Melati Suryodarmo

Published to celebrate Melati Suryodarmo’s first solo exhibition in a museum at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN) Jakarta, Why Let the Chicken Run? (2020–21), and her exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Passionate Pilgrim.

The hardback publication features full-colour documentation of the exhibitions and texts by Aaron Seeto, Director of Museum MACAN; curators Alia Swastika and Philippe Pirotte; and Melanie Pocock, Acting Artistic Director, Exhibitions, Ikon. It explores the ongoing practice of the artist and her legacy in expanding performance art and nurturing a new generation of performance artists.

Melati Suryodarmo is one of Indonesia’s most important living artists. Mentored by renowned Butoh dancer and choreographer Anzu Furukawa and performance artist Marina Abramović in the early 1990s, Suryodarmo has, for four decades, created durational performances, installations and films that merge live art with sculpture, drawing and time-based media. Visually spectacular, Suryodarmo’s performances are feats of endurance that interrogate notions of time, labour and identity.