Droog Does Jakarta

A while ago I posted about Droog Designers Niels van Eijk and Miriam vander Lubb and the table they created in Bali. Well, this month Erasmus Huis (Dutch Cultural Center, Jakarta) has a Droog Design show where we were lucky enough to see the table in person. The previous pictures (taken from the website) really didn’t do this piece justice! The table is way bigger than I imagined, and much more detailed than those pictures show. Truly Impressive!

Several other Droog designs were featured in the show, some that I’ve seen and others that I haven’t. We really enjoyed the presentation. It wasn’t overdone, but made good use of the small space. The gallery was divided by modular chain link fences with sculpted objects like a couch, rocking horse, moose head and doghouse protruding from them. See below for visual references.

One-Man Circus

Another event on CCF’s Printemps Francais calendar was a contemporary one-man circus. It was a simple and elegant performance with little more than a balloon, a rope and 3 sheets of plywood as props. The minimal lighting setup included the low-tech psychedelic staple: an overhead projector with colored oil dripping into clear water. The show was mesmerizing and left us feeling refreshed. We realized that it doesn’t take much to impress us… just a little bit of genuine creativity.

Paint by Number Project

For one of our latest projects we were asked to curate an art show inspired by DJ Missill’s graphic art and graffiti work. In an attempt to go beyond the standard “graffiti art show” we decided to mix the mid-century phenomenon, paint-by-numbers, with contemporary art styles. Jakarta based artists, Sanchia, Lisza, Wormo, and Rayray all submitted illustrations of female characters to be converted to a paint-by number outlines and shown along side one of DJ Missill’s own.

During the event, we invited a bunch of artsy girls to fill in the outlines while the crowd (mostly guys) sat back and watched. Even though each image was numbered with a color guide, it was perfectly ignored to create entirely new versions of the work. As the night went on and the drinks kept flowing, the artwork became more and more outrageous. The result was an over the top, out of control female frenzy… exactly what we wanted!

Thanks to the artists, all of our lovely painters, 707. WhatNot, Soul Menace, Future 10, and CCF. Oh, and thanks to the GIRLS!

DJ Missill bombing her own work

DJ Missill

Last weekend CCF (French Cultural Center, Jakarta) brought DJ Missill, a graffiti artist-DJ-Producer. This young hyper-active renaissance woman is currently touring Indonesia as a part of the annual Printemp Francais cultural festival. We were lucky to meet and hang out with her after an artist talk held by CCF. Afterwards she was invited to an impromptu graffiti session under a nearby bridge alongside a local graffiti crew and artists from IKJ (Jakarta Art Institute).

Later in the evening, she played an awesome mash-up DJ set at a club called Public while we put together a live paint-by-numbers art show.