Timoteus Anggawan Kusno
Phantoms
The Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève is pleased to present Phantoms by Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, in collaboration with Han Nefkens Foundation. The show will be presented in two parts, Reversal (23.06 – 30.07.2023) and Terra Incognita (02.08 – 05.09.2023).
Reversal and Terra Incognita are parts of the Phantoms video series, which form a trilogy. The third part of this series is a work in progress. This ongoing research led by the artist should be finalized in 2025. In this series, Timoteus Anggawan Kusno worked with the jathilan trance dancer community in Imogiri (Indonesia) to portray people’s conception of time and organic cultural resistance against the idea of high culture centered in the Javanese elite feudal circle. The state of trance enables dancers to express and release their repressed experience freely, liberated from language and order. At the same time, jathilan could be seen as a space where the past and future come across briefly. In the state of trance, the vision of the future could meet the ancestral spirit in a dancer’s body in temporariness.
Both moving-image works are under the same Indonesian title: “Luka dan Bisa Kubawa Berlari ”, produced in 2022 by 1 the Han Nefkens Foundation – LoopBarcelona, in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; MoCA Taipei; ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Genève; and Art Hub Copenhagen.
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (b.1989) is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and filmmaker who presents his work through installations, drawings, moving images, and institutional interventions. He navigates the boundary between fiction and history, imagination and memory, and addresses the lasting effects of colonialism through his narratives. Kusno uses a metafictional approach in his art, reflecting on the role of the medium in narrative creation and critically examining the significance of editing and production structure. Through this approach, he questions the mechanisms of “history-making” and their relationship to power, collective imagination, and remembrance.
Kusno’s works have been featured in international cultural institutions and biennales, including the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Seoul, Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Mumbai City Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Taipei, Centre for Fine Arts Brussels, Gwangju Biennale 13, and the Biennale Jogja XIV Equator #4: Indonesia-Brazil, among others. In 2021, he received the Video Production Award from the Han Nefkens Foundation – Loop Barcelona. Currently, Kusno is pursuing his PhD research at the University of Amsterdam while working between Amsterdam and Yogyakarta.
