Contemporary batik collaborations: Mountain meets ocean<\/p>\n
By Astri Wright<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): On June 1, a unique exhibition opens at the
\nNational Gallery. Not only are the art works which will be
\nhanging there unusually long; their textures and consistencies
\nare dramatically different from what is usually encountered in
\ncontemporary art galleries.<\/p>\n
These art works bear the traces of hands, minds and spirits
\nmoving hot lines of molten material across soft surfaces of spun
\nand woven larvae-products. The subtle hues are memories of
\nimmersions in pools of color and exposures in spaces of air and
\nlight.<\/p>\n
The art is the results of movements and acts undertaken in
\nhumility and concentration, for the sake of invocation as much as
\nfor pure expression--acts resulting in marks that whisper stories
\nabout bringing bloodlines and ancestral lines from far and near
\ntogether in common seal and zeal.<\/p>\n
Segaragunung is one of four exhibitions that make up the
\nJakArt Festival, held during the month of June. While modern and
\ncontemporary Indonesian art today enriches a global art world
\nincreasingly aware of the artistic treasures that exist beyond
\nEurope and America, also in conventional media like painting,
\nsculpture, and installation art, one could claim that this
\nexhibition offers the world a contemporary art form that is at
\nonce contemporary, in the international sense, and uniquely
\nIndonesian, unseen in any earlier Euro-American modern version,
\nhere offering glimpses of a vision unknown to the Western art
\nworld.<\/p>\n
Javanese batik is widely recognized as the pinnacle of
\nachievement in this resist-dye technique practiced in many areas
\nof the world from ancient times. Based on the detailed cloth
\npatterns visible on reliefs on Candi Borobudur, it is estimated
\nthat the Javanese courtly batik arts date back to at least the
\nmid-9th C. AD. Many batik artists still work with sacred patterns
\nthat have been copied meditatively for centuries. But Isnia's
\napproach has been somewhat different.<\/p>\n
Ismoyo and Nia have studied the philosophical and aesthetic
\nroots of this batik art with the aim of continuing to give form
\nand life to its essence. To these artists, this does not mean a
\npurist or orthodox repeating of the old motifs, with old methods
\nin cloth making, patterning and dying, but an embracing of what
\nis seen as timeless spirit in contemporary forms, reflecting
\ncurrent sensibilities -- even while challenging some of the bases
\nof modern and contemporary art internationally.<\/p>\n
Batik, Java and abroad<\/p>\n
Segaragunung (Oceanmountain) features nearly twenty large
\nworks created collaboratively around the Brahma Tirta Sari (BTS)
\nBatik Studio headed by Agus Ismoyo and Nia Fliam in Kota Gede,
\nYogyakarta. Collaborative artist-partners for the last sixteen
\nyears, two remarkable artistic journeys and geo-social histories
\nhave joined together in these two people: Ismoyo's ancestors in
\nSolo were batik-makers; his father is a spiritual teacher
\nrenowned throughout Java and Bali; Nia's art studies in New York
\nhad turned to Asian and particularly African resist-dye
\ntechniques before she made her voyage to Java in 1983 to study
\nthe ancient techniques there.<\/p>\n
With their studio's thirty-plus batik workers in Yogyakarta,
\nthe two artists, signing their work Isnia, have since embraced
\nartistic traditions and philosophical ideas that span from India
\nto Aboriginal Australia, and most recently also include the work
\nof youth who live on Mount Lawu near Solo in Central Java.<\/p>\n
One of the main collaborations featured in this exhibition is
\nthe longstanding one between BTS and Aboriginal women artists
\nfrom Australia.<\/p>\n
The Utopia and Brahma Tirta Sari Studio Collaborative Batik
\nProject, entitled Songs of Peace-Songs of the Ancestors-Batik
\nFrom the Land, was featured in the 1999 Asia-Pacific Triennial of
\nContemporary Art at the Queensland Gallery of Art in Brisbane.<\/p>\n
This extraordinary artistic collaboration, which began in
\n1994, resulted in a deep sharing of spiritual and artistic
\nknowledge rooted in the apparently so different cultures of Java
\nand aboriginal Australia.<\/p>\n
The record of this exchange is the art created by the hands of
\nIsnia and artists from the Utopia artist group. The practice of
\ndisparate traditions of rituals honoring the land, the lifeforms
\nthat inhabit both the material and the immaterial worlds, and the
\nancestors, enabled the Javanese-American artists and the
\nAboriginal artists to connect with increasing respect and
\nopenness towards each other.<\/p>\n
Violet Petyarr, one of the Utopia artists, writes: \"We've
\nstill got our Law, and we've got together to make batik. Those
\ntwo (Nia and Ismoyo) brought their things from the north so that
\nwe could get together. Our things have Law and theirs are the
\nsame - they have Law as well. Theirs comes from the land, and
\nours comes from the land as well. Everybody comes and gathers
\ntogether for ceremony - people come from all over the place. In
\nthe same way we are getting together to make batik.\"<\/p>\n
Despite the similarity in ritually and verbally expressed
\nintent and in the materials used, the different styles, color
\nschemes, and motifs created by each individual artists, also
\nevident in the differences between the two cultural groups, offer
\nstunning evidence to the creative breadth of the medium of batik.
