Born in 1961 in Semarang, Indonesia, Nindityo Adipurnomo is a co-founder of Cemeti Art House, one of the country’s foremost contemporary art institutions. He is the recipient of the John D. Rockefeller Award (2006), and his work has been presented widely in exhibitions around the world, including the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (1996), the Havana Biennial (1997), and in the exhibition ‘Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions’, Art Society, New York (1996).In this series, Adipurnomo subverts the conventions of portraiture by masking the men’s faces with ‘kondes’ (traditional hairpiece worn by Javanese women) of various shapes and sizes. By having their vision obscured and obstructed by the very symbol of traditional Javanese femininity, the men become subjects of the viewer’s gaze which is invited to linger over the sensual coils of the hairpieces. This ironic and playful swapping of constructed gender roles and attributes is a reminder of pre-modern notions of gender identity, which were far more fluid and perhaps more liberating and empowering than those which have been narrowly defined in recent times.
