Heru Hikayat is a curator and art reviewer based in Bandung. He has completed his education at the Faculty of Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology. Joined as a member of the Art Coalition since 2018, Heru now serves as Deputy Chairperson of the Executive Board.
In 2007, Heru Hikayat was the curator of the Red Point Gallery in Bandung, an art gallery that houses various print collections from local and foreign artists. He was also the executive curator at Platform3, which is an art space in Bandung. From 2009 to 2012, Heru was a correspondent for Visual Arts Magazine. Since October 2020 Heru has been the in-house curator of Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung.
Several exhibitions that have been curated by Heru Hikayat include the Wanda exhibition (2002) at the Adira Gallery, Bandung, Framing the Portrait (2002) at the Selasar Sunaryo Art Space Bandung, Phiruku (2003) at the Center Culturel Francais Bandung, Biang Kerok (2005) at the Taman Culture of West Java, Ambari (2006) and Subliminal (2006) at the Soemardja ITB Gallery, The Story of the Privat (2007) at our Gallery, Bandung, How do I Look? (2007) at the National Gallery of Indonesia, Akunama (2008) at Dahara Gallery, Semarang, Ecce Homo (2009) at Semarang Gallery, Imagined Portraits (2009) at Soemardja Gallery ITB, Bandung Art Now (with Aminudin TH Siregar) (2009) at National Gallery of Indonesia, Body and Work (2010) at Cana Gallery, Jakarta, Vox Clamantis in Deserto (2013) at Gillman Barracks, Singapore, An Aerial View of a Playful Mind (2016) at Lawangwangi Art Space Bandung, Chaotic Jumps (2016) at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space Bandung, Migration at Home (2017) at Can’s Gallery Jakarta, Perversion (2018) at Rosid Cultural House, Dialog (2019) at Ganara Art Space, Jakarta, Point Anjak (2019) at Istora Senayan, Jakarta, and The Turn of the Fifth Age (2021) at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung.
Heru once moderated the Bandung Contemporary Art Awards #5, an art award that aims to stimulate the development of contemporary art by increasing the participation of young artists in the local and international art scene.
Heru became the artistic director of the Bandung Art activity #1, 2017. The art activities were spread across 44 performance venues around the city of Bandung involving around 2500 art performers from 156 art groups covering fine arts, music, dance, theater, and literature disciplines. Heru Hikayat was also involved in the design and preparation of Art Bandung #2 which was held in 2018.
Since 2018 Heru Hikayat has been a team of experts on the Indonesiana Platform, a collaborative program for organizing cultural activities initiated by the Directorate General of Culture, Ministry of Education and Culture, Research and Technology Republic of Indonesia. On this platform, Heru’s main focus is on implementing curatorial work for cultural festival cases. One of the activities is the Multatuli Art Festival in Rangkasbitung Lebak, which has been held since 2018. Heru participated in initiating it as an activity targeting post-colonial issues.
In addition, Heru Hikayat is often invited to a number of conferences and seminars, namely as a speaker at the seminar What is Art, Today? (2004), facilitator at the III Indonesian Arts Congress (2015), panelist at the Asiatopia Performance Conference (2016), member of the Indonesian delegation at the Edinburgh International Culture Summit (2018), facilitator at Youth Cultural Camp (KBKM) (2019), and speaker at International Forum for the Advancement of Culture (2019).
