Agung Prabowo, aka Agugn, was born in Bandung in 1985 and graduated with a Graphic Art major from the Faculty of Art and Design, ITB. He has explored various printmaking techniques, mostly linocut, and has also worked to push the boundaries between printmaking and installation. Fear, nature and shamanistic cultures have driven him to make art with anthropomorphic and psychoanalytic perspectives.

He held his first solo exhibition, Natural Mystic, in Bentara Budaya Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Solo and Bali, as part of his first prize for the Triennial Seni Grafis Indonesia 4 in 2012. His next solo show was in 2015 at Jogja Contemporary, titled Unguarded guards and in 2016, AGUGN: Printing Live in the Cosmos at Vinyl on Vinyl, Manila. His latest solo show, Molasses, was at Mizuma Gallery, Singapore in 2017. He has been in many group exhibitions internationally, including Termasuk: Contemporary art from Indonesia at Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney in 2019, Multi-layered - New Print 2018/Summer at the International Print Centre, New York in 2018, and Java-Art Energy at Institut des Cultures Islam, Paris in 2018, where he showed an installation that had been previously displayed in 2017 in Re Emergence at Selasar Sunaryo Artspace, Bandung.

Human Supremacy II
After I did my works for the latest exhibition in Tokyo, there was an urge in myself to develop my visual language into a more critical point of view regarding humanity's impact in our role in ecosystems within nature.

Over centuries, humanity maintained a predominance over other beings. This realization came to me after the pandemic hit, as this virus is a zoonotic disease; one that is transmitted from animals to humans. It’s obvious how our treatment of non-humans has backfired on us.

From a wider perspective, COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases could have been prevented in the first place by respecting a non-human existence. Since we live on the same planet, it would be a better way to coexist if humanity respected other non-human animals, not seeing them as objects or property that we can take advantage of for our pleasure. It became clear for me that human supremacy doesn’t help humanity itself, but rather destroys it and other living beings in humanity’s path.

In this new piece, a linocut print on handmade recycled paper, I depict a human gesturing driving a car, trying to ignore everything in his path. These works symbolize how humanity feels superior in order to control everything.

Agugn Prabowo, Bali, 10 December 2020

MENTAL ADJUSTMENTS
13 linocut prints on handmade washi paper, 2020

After many cities around the world introduced self-isolation policies, whether formally or informally, people tended to spend their days without any social or physical interaction. Yet Aristotle once said that humans are ‘Zoon Politikon’, which means we are social creatures by design. So in order to survive in conditions that are contrary to human nature such as those caused by the pandemic, we need to make some Mental Adjustments.

Mental Adjustment is the overarching idea that inspired this series of works. Created during the Covid-19 quarantine period, the series explores personal problems that seem to have been buried for a long time and are yet to be appropriately resolved. Using a more personal approach, I tried to map out fears, losses and disappointments that must be accepted and acknowledged from the brighter side.

These problems that I face then take the spotlight, all because the pandemic led me to many contemplative moments. The time that I had previously lacked or seemed to lack emblazoned its real existence during this pandemic. Therefore, I had more time to think about what’s happening in my mind. In other words, think about thinking (metacognition).

I personally internalized the meanings that were revealed while the whole world was in mass isolation, as a journey of self-expression and an evaluation of humanity itself. I then invited all of us to realize that now is the time to leave all old-timey, expired patterns and embrace new things and values.

These 13 works embodied my thoughts/self-meditation/questions about existence and the future when the pandemic hit me hard. I tried to deliver it into a visual form using linocut prints on handmade washi paper.