[1][2][3] Founded in 2000 by a group of seven artists, ruangrupa provided a platform in South Jakarta for organising exhibitions, events, and festivals, also conducting publishing services, workshops, and research.
[4][5] ruangrupa functions as a non-profit organisation that supports contemporary art within the urban and cultural contexts of Indonesia and beyond, often involving artists and practitioners from other disciplines such as the social sciences, politics, and technology.
[11] In 2022, ruangrupa topped the ArtReview Power 100 list for their defense of artistic freedom amidst the controversies of documenta fifteen, as well as their influential mode of nonhierarchical working that continues to inspire ongoing collaborations across the art world.
In 2015, ruangrupa developed the cultural platform Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem (GSE) together with a number of art collectives in Jakarta, an interdisciplinary space seeking to support creatives, communities, and institutions.
[29][30] On 2 June 2022, artists and organizers involved with documenta fifteen issued a statement of support for ruangrupa, stating that the collective was erroneously accused of antisemitism.
[35] The mural is a critique of Suharto's military dictatorship and the complex power relationships that sustained it, with a section depicting the involvement of the government of Israel through the use of Jewish caricatures.
[41] The letter highlighted the continued harassment and discrimination faced by ruangrupa and documenta fifteen artists, speaking out against the methods and claims of the advisory panel as pseudoscientific, racist, and Eurocentric, "a way of projecting onto and transposing German guilt and history into the Palestinian and other anti-colonial struggles.
"[41] In November 2022, ruangrupa topped the ArtReview Power 100 list for their defense of artistic freedom amidst the controversies of documenta fifteen, as well as their influential mode of nonhierarchical working that continues to inspire ongoing collaborations across the art world.