Video clip of this work can be viewed at this link VIDEO

“In 1978, I brought a wok to Berlin,” Indonesian artist Teguh Ostenrik recalls his days as an art student in Germany. “I invited my friends to my house and cooked nasi goring. That time when I used the wok, all my friends watched that genius wonder from Asia. Now everybody in Europe has a wok in the kitchen.”

The versatile round-bottomed cooking vessel was first used by the Chinese to stir fry noodles, stew vegetables, make soups, etc. The Chinese brought the wok as they migrated to or traded with their neighbors in East and Southeast Asia who no sooner adopted the big round pan, which evenly spreads and radiates heat back to its center, to concoct new dishes that later became national and regional cuisines.

The great diasporas of Asian peoples resulting from political disruptions in the last century brought the wok to different parts of the globe. Today, it is no longer just limited to Chinatowns and Asian restaurants, it has found its way in almost every kitchen around the world.

The wok has thus become a cultural icon of Asia. It symbolizes the globalization of Asian culture long before the onslaught of a more homogeneous industrial Western popular culture.

Teguh Ostenrik finds in the lowly wok a signifier for that which brings Asian peoples together. Like how it inspires the mixing of culinary styles, the wok represents the first multiculturalism. Today, this Asian heritage is in constant danger of being lost to a homogenizing global industrialism.

“We need to be reminded of the importance of small things around us that we normally take for granted: clean water, clean air, food in our meals,” he said. “Just recently, the United Nations warned of looming worldwide food crisis in 2013. To preserve and even provide a better world for the next generation, we have to take every little step that would matter in the long run. That’s what ‘Wok with Me’ is all about.”

In this recent work, Teguh suspends from the ceiling kinetic mobile sculptures made from deformed fragments of hundreds of woks. “When I cook, I notice how food covers only certain parts of the wok,” he said. “Then when I stir it, I am struck at the dynamic patterns created by the movement.”

This leads him to deform and cut up the wok. He drills perforations into the broken pieces of the pan and weld them together to produce new yet familiar images. Thus the deformed and broken woks have been detached from their initial function. Instead of the soot-covered greasy cookware in the smoky kitchen, we now see metallic fishes, butterflies, flowers and other figures shining like ethereal creatures above us.

By installing them above our heads, the artist wants to put them in a “sacred” place. Thus Teguh deconstructs the binaries of beautiful/banal, sacred/profane implied in the image of the wok. In effect, the artist retrieves the wok from its former place in the unsightly kitchen and literally puts it in lofty position at the exhibition place.

It is disorienting to see the wok not from the usual higher position of someone using it. But freed from utility and now flying free in the virtual cloud, we are thus reminded of our own state of being mere instruments, our triviality and ephemerality.

The sight of the commonplace now transformed into creatures of some divine realm is supposed to occasion a rediscovery of our own potential to transform and elevate ourselves.

( Radel Paredes – December 2012 )

“Om Swasti Astu” Dr. Eckhardt whispered. “I’m going to die, so I hand over this painting to my homeland Peliatan who always be my spirit” he said with tears. 

The story behind 1981 I decided to move to the city of Cologne, when my partner, Donata Dengler who was pregnant with our first child, confirmed that she didn’t want to live in Amsterdam nor Berlin.As a young artist, who was still struggling for bread and butter, moving to another city had never been easy.

Before leaving for Cologne, I contacted my network first. Frau Dr.Juta Beck, my collector in Berlin, would help me by introducing Dr. Henner Eckhardt, her college friend in Munich who’s also an Indonesia enthusiast.

So I immediately contacted him. His voice was very friendly and we had an instantly pleasant conversation. Dr. Eckhardt passionately shared with me his traveling experience to Indonesia and I could feel his love of Bali.

Through him I was able to get in contact with Heiner Jachertz, a property entrepreneur in Cologne, which kindheartedly offered me an affordable apartment. I signed a one year contract and Mr. Jachertz told me to bring the down payment of DM 900 two days later to his office.

I was truly delighted to be able to get a nice place so quick. Suddenly my stomach started growling. So I stopped to buy a Curry wurst at Imbiss for DM 3.10. As I opened my wallet I found only DM 200, -. Oh dear, how on earth I would be able to pay the down payment rent ?

I contacted some of my Collectors in Hamburg, Berlin and Amsterdam to offer them my works. Unfortunately only Frau Achterberg, a Collector from Berlin who’d willing to take my sketch for DM 500,- Over the night I was confused : ” Should I call Dr. Eckhardt or not?”. So I started to count my my buttons: “… Call him … don’t call .. call him.. don’t call… “, til the last one, my lips muttered: ” Call him …”.

The next day, I called Dr. Henner Eckhardt in Munich and conveyed my problems. He responded spontaneously: “Just give me your account number. Before I go to the clinic, I’ll stop by the Bank and will transfer you DM 1.500, -” I was surprised and so thrilled, that tears came down. “But we’ve never met in person” I said a little hesitant. “Ah, Frau Juta has told me a lot about your work. I will go to Cologne in the upcoming 2 or 3 months. I’ll stop by at your place to pick one painting” Dr. Eckhardt answered me.

Dr. Henner Eckhardt appeared in my apartment three months later. He selected one painting which medium is acrylic on canvas titled “Die Sehnsucht nach der Horizont”. Since that we have a close friendship, even to this day. About one year ago Dr. Eckhardt, addressed his illness. He had just gone a surgery. In our conversation, he would always express his desire: “Before I die, I wanted to reward your painting to the island of Bali that I always love for. That painting should be in Ubud Peliatan, because there I felt the vibrations of my second homeland! I will talk to Agung Rai about this. ”

A few weeks ago Dr. Eckhardt called me again: “Teguh, Agung Rai has agreed and was happy to hear my idea” and then he continued: “I’ll talk to my doctor for his permission to let me fly to Bali so I can hand over myself the painting to the ARMA Museum”.

January 22, 2013. “Die Sehnsucht nach der Horizont” is handed over to ARMA Museum, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

- Teguh Ostenrik