Bodyscape

The only Indonesian contribution to the Singapore Biennale is by the Jakarta-based artist collective ruang rupa: Singapore Fiction, which is their usual gleeful mess. But at the Singapore Art Museum, one of the venues of SB2011, two parallel exhibitions can be visited: It’s Now or never II, New Contemporary Art Acquisitions from Southeast Asia and Negotiating Home, History and Nation, Two Decades of Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia 1991-2011. Many of the big names of the contemporary art scene in Indonesia are present at these two parallel events, and hopefully, one day, these artworks will be shown again in Indonesia. Titarubi’s work Bodyscape is one of these artworks (earlier it was shown at CP Biennale 2005 in Jakarta, which was closed down after attacks by FPI because the joint work Pinkswing Park by Agus Suwage and Davy Linggar was considered ‘immoral’). In 2008, Titarubi made an on-site work for the National Museum of Singapore: Surrounding David, after Michaelangelo’s David, however, Titarubi’s David is much taller. Titarubi’s David was subsequently censored, its genitals had to be covered – its private parts needed to remain private.