Entang Wiharso

Entang Wiharso’s life and immediate family are bicultural, biracial and the inheritors of diverse religious and spiritual legacies. Recent work focuses on the duality of cultures and experiences in his two homelands – Indonesia and America – building on ideas that connect spirituality and transcendence with national narratives about progress and destiny through a sustained exploration of landscape and geopolitical structures.

Wiharso’s multi-disciplinary practice speaks with urgency through diverse media including painting, sculpture, video, installations, and performance. His dramatic visual language is instantly recognizable with its unique depictions of contemporary life, and its relation to the mythologies of a centuries-old Javanese and animist past and the high-speed, hyperconnected lifestyle of the 21st century. His work brings into sharp focus issues of national identity, migration, race, and power conflicts layered with social, political and sexual critique, revealing a complex picture of the human condition.

​​Entang Wiharso is a graduate of the Indonesian Institute of the Arts (1994). Wiharso has had more than 45 solo gallery and museum exhibitions across Asia, Europe and the United States and participated in numerous biennale exhibitions including the 2019 Kunming Art Biennale, Yunnan, China; Indonesian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale; Prospect.3 New Orleans, Prague Biennale 6 as well as in many prestigious international institutions including Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; National Gallery of Australia; Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY; Jeonbuk Museum, Jeonbuk, South Korea; Museum MACAN, Jakarta, Indonesia; Singapore Tyler Print Institute; Gunma Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan; Hilger Brotkunsthalle, Vienna, Austria; Singapore Art Museum; Galeri Nasional Indonesia; Lyon Musée d’art contemporain; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; National Gallery of Victoria; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland; Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Ithaca, NY; and most recently at the Asia Center, Harvard University, Boston, MA. 

Selected public collections include Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Centro Videoinsight®, Turino, Italy; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; Family Servais Collection, Brussels, Belgium; Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia; Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation, Switzerland; Jeonbuk Museum, Jeonbuk, South Korea; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; National Gallery of Singapore, Singapore; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida, USA; United States Embassy, Jakarta, Indonesia; Yogyakarta International Airport, Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Yunnan Art Museum, Yunnan, China; among others. Entang Wiharso is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow and has participated in numerous residencies around the world.