NEW PESSIMISM: TROPICAL FRONTIER
Exhibition by Natasha Tontey and Riar Rizaldi
Presented by Eaton HK
19 Mar - 30 Apr 2023
11am-9pm
Tomorrow Maybe
New Pessimism: Tropical frontier brings together a selection of works by Natasha Tontey and Riar Rizaldi, both artists from Indonesia. Natasha Tontey is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who has recently been listed as a ‘Future Great 2023’ by ArtReview. Her works have been shown in transmediale (Berlin), Auto Italia (London), Leeum Museum of Art (Seoul) and so forth, and are now showing at the Singapore Biennale 2022. Riar Rizaldi is an award winning artist and filmmaker. His works have been shown at various international film festivals including Locarno, IFFR, Viennale and so forth, as well as at the Centre Pompidou Paris, Istanbul Biennial and Venice Architecture Biennale.
For the last 10 years, Natasha Tontey and Riar Rizaldi have explored and investigated the notion of horror, terror, and bad taste in popular culture through a series of moving image practices. Their interest in observing and dissecting social, technological, and ecological issues is rooted in the landscape and social dynamic of Indonesia. Growing up consuming campy horror cinema in the 80s and 90s, science-fiction pulp literature, ghost stories, the underground scene, Indonesian soap operas, and engaging with social changemakings and indigenous movements, Natasha and Riar transform the codes of b-grade media and popular culture to generate fiction and narrative where ecological and social issues are dissected in an abstract and sometimes bad taste way. Recently, they label their work as a ‘new style of pessimism.’ A term they use to describe their artistic practice and pessimism towards the social and ecological situation in Indonesia—and also the world.
Feature a cross-section of works produced between 2017 and present, New Pessimism: Tropical frontier reflects the artists’ ongoing commitment to exploring the aesthetic of refusal, the campiness of social dilemma, and the horror imagery of social ecology in the tropical frontier.
Natasha Tontey
Natasha Tontey is an artist based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Her artistic practice predominantly explores the fictional accounts of the history and myths surrounding ‘manufactured fear.’ In her practice, she observes any possibilities of other futures that are projected not from the perspective of major and established institutions, but a subtle and personal struggle of the outcasted entities and beings. Her recent exhibitions include solo show at Auto Italia, London (2022). And selected group shows at Singapore Biennale (2022); De Stroom Den Haag (2022); GHOST;2565, Bangkok, Thailand (2022); Protozone8 Queer Trust, Zurich, Switzerland (2022); Arko Art Council, Seoul, Korea (2022), Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (2022); Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2021); transmediale, Berlin (2021); Performance Space 2021, Sydney; Other Futures, Amsterdam (2021); Singapore International Film Festival (2021), Kyoto Experiment 2021; Asian Film Archive, Singapore (2021). In 2020, she received the HASH Award from the ZKM, Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and Akademie Schloss-Solitude. She is a fellow for Human Machine of the Junge Akademie at Akademie der Künste Berlin 2021-2023.
Riar Rizaldi
Riar Rizaldi works as an artist and filmmaker. He works predominantly with the medium of moving images and sound, both in the black-box of cinema settings as well spatial presentation as installation. His artistic practice focuses mostly on the relationship between capital and technology, labour and nature, worldviews, genre cinema, and the possibility of theoretical fiction. His works have been shown at various international film festivals (including Locarno, IFFR, Viennale, BFI London, Cinema du Reel, Vancouver, etc) as well as NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo, Centre Pompidou Paris, Times Museum Guangzhou, Istanbul Biennial, Venice Architecture Biennale, Biennale Jogja, and National Gallery of Indonesia amongst others.