Affandi at Art Stage Singapore is the Daily Pic by Blake Gopnik

A 1984 self-portrait by the great Indonesian expressionist Affandi, who died in 1990. He painted by squeezing direct from the tube, and his art won all sorts of accolades in the ’50s – just the moment when you’d imagine it would. I have to admit that I didn’t know his work until I saw it this week in Zemack gallery’s booth at the Art Stage Singapore fair. I love the way almost every country in the world has its own modernist heroes, and how many different solutions they come up with for similar artistic problems. Who knew that angst had so many faces, or that thick paint had so much to say?

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