Melati Suryodarmo

If you’ve been distant from the strange yet absorbing world of performance art, Melati Suryodarmo will welcome you right back into it. An intense performer, Suryodarmo uses her physicality and environment to create bizarre, intense and beautiful art in motion. Her reputation as a performer has taken her to festivals in Paris, New York, Barcelona, and now she adds Kuala Lumpur to that list.

Suryodarmo’s portfolio can read like scenes from a phantasmagoric movie: she’s been dragged by horses, danced on butter, cradled cow liver, and placed herself in a glass box with rabbits. When she performs at The Annexe on 17 April, Suryodarmo will be crawling under a glass panel, repeating the words “I love you” for two hours.

Bizarre? Yep, but of course, there’s something deeper to the performance. “I Love You” explores what it means to utter those three words, how it’s been exploited and finally, how she attempts to bring meaning back to it by exhausting the body and soul. Sure feels like how falling in love is like, to me.

To prepare yourself for this mind trip, check out the exhibition videos of her past performances and photography to get a better understanding of Suryodarmo’s craft. It promises to be a “non-verbal transcendent communication in an artwork that touches individual value”, as put by Suryodarmo herself.

The exhibition will be displayed at The Annexe @ Central Market from 10 April – 27 April (11am – 7pm, closed on Mondays). Catch her in person on 17 April, 8pm. Web: www.melatisuryodarmo.com

Text Sarah Chan Photo VWFA

Published in Issue #114