Club Obsolom is this one place inside yourself where you can be everything. Perverse, mad, full of desire. It’s where everything is OK. It’s everything you hide from other people, but here, it’s permitted,” Yudi Yudoyoko says.

“Club Obsolom,” showing at Vivi Yip Art Room through Nov. 17, portrays the artist Yudi’s world of unbridled lust and desire through enormous wallpaper-like digital prints, a montage of drawings and a number of colorful mixed-media hangings.

A Jakarta native, Yudi ventured to Montevideo in 2003 and made it his home. He spends most of his time between the Uruguayan capital and Buenos Aires, where the thriving art scene supports his exhibitions.

When he first moved to South America, Yudi could not speak a word of Spanish, but today, he prefers to discuss his subjects of eroticism and love in the romantic language.

His works still exude an Indonesian flavor, while his subjects are confronting and sexually charged, in the spirit of Latin American artists such as Mexican Frida Kahlo.

Two canvases of wallpaper hang on either side of the entrance. From a distance, one appears to be black-and-white batik, the other an innocent repetition of playful cartoons.

Up close, the two artworks are not mere wallpaper patterns. The patterns depict naked women, flying phalluses and a dancing cop, as if Yudi’s subconscious has exploded onto the canvas.

In fact, walking into the gallery feels like entering Yudi’s psyche.

His digital print “Karma,” part of a four-piece work, includes more than 100 images of body parts, everyday objects and acts of sexual gratification.

Asked whether the antipornography police might come chasing him for his graphic works, he laughed: “Let them. I don’t care. I’m just trying to show this work here because I believe a lot of people think these things but don’t admit it. In Uruguay, people are more open about these things. I’m trying to show Indonesians a way to be mentally healthier.”

Part of being healthy, according to Yudi’s piece, “Karma,” is plenty of fruit and vegetables — for sexual pleasure, that is.

Carrots, eggplants and cobs of corn are depicted with accompanying descriptions of what they have to offer — butter pumpkins provide great sex, cucumbers are for those above 20 only, and pineapples are for sadomasochists.

These images stand beside playful love hearts, a reminder that beneath all the adult eroticism remains a playful child.

Yudi, 46, is brighter-eyed and sprightlier than most men his age. He exudes a youthful spirit in the aesthetics of his prints, which echo the busy patterns of today’s indie street and skatewear.

“I think it’s very important for an artist to be in his time,” Yudi says.

“It took me a while to understand the kids of today, with their video games and how they think that the virtual world is real. I have to understand these things, because if I don’t, I’m regressing.

“I’m certain that the important themes in life are passion, desire, love, religion and so on, but we have to keep looking, analyzing and investigating them in newer and fresher ways.”

Yudi’s youthful artworks that look free and effortless communicate decades of experience.

Having studied fine arts at the Bandung Institute of Technology, Yudi spent his formative years in the fashion industry, designing and styling for upscale Indonesian magazines in the 1980s.

His montage of drawings, “Bring It On,” both praises and censures fashion. The illustrations are drawn on pieces of paper ripped out of a sketchbook, as if part of a fashion designer’s portfolio.

One drawing is of British celebrity couple Victoria and David Beckham at a Giorgio Armani party. “Luxury is gross” is written over their images in fluoro-pink text. In the montage are reproductions of glamorous magazine covers, such as Vogue and Elle, celebrating beauty and fashion.

“I have a love-hate relationship with fashion. There are some works of fashion I love, like those of Alexander McQueen, but I’m not always OK with the industry.”

McQueen is very creative and different,” Yudi says.

“When fashion is creative and exists outside the mainstream, it can be very interesting. But I do think it’s strange how much we value aesthetics and the status that comes with beauty. I also don’t like the cruelty of fashion, cruelty against humans and animals.”

This duality is common to almost all of Yudi’s works. He does not attempt to make bold statements, but to provoke thought in a world where “nothing is black and white.”

To live in Yudi’s Club Obsolom means keeping an open mind, losing inhibitions and embracing all aspects of being human.

“I want to be a complete man, which means to have a part of me that is bad, a part that is good, a part that it fun, religious, sad and happy.

“I have to accept all of it.”

Club Obsolom
Vivi Yip Art Room
Lot 2-3 The Promenade
Jl. Warung Buncit Raya 98
South Jakarta
Tel. No. 021 7900 480