Purbandono’s “tales” from Tangkahan reflect the village’s changing identity, as it transforms from illegal logging center to eco-tourism hub. Interacting with elephants in the name of “conservation” is a highly controversial part of that new commercial identity, reflected in the artist’s slyly articulated lightbox Elephant in the Room (2016), depicting a miniature wood elephant nestled within a radiant orange squash. Reflecting the local fancy for erecting cairns of river rocks, Purbandono scanned stately aggregations of stones, including the fluid and imposing The Monument A, and anthropomorphic Stone Puppet. Souvenir from Tangkahan is a scanned grouping of stones, seeds, empty snack bag, flowers, insects (dead and alive)—plus insecticide lid—which encapsulate Purbandono’s jungle encounters in microcosm.

The artist’s Tokyo imagery fixates on the graphic appeal of Japanese signage and pattern. Non-Burnable Rubbish, a scan-print on fabric, and the lightbox image Crime Surveillance Cameras, are both layered in gaudy motifs, including flamboyant polka dots lifted from a Yayoi Kusama exhibition. Purbandono attended this museum show, as evidenced by Yayoi Ticket—which manifests to perfection the over-hyped “Yayoi Glare.” The salacious Erotic Bubble (bawdy vintage tchotchke) and earnest Birds Can Not Swim (toy bird plus floatie) are also typical of the artist’s eye for the farcical. It is the impudent image of a fish sporting a yellow-fur hoodie, however, where Purbandono surpasses himself: Sweet Lolita in Harajuku pays cheeky homage to Tokyo fashionistas—and to a previous work from his prison portfolio, After Party (2012), which starred a lacerated goldfish.

Purbandono riffs on these peripheral artefacts, improvising and iterating memory: deranged as they may seem, these are cherished—and vital—recollections. In a 2017 group show in Singapore, the artist’s installation Cosmic Axis Memories (2016) was a kaleidoscopic memoir comprising hundreds of transparencies of family and friends, encompassing a heart of light.

At Mizuma, Purbandono’s vivid lightbox images were mounted in simple sheet-metal constructs, recalling shadow-box assemblages of Joseph Cornell—but the eclectic imagery in “Lemonade” veers towards the glib, rather than the evocative.  ­­­­­­ Early in his practice, Purbandono’s images involved neo-pop tangles of oddments like plastic figurines and food, prompting observations that his work was triggered more by “play and boredom” than conceptual complexity. The artist himself has acknowledged that he pursues visual aesthetics first, allowing the concept to catch up. In recent years, however, Purbandono has anatomized his quirky allusions, classifying random objects as metaphor for memory itself. In “Lemonade,” here is the irreverent taxonomy of the artist’s personal reality: a ticket, a seed, a fish . . .

Angki Purbandono’s “If You Give Me Lemon, I’ll Make Lemonade: Tales from Tokyo and Tangkahan” is on view at Mizuma Gallery, Singapore, until October 29, 2017.

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