Roi Vaara – Artist’s Dilemma

Roi Vaara’s performance for film Artist’s Dilemma (1997) obviously deals with the alleged sharp distinction between art and life. It is not clear, whether the man is not able or simply unwilling to decide, he just keeps walking back and forth on the frozen sea and basically ends up being both: not quite art and not quite life.
Interestingly, he is out there, on his own, with no land and no people in sight — is it an inner conflict he is facing? To be honest, yes, I like to think of the artist as someone who now and then has to step away from the center (of life) to be able to see things clearer. And depending on what art form he chooses, the process of creating can involve a temporary social withdrawal as well. But then again, when or where does life end and art begin? Isn’t it actually only a blurring of boundaries? 

FX Harsono – Writing in the Rain

FX Harsono, born 1949 in Blitar, is an Indonesian contemporary artist and well-known for his critical attitude towards Indonesian politics, society and culture. Writing in the Rain is a video performance recorded in 2011 and shows him continuously writing his name with an ink brush on glass while the water washes the characters away — an intriguing meditation on existence, cultural identity, fugaciousness and endurance. Writing in the Rain was the centrepiece of his 2012 same-titled solo exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in New York.