates to historical prowess.

Breaching issues globally, Pauhrizi uses Indonesia as his template. By randomly selecting historical figures regardless of their notoriety or infamy his commentary is allowed to expand generally. The idea of countless at fault and the countless that continue to be at fault is a reflection upon society's prejudicial onlook of morality.
Living in a world where stereotypical labeling justifies questionable ethics, the artist has in turn questioned the world's seemingly absolutist approach to quietly continue its mistreatment of perceived "third" worlds. Asphalt, gold and spice, all the byproducts of avarice and necessary evils, still have a stranglehold on the Indonesian people. Instead of being lifted to future feats, Indonesia is being held down by economic disparity and the injustice of the monetary imbalance of trade. With treaties lasting upwards of 300 years still in effect, making the rape and pillaging of a country's natural resources acceptable to "first" world standards, Pauhrizi declares it is a time for change.

While Pauhrizi's address is as a revolutionary he maintains that he is not a rebel. He makes no attempt to erase history, but to eradicate its stronghold. He has given the past great thought, and although at an immediate glance one may conjure disdain and self-loathing, it is his investigation into his origin in an overtly factual manner that dismisses any egotistical notion. It is the artist's personal journey into identity that is secondary to his desire to grab the world's attention; a world that chooses to look the other way.