Timoteus Anggawan Kusno Dismantling Nostalgia 2024 Mixed media Acquired through Southeast Asia Collectors Circle (SEACC) 2024 Fund Photo courtesy: kohesi Initiatives
The Mori Art Museum presents MAM Collection 022, a solo exhibition highlighting the multifaceted practice of Timoteus Anggawan Kusno. Born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 1989 and currently based in Amsterdam, Kusno works across video, photography, and installation to interrogate the enduring legacies of colonial history and memory.
His artistic practice offers a critical examination of the power structures and arbitrary fabrications embedded in official historical narratives, deftly blurring the line between fiction and documentary to reveal the fragile nature of historical truth.
MAM Collection 022 presents two new creations alongside Dismantling Nostalgia (2024), a mixed-media work recently acquired by the Mori Art Museum that combines archival prints, oil and acrylic paints, rope, and metallic devices.
The piece targets the Mooi Indie (Beautiful Indies) genre—romanticized landscape paintings depicting harmonious co-existence between people and nature in colonial Indonesia—to expose how such idealized aesthetics functioned to conceal the violence, exploitation, and structural inequality of colonial rule.
This critical deconstruction of romanticized history extends into the photographic series Void of Time (2024) and the video installation Sola Fata (2025).
In both works, Kusno examines the dangers of nostalgia within contemporary society, demonstrating how an uncritical gaze toward the past can distort historical facts, obscure violence, and fuel modern longings for authoritarian regimes and colonial power structures.
The centerpiece installation, Dismantling Nostalgia, enters the museum's collection through the support of the Mori Art Museum Southeast Asia Collectors Circle (SEACC). Established in 2023, the SEACC is a network of patrons and collectors from Southeast Asia that builds upon the regional connections forged during the museum's 2017 exhibition SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now.
The initiative actively supports ongoing curatorial field research in the region and fosters the acquisition of landmark contemporary artworks for the museum's permanent collection.
The exhibition runs from Wednesday, April 29, 2026, through Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at the Mori Art Museum, located on the 53rd floor of the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower.
The museum opens daily from 10:00 to 22:00, with early 17:00 closures on Tuesdays.
However, special late-night 22:00 openings are scheduled on select Tuesdays including May 5, August 11, and September 22. Final admission is granted up to 30 minutes before closing time.
Extended operating hours from 9:00 to 22:00 apply on weekends and public holidays from June through September, as well as during the Obon holiday period from Saturday, August 8 through Sunday, August 16.
General admission for weekdays is set at 2,300 yen for adults, 1,400 yen for high school and university students, and 2,000 yen for seniors aged 65 and above, with discounted rates available for online advance purchases.
Weekend and holiday tickets are priced at 2,500 yen for adults, 1,500 yen for students, and 2,200 yen for seniors, while children in junior high school and under enjoy free entry across all days.
Admission tickets purchased for the concurrent Ron Mueck exhibition also grant entry to MAM Collection 022. Combination passes including access to Tokyo City View or an AI Audio Guide can be purchased online through the official booking portal, Klook, Trip.com, or ART PASS, as well as at the on-site ticket counter.
For general inquiries, visitors may contact the museum via Hello Dial at 050-5541-8600 domestically or +81-(0)47-316-2772 from overseas.
