Policies that are in the name of society or a wider scope are imposed on the backs of small pawns for their achievement, traps in the name of policy will become a latent disease for culture and ultimately lead to the destruction of a civilization. They are a disguised singularity, dressed in fair skin and white shirts so that all the lies and insults they spew out will sound beautiful and lulling, and become a destructive opiate. What is frightening is that all of this is aimed at domination, because the laws are made by a group of people who are hungry to monopolize, they are weak but dare to be petty and conspiratorial.
Before the boundaries created for a few interests, humans intuitively applied the law of the jungle, a harsh but at least fair law for honest humans. But with all the power when they start thinking of monopolizing, the law of the jungle is directed to a very inhuman and barbaric picture, where the honorable people who are able to make this picture of the law of the jungle will become reliable drivers of all interests and all profits to be directed to themselves and their groups.
When it is seen that the order is not running properly, formed and arranged according to the interests of a group, there must be a hero who is able to become a sacrifice for himself, to just realize or participate in carrying the burden of the community and the environment that is victimized. In short, a hero can be anyone or anything, but now the question will arise who is willing and able to become a hero who is ready to be destroyed.

As artist
Art may be a hero, and an oasis in the midst of the thirst for truth through bold artistic movements, in Indonesian art, there was an attitude of cultural heroism recorded by history in the 1950s, a group of artists, some writers, and culturalists made a pledge which included that “we are the legitimate heirs of world culture and we continue it in our own way”, implied that as creative people artists have the power to continue a culture, destroy, ‘Culture is not just a way of life, it is the whole way of life, from birth to death, from morning to night, even in dreams’¹, but rather the focus is on how to dismantle a bad and corrupt culture and transform it into a good character, then the artist will be able to make a change in his own way, with the unique style of an artist.
In becoming someone who influences the changes around them, the movement of artists can generally be categorized into two, the first is to respond to an event and make it big, or make the event itself to be big and have an impact on the surroundings. The movement carried out by Taufik Monyong is a movement carried out with a pattern of responding to an event and then exploding it loudly, the movement carried out is represented in the action of performent art and his art, the action of performent art performed by Taufik is intended to respond to an event in a demonstration, an explanation of performent art and its correlation in demonstrations is explained in the book Themes in contempoarary art; although the word ‘performance’ is now a generic reference for presentational art, artists (especially in the 1950s and 1960s) proposed many different labels to describe their performance practice: ‘happening’, demonstrations, rituals and ceremonial; body, event, action, live and destruction art – to name just a few ². In carrying out his actions Taufik used to mingle with other demonstrators or carry out his actions alone, then the intended event was responded to with his typical actions during the demonstration, namely by performing performent art to demand justice for those who were victims.
The actions he has carried out include in early 2015 with an action entitled ‘Year of Catching Corruptors’ he took action in Apsari Park by living in bamboo bars for 3 days and 3 nights, to demand justice for corruptors. Another action was in response to the Bank Century case in 2010, and many other actions were carried out starting in 1995.
As an artist with a major in fine arts Taufik experimented a lot in his works, he played a lot with social political themes in his work, Taufik was able to visualize the social symptoms that were happening according to his point of view and freely scratched his thoughts expressively on canvas or other media he used. He militantly continues to carry out perfoment art actions and works of art, because he believes that the actions and works carried out will be able to have an impact on social symptoms and ongoing political issues, becoming a tangible form of his resistance to the abuse of the system that occurs. Slavoj Zizek, a critical theorist from Slovenia, argues that how to build transnational politically movements and institutions strong enough to seriously constain the unlimited rule of capital and render visible and politically relevant ³. And the movement in the form of performance art and rupa that taufik did is a movement that is broadly in line with what Zizek said, a movement that makes sense to do but is able to have a positive impact on the development of social and political issues that take place.
In this solo exhibition, taufik’s theme is ‘World without conspiracy’ and he displays 30 artworks, the artworks that taufik displays include: The power of the south sea, The battle of the general, Starting from a dream, The year of the goat angel, The sensation of khayangan, The mother whisperer, Harmony, Precept one, Fighting for the stars, Sawungaling, The ideals of Indonesian children, The glory of lovers, Law enforcement, The burden of the brengos, Doli localization is closed, Angel monyong, Semar gareng petruk bagong, Provocateur whisperer, Not becoming a 4-star, Bear the burden of the leader, Radio news is a lie, Beautiful feelings, Dreamer’s palace, Grief box shirt, Bomb the corruptor, Hang the corruptor. Many of taufik’s artworks this time are visualized with bright colors with typical figures drawn in an expressive style with bold black lines, taufik includes a lot of propaganda about what is happening today, at first glance, when viewed from the title we will find a lot of social and political content contained in his paintings. If the civil war in Spain was visualized by Miro with his still life works where he depicted a pair of shoes as a symbol of his anxiety over the raging war, then the socio-political issues that occur in this country are depicted with naive figures, and expressive lines typical of taufik.
Taufik’s works are a type of painting that leads to the expressionist school and is packed with naive forms. Is that called gestural painter, concerned in different ways with the spontaneous and unique touch of the artist, his or her “handwriting”, and the emphatic texture of the paint it includes such major artists as pollock, willem de kooning, and franz klik ⁴, with a distinctive gesture in each of his works, taufik presents an illustration of the events that occur, telling the anxiety that always disturbs him about the socio-political symptoms that occur, taufik actualizes an atmosphere that he feels and then distorted and poured in expressive strokes. With his expressive strokes, a naive form of taufik’s distinctive character will be obtained, a drawing character conveyed with bright colors, which looks so loose but also very rhythmic. The conclusion of taufik’s work is like what Harold Rosenberg said about the genre of expressionism, namely ‘what was going on canvas was not a picture but and event’.
…..
In his mission as an artist who carries out a social movement, the works he makes and the stories he tells are a form of responsibility for the movement he carries out, so they must be shared in a cast that will later become a forum for his movement.
Hopefully, the works presented and the movements carried out by taufik can become a force that has a positive impact on social and political issues that occur today or in the future. May he still be able to speak out loudly as an artist who loves society, loves the environment, and loves his homeland.

¹ T.S Eliot. Notes toward the definition of culture (London,1948), 31
² Perry, Gill – Wood, Paul. Themes in Contemporary Art (London,20014), 188
³ Perry, Gill – Wood, Paul. Themes in Contemporary Art (London,20014), 306
⁴ Anason, H.H – Mansfield, C. Elizabeth. History of modern art (London,2012),435

• Written as a curatorial introduction to the exhibition KONSPIRASI
• Solo exhibition by Taufik Hidayat a.k.a Taufik Monyong, Leader of Jawa timur Art Council
• In 1-6 June 2015
• At Gedung Utama Balai Pemuda Surabaya