"Aku tak percaya hari akhir. Aku percaya
Jakarta hujan sedikit banjir." Kalimat itu pernah menghiasi sebidang tembok jembatan layang di kawasan Slipi.
Jika Anda tertohok membacanya, itu bukan maksud dan kesengajaan seniman Riyan Riyadi alias The
Popo, pembuatnya. Riyan memperlakukan karyanya sebagai visual diary, dengan memanfaatkan karakter berwajah lonjong tanpa hidung dan bermata bulat menonjol yang ia namai The Popo. Lewat karakter itu, ia merespons ruang dan fenomena, mengeluarkan komentar-komentar yang bermunculan di benaknya selayaknya orang lain menuliskan diary.
Bagi yang mengikuti karyanya, akan mudah untuk menangkap kritik sosial dari visual diary tersebut. Hal itu tidak lain karena Riyan merasakan apa yang berlangsung di suatu ruang dan sekadar ingin bersikap jujur. Ia tidak dengan sengaja mencari-cari ruang kosong untuk digambari. Grafiti di kawasan Jalan
Prapanca, "
Demi fly over pohon game over", misalnya, adalah "keluhannya" karena pohon-pohon ditebang demi pembangunan jembatan layang baru. "Saya kepanasan dong, pohon-pohon itu sudah enggak ada lagi," ungkapnya dalam suatu wawancara. Namun ia tidak berpretensi untuk menyampaikan aspirasi khalayak. "Jika ada yang merasa terwakilkan, ya, itu efek," tambahnya.
Karya Riyan untuk Jakarta Biennale
2013 adalah respons terhadap lingkungan di sekitar tembok jembatan layang di
Tambora, Jakarta Barat. Di bawah jembatan tersebut terdapat
Pasar Pagi Asemka, sentra grosir aksesoris, suvenir, kosmetik, dan alat tulis yang memiliki riwayat panjang. Goresan kuas Riyan mengekspresikan fragmen-fragmen kegiatan, bagian dari dinamika kehidupan pasar tersebut. Dan, seperti biasa, humor tak ketinggalan menyertai gambar-gambarnya.
Riyan Riyadi alias The Popo lahir di Jakarta pada
1982. Ia pernah kuliah di
Institut Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik, Jakarta.
Mulai dikenal sebagai street artist sejak
2001, ia mendapatkan penghargaan sebagai
The Best Mural Artist dalam ajang Tembok
Bomber Award 2010. Pada tahun itu juga ia mengadakan pameran tunggal di RURU
Gallery, Jakarta, juga berpartisipasi dalam ajang
Singapore Nite
Festival. Ia juga bekerja sebagai dosen di almamaternya, dalam program studi Komunikasi
Visual. Lebih lanjut tentang The Popo dalam dilihat di thepopopaint.blogspot.com.
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"Aku tak percaya hari akhir. Aku percaya Jakarta hujan sedikit banjir." (I don't believe in the
Judgment Day.
I believe Jakarta is flooded when it rains a little). This sentence had once adorned a wall of an overpass in Slipi area. If you are a bit shocked by it, that was not at all the intention of Riyan Riyadi alias The Popo, who created the mural. Riyan treats his work as a visual diary through a character he invented that has an elongated face, no nose and prominent round eyes whom he named The Popo. Through this character, he responds to space and phenomena, expresses the comments that occur in his head, not unlike someone writing a diary.
To those who follow his work, it would be easy to catch social criticisms from this visual diary. Riyan Riyadi just feels what is taking place in a space and only wants to be honest about it. He doesn't just intentionally find an empty space to draw on. The graffiti on Jalan Prapanca, "For the sake of the flyover, trees are game over", for example, is his "complaint" because trees were cut down to make way for the new flyover. "I will get hot, those trees are not there anymore," he said in an interview. But he does not pretend to express public aspirations. "If someone feels represented, well, that's just an effect," he says.
Riyan Riyadi's work for the Jakarta Biennale 2013 is a response to the environment around the overpass wall at
Tambora,
West Jakarta. Under that bridge is the Pasar Pagi Asemka
Market, a center for accessories, souvenirs, cosmetics, stationery grocers that has a long history. Riyan Riyadi's brush strokes express fragments of activities, part of the dynamics around the market. And, as usual, humor is always a part of his paintings.
Riyan Riyadi alias The Popo was born in Jakarta in 1982. He had once attended the Jakarta
Social and Political Sciences Institute (IISIP). He is known as a street artist since 2001. He was awarded The Best Mural Artist award during the Tembok Bomber Award 2010. In that year too he held a solo exhibition at RURU Gallery, Jakarta, and also participated in Singapore Nite Festival. He also lectures at his almamater in the
Visual Communication studies program. For more on The Popo visit thepopopaint.blogspot.com.
- published: 24 Dec 2013
- views: 20797