ROH is delighted to announce the upcoming solo exhibition Wet by Bagus Pandega and Kei Imazu. Working from their shared studio in Bandung, Pandega and Imazu braid their practices into experimental installations of painting, kinetic sculpture, and chemical reaction, historicising and turning over the mechanisms by which nature is extracted beneath Indonesia’s growth.
The exhibition’s title draws from a large hydrochromic painting, doused in water at intermittent stages to reveal glimpses of a larger narrative of extraction of minerals, of war, and textures of everyday life. Shrouded gradually by the omitting effects of time, memory, and evaporation, these images oscillate beside a mechanised tiger which roams in circles, trapped in a loop. A spectre conjured time and again as a symbol of military, sovereign and colonial ferocity, the tiger’s survival grows precarious as the jungle thins, left to search endlessly with the theatre of its likeness.
Further symbols of the nautilus and the talas (taro) enter this spectacular tableau in sculptural form, glowing and enlarged, prehistoric forms beating audibly with life. These rhythms within the exhibition are double, at once the pulse of survival and the whir of production lines. They elucidate Pandega and Imazu’s preoccupation with a choreography between image and movement, of what structures and sensations the two can unearth in concert. Upturned, spun, and mechanical, all are swept into the axes along which resilience is today demanded.
Bagus Pandega & Kei Imazu
Wet
25 September - 1 November 2026
Essay by Harry Burke
ROH
Jalan Surabaya No. 66
Jakarta 10310
ARTIST
Born 1985, Jakarta, Indonesia
Lives and works in Bandung, Indonesia
Working primarily through the medium of installation, Bagus Pandega often challenges pre-conditioned relationships between objects and its viewer. In his works, Pandega assembles various electronic systems as ‘modules’ and explores objects such as voice recorders, cassette and record players, lamps and electronic circuit boards— among others— to construct his works. Many of his artworks become activated through the interaction of movement, sound and light.
Pandega received his Bachelor of Arts, majoring in sculpture and his Master of Fine Arts from the Faculty of Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia in 2008 and 2015 respectively. Pandega’s selected solo exhibitions include Daya Benda at Swiss Institute, New York, US (2025); Sumber Alam at Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2025); 〇 at ROH, Jakarta, Indonesia (2024); Stomata at Esplanade Concourse, Singapore (2024-25); A Pervasive Rhythm at Yamamoto Gendai, Tokyo, Japan (2018); Random Black at ROH Projects, Jakarta, Indonesia (2016); and A Monument That Tells Anything at Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Still There at 69 ART CAMPUS 艺术中心, Beijing, Republic of China (2024); Bangkok Art Biennale: Nurture Gaia at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, Thailand (2024); Frieze Seoul, COEX Convention & Exhibition Center, Seoul, South Korea (2022); WAGIWAGI at documenta fifteen, Hübner areal, Kassel, Germany (2022); Declaring Distance: Bandung — Leiden at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2022); AAAAHHH!!! Paris Internationale in Paris, France (2018), all featuring her collaborative work with Kei Imazu; Art Basel Hong Kong with ROH, Hong Kong (2023); The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial at QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia (2021-22); Tiger Orchid presented at Art Basel OVR: Miami Beach (2020); Condo London at Project Native Informant, London, UK (2020); Ripples: Continuity in Indonesian Contemporary Art at Taipei Dangdai, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); Distorted Alteration at Project Fulfill, Taipei, Taiwan (2018); Amsterdam Light Festival, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2017); and Clandestine Transgression at Art Basel Hong Kong: Discoveries with ROH Projects, Hong Kong (2015). After winning third place at Bandung Contemporary Art Awards #2, Pandega completed his first residency at Le Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle, France in 2012. A nominee of the 2016 Sovereign Art Prize, Pandega had also collaborated with Adi Purnomo and Irwan Ahmett in presenting Freedome, Indonesia Pavilion at the London Design Biennale: Utopia by Design in 2016.
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