LEMAIRE AND NOVIADI ANGKASAPURA
LEMAIRE showcases a series of works by Noviadi Angkasapura in its Paris flagship, alongside pieces from the Fall/Winter 2023 collection.
This temporary installation draws out the relationship between Noviadi Angkasapura’s palimpsest drawings and pieces from the Fall/Winter 2023 collection bearing his anthropomorphic creatures.
It is conceived as an extension of a previous collaboration with the artist on a series of cotton pieces for the Spring/Summer 2023 collection. The prints brought a novel strangeness to the garments, while the thin, matte texture of the cotton, as well as its raw finish, evoked the modest paper chosen for the original work.
This season, wadded gilets, blouses, and dresses are canvases for the artist’s bestiary, inspired as much by the environment in which he grew up as Indonesian iconographic traditions – from Javanese puppets to representations of the Râmâyana epic. The garments sit alongside drawings done in biro, graphite, or coloured pencil, which are displayed on the ground floor of the store, cementing LEMAIRE's desire to provide a space for artists to express themselves. On fabric as on paper, the skeins of random lines are crossed by different mantras, jujur sabar, synonymous with honesty and patience, or ki raden sastro inggil, an alias used by the artist.
THE COLLECTION
LEMAIRE asked French photographer and long-standing collaborator Estelle Hanania to capture the dialogue between the pieces and Angkasapura’s drawings. When worn and set in motion by the body, these graphic, airy, and supple cotton garments bring the wild silhouettes of demons and djinns to life.
THE ARTIST
Noviadi Angkasapura was born in 1979 in Jayapura, on the Indonesian side of the island of New Guinea. His parents, originally from Java, settled in this sparsely populated region where he spent his childhood surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and lush vegetation. Deeply marked by his environment and the multicultural influences of neighbouring islands such as Borneo, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Bali, and Madura, Angkasapura's work represents what surrounds him: chiseled rocks, rivers, or sculpted tree trunks.
On the eve of his 24th birthday, Angkasapura was visited by an intercessory spirit: "It was like a dream, but I was not sleeping. When I came back to myself, I tried to catch the spirit, but he was gone." This spiritual power still guides him, projecting his work into an uninterrupted creative flow. The act of drawing is a repetitive prayer as well as a form of meditation, and a means of conveying messages from this spirit. Angkasapura now lives in Jakarta and makes a living from his creative activity, which allows him to support his family, while dreaming of a future museum for his drawings. His work is held in the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne. Angkasapura is represented abroad by the Henry Boxer Gallery in England and Cavin-Morris in New York.
22 September – 23 October 2023
1 rue Elzévir, 75003 Paris
The Angkasapura collection captured by Estelle Hanania