Bangkok has picked up a serious art draw this season: Indonesian contemporary artist Roby Dwi Antono is showing his first-ever solo exhibition in Thailand, "Sudo Rungu: Echoes Of Fire", at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) until January 3.
The title refers to a Javanese term for diminished hearing — a nod to the artist's father, a blacksmith in Ambarawa, Central Java, whose hearing faded after decades beside a ringing anvil. "Echoes Of Fire" points to what lingers after the forge goes quiet: the sounds, smells and stories passed down. It's a personal starting point, but the show widens out into themes anyone can connect with — memory, loss, labour, and what one generation hands to the next.
Visitors can expect new paintings, drawings, photographs, video works and participatory pieces, spread across the G Floor Atrium and Temporary Exhibition Rooms 1-3. Charcoal smoke, hammer strikes and the daily rhythm of a workshop thread through the whole body of work, translated into Roby's imagined visual world.
If the name rings a bell, that's because the Yogyakarta-based artist, born in 1990, has already shown with Almine Rech in Brussels, London and Paris, and appeared at museums and fairs across Asia, Europe and the US. He started out self-taught in drawing, illustration and graphic design before moving into painting, sculpture and installation, blending childhood memory, folklore and pop culture into his signature style.
The Bangkok show was more than two years in the making, growing out of conversations with curator Loredana Pazzini Paracciani that began in March 2024. Roby made his first site visit to MOCA in September 2025, shaping the works specifically for the space.
Why bother adding a museum to a Bangkok itinerary? MOCA sits near Chatuchak in the north of the city, pairing easily with the weekend market or a stop on the BTS/MRT lines, and it offers a welcome air-conditioned few hours away from temple-hopping and street food. A flagship show by an Indonesian star makes it an especially good excuse right now — and it's free-standing art tourism that fits neatly into a longer Thailand trip.
The exhibition runs until January 3, so it works for year-end holiday travellers as well as anyone visiting in early winter. Details are on the museum's Facebook page, facebook.com/mocabangkok.
