In the east, the sun is shining

Rise and stand, comrades

Let’s organize our ranks

Youth of Indonesia

Di Timur Matahari

- W.R. Soepratman -

Di Timur Matahari (In the East, the Sun), the title of this exhibition was inspired by a song written by W.R. Soepratman. Tatang chose the title to express his practice (way of life) and choice of artistic work as a human being and an artist. People chanted repetitively and passionately to the song Di Timur Matahari, which consists of four lines. The artist interprets the sun rising from the east as a moment of turning point and a sign of the beginning of a journey.

Tatang is resetting by restarting his practice with new idioms and visual experiences. We can feel it through the works displayed in this exhibition, which he created with the utmost care and attention. This solo exhibition marks the twentieth year of Tatang's (Riono Tanggul's nickname) artistic exploration of ideas, medium choices, techniques, and images. Tatang marked the turning point of a new journey as an artist through this exhibition.

Tatang is not an artist with boisterous ideas. His artistic work is grounded in practical experience and focuses on the mundane. The studio is at the heart of his practice, as a space to explore various things and interact with diverse media of expression. A long path that brought him to the present situation to solidify his choice of artistic expression through paper, a medium that seems fragile. For Tatang, paper is the most intimate and straightforward thing to show his position as a human and artist today who is always in a precarious position, somewhere in between and not an absolute, even considered representing the larger ideas of “temporalities”.

Tatang rejects the idea of a single, accomplished, or final entity. He reflects on himself as a subject, his existence as an artist who is never truly whole. The subject, for Tatang, is composed of various layers and fragments—his selfhood always intersects with many issues, including those that take place in his life. He interprets his work as part of everyday life. For him, artists are always in a temporary and precarious situation. In this world, nothing lasts forever. Everything can vanish in an instant.

Gintani Nur Apresia Swastika