"Companionable Objects, Companionable Conscience:

Reflections on Sunaryo's Titik Nadir" with Professor Ken George

Sponsored by the GW Department of Anthropology and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM

The Elliott School of International Affairs Chung-wen Shih Conference Room:

1957 E Street, Suite 503Washington, DC 20052

RSVP at go.gwu.edu/titiknadir

Although this is increasingly a time of transnational solidarities, an unwavering commitment to, or concern about the nation has been a longstanding and primary factor in the shaping of art works

and biographical art writing in Indonesia. This talk explores the summons of the nation in the making of “companionable objects” and a “companionable conscience” in Indonesia’s art world. I focus in

particular on an installation presented by the acclaimed Indonesian artist, Sunaryo, a 1998 work called Titik Nadir (“The Low Point”), put together as Soeharto’s regime fell apart. The evocative objects and

iconoclastic gestures that made up Titik Nadir in some ways subverted or exceeded the “conscionable” and oblige us to reflect on what may be spent or lost in aligning one’s heart and art with the nation and

a national art public.

Ken George is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the School of Culture, History and Language at Australian National University.