Selected Magazine Articles about Fhung and her art
Krisis - 1995 | Ceramic Installation Exhibition, Jakarta
Gatra Magazine
English Text | Krisis
Within the Darkness of Crisis
by Bersihar Lubis - translated by David L. Newhouse
The exploration of art can reach deep into the realms of crisis. Loneliness and alienation overflows. Don't kill yourself just yet.
The routines of city life, with its throngs of people engrossed in their hectic schedules, and the stifled curses of drivers battling traffic jams, can be trying. That hectic atmosphere vanishes, though, upon entrance into the exhibit on display in the Gallery III in Ismail Marzuki Park, Jakarta, from the 18th to the 25th of November. Upon entrance, visitors are greeted by a large sheet of black cloth, behind which lies a room of utter darkness into which you walk haltingly, as if blind. Then, as your eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness, they are gradually bathed in the flashing of swarming lights.
This sensation, the brainchild of the artist, Lie Fhung, greets visitors to the exhibit entitled 'Crisis'. In addition, Lie enclosed the entire gallery's interior with black cloth, immersing viewers in an unknown, foreign, atmosphere. The ensuing feeling of loneliness and isolation is overwhelming. Lie hung a host of transparent porcelain ceramics, in the shape of broken hearts, translucent as the light passes through them. Slowly, our eyes become familiarized with the intense darkness.
According to observers of installation art, Lie's style is unprecedented. They speak of this as a new type of exploration, convinced that the language of expression is unique to each person. The introduction to the exhibit's, written by art curator and critic Jim Supangkat, encourages us to view Lie's creation as a retreat into the depths of feeling in search of a sensibility of human feeling that remains unknown.
In contrast to a typical craftsman, Lie's moves beyond ceramics as a technique to produce everyday pottery. Rather than taking advantage of the ease offered by standard ceramic clay, which can be molded into any shape, she opts for the less flexible porcelain clay. Utilizing and shaping this demanding material requires an extraordinary amount of care and persistence.
As a graduate of the department of art and design at the Bandung Institute of Technology, Lie realized that porcelain ceramics could be made paper-thin when baked at high temperature, creating a translucent character. After producing such thin ceramics, she fired hundreds of fragments in the oven, after covering them with a layer of kaolin powder to maintain their shape. The intensity of such a process adds to the vividness of her installation exhibit, while symbolizing a hidden side of humanity's struggles.
And upon observing the collection of thin fragments, floating in mid-air, with the few shafts of light that penetrate through them into the darkness radiating throughout the room, the viewer gradually falls under the spell of private and strange dreams. As the exhibit's creator, Lie may be depicting the depths of her heart. Visitors who try to interpret inner meaning come away feeling either bewildered, relieved, or comforted, judging from the comments recorded in the guest book. These appreciations are all valid, without disturbing the work's artistic meaning.
The true meaning that Lie intends to express is inescapably linked to her experience as an Indonesian citizen of Chinese descent, continuously searching for her true identity. It's as if she is asking 'Who am I? Who is he? Who are they?'. This type of anthropological question can be appreciated as a reminder that issues of race, gender, and ethnicity remain unresolved in all corners of the earth.
Take, for example, the horror experienced by Jews in Nazi Germany, although that comparison is overly extreme. In that era, the terror and broken dreams of refugees created a crisis of humanity. Paradoxically, however, Lie herself has experienced glowing happiness since she was a little girl. She relates that, as an ethnic Chinese, she was blessed with a father who not only offered unconditional love and support, but also the confidence and the freedom to make her own life choices.
Therefore, it's not surprising that Lie feels comfortable interacting with all genders, ethnicities, religious groups, and races. Since elementary school, she's enjoyed the freedom to pursue her interest in art, and in 1979, at the age of 10 she took fourth place in a national painting contest celebrating The Children's International Year. In fact, since that time, she often won national and international painting contests, through the year 1990. That success continued, as her works began to appear at numerous art exhibits, until she graduated from ITB last year.
Therefore, the 'crisis' that Lie speaks of in her work is the testimony of empirical facts lurking in all corners of the Universe. Every human being that searches for their true self is naturally prone to experience personal crises, since the reality we confront often differs from our expectations. These unforeseen surprises can be disorienting, and sometimes shake the core of our sense of being. Yet remarkably, these crises arrive repeatedly, without warning, and each one ignites a new battle in an unceasing struggle within the soul.
Indeed, human souls are a bit like Lie's ceramic porcelains. The rounded surface appears smooth, calm, and undisturbed. However, on the concave side of the surface lies a complex, delicate texture, covered with reliefs and fine lines, symbolizing a tumultuous anxiety that rages within. Knowing yourself and distinguishing yourself from others require a special courage. Loneliness and emptiness come and go, but humans aren't allowed to remain stuck, like the cars trapped in the gridlock of Jakarta's streets.
That struggle is probably what Lie intended to express. We are left with the impression of an emerging association between the imagination of an artist and the facts of crisis. Within that association she has recorded a variety of human emotions that mark this modern era, emotions that can, if left unnoticed, paralyze the innate potential of humans to transcend their enduring boundaries.
Sometimes, we face exhaustion from the unyielding burdens of crisis. And we can only hope that it doesn't reach the point where people too hastily choose to take their life.
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