\nAlso, for further comparison, two works done purely by the Utopia
\nwomen artists, non-collaboratively, will be exhibited.<\/p>\n
In addition to the Utopia Women Artists, several completely
\nnew collaborations are featured in this exhibition, bringing new
\nglimpses of artistic explorations in batik both by Javanese and
\nby foreign artists.<\/p>\n
A new collaboration is evident in the wayang piece by Yono and
\nMartono (two of BTS's longstanding batik-workers) and Ismoyo.
\nHere one is witnessing an unusual event: batikers formerly
\nanonymous to the art world emerging as named artists in their own
\nright, in peer-collaboration with their \"boss\".<\/p>\n
Yono, described by Nia as \"one of the most creative people in
\nthe studio,\" will also be showing some of his individual work for
\nthe first time.<\/p>\n
Finally, Nia will show some reverse applique pieces made from
\ncloths by Elsje Van Keppel, an Australian textile artist who died
\nin March. This adds a commemorative note to the exhibition which
\ncould be said to memorialize essential dimensions of life on so
\nmany levels.<\/p>\n
The Kejawen Artist<\/p>\n
The title of the exhibition holds an important conceptual key
\nto the artists' intended meaning with the event. Segaragunung
\njoins two words that resonate with deep meaning in Java.<\/p>\n
Arjuno, an archaeologist and cultural observer, writes:
\n\"Segara, the ocean, and Gunung, the mountain, are not two
\nelements that oppose one another. They are a pair of pyramids
\nthat exist simultaneously and are impossible to separate. The
\nmountain is a pyramid whose summit soars high, piercing the
\nmodern world and penetrating future ages. The ocean is a pyramid
\nwith a summit that plunges in the reverse direction, though
\npenetrating the past, to the very depths of tradition.\"<\/p>\n
In their collaborative artist statement about their
\ncollaboratively created art, Isnia writes: \"The principle which
\nis a motivating factor in our work, is Tribuwono. As an integral
\npart of Javanese philosophy Tribuwono holds to the concept that
\nthere are three worlds... As in nature, with the elements, there
\nis water, fire, earth and air and each has its own function,
\npower, character and importance, while maintaining a relationship
\nto each other and to the earth.\"<\/p>\n
The goal of the individual, seeker, artist, priest and
\nlayperson, is to achieve balance between the three dimensions or
\nworlds. Only then can truly meaningful work result.<\/p>\n
The creative concept behind the art by the Brahma Tirta Sari
\nStudio and their various collaborative partners is rooted in a
\nkejawen philosophy as expounded by the charismatic teacher, known
\nas Romo or Resi Djayakusuma of Padepokan Segara Gunung (Ocean
\nMountain Cultural Centre) on Mount Lawu, near Solo in Central
\nJava.<\/p>\n
Within the kejawen world view, all things are connected and at
\nonce independent and interdependent. The relations and
\nrelationships between all things may be expounded from the
\nlargest, unseen or invisible perspective to the smallest visible
\nand micro level of things, or vice-versa.<\/p>\n
The largest perspective is the all-encompassing Void - the
\nunseen world. The void is not empty yet nothing is
\ndifferentiated; it is full to the brim of no-things. Somewhere
\nwithin this never-ending void a vibration begins, imperceptibly
\nas a pinprick, and then grows into the world of Light.<\/p>\n
Living in the middle of a cosmos consisting of three worlds or
\ndimensions (Tribuwono: the Light dimension, the Macro dimension
\nand the Micro dimension), the artist is an empty vessel. At a
\ncertain time, the spiritually open and sensitized artist receives
\na vibration transmitted from the supernatural world, where the
\nhigher consciousness resides in the world of light. Via the
\n\"Golden Cord,\" which connects humans to the pure, spiritual
\ndimension, this vibration transmits from the world of Light to
\nthe artist's soul and a the urge to create a work of art that
\ncombines the wisdom of the divine self with the form-giving
\nnature of the ego-self in dynamic harmony. Such work is
\nexperienced as having a certain super-natural vibration and is
\nspoken of as Kapti Kerdating Sukma (work that has been created
\nby a vibration from the soul).<\/p>\n
Art to Heart Vibrations<\/p>\n
Soft, Connecting, Profound: in cloth there is always movement
\nas the material continually responds to its environment. Unlike
\nthe static surface of painted canvas or sculpture, cloth wraps,
\nfolds, and shimmers.<\/p>\n
Light dances over its surfaces in minutely varied angles as
\nthe cloth billows on drafts and currents. Of old, these art works
\nwould have been worn, wrapping living, moving bodies as well as
\nthe bodies of the dead, ancestors-to-be, on their last journey.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the catalog that accompanies this exhibition speaks
\nwith many voices -- from the Utopian Aboriginal women artists
\nfrom Australia to the Java-based and Javanese artists, and the
\nvoice of spiritual teacher Romo Djayakusuma; from the
\narchaeologist's voice to curators voices, locally and abroad.<\/p>\n
This remarkable exhibition can teach younger generations of
\nJavanese artists about a heritage which has been replaced in many
\npeople's minds by less patient and rigorous systems of thinking,
\nliving and making.<\/p>\n
It can also teach Jakarta's and Indonesia's expatriate art
\nlovers an important historical (but not fossilized) dimension of
\nthe country they are working in. And, across the board, this
\nexhibition can envelop every visitor with the gentle yet
\npervasive aesthetics of cloth marked, layer upon rich layer, with
\nthe signs of thoughtfulness and prayer: for remembrance and
\nprotection, for increasing social and spiritual harmony, and for
\npeaceful unification -- unification of stranger with stranger, of
\nthe material world with the spiritual, of the past with the
\npresent and future, of here with there -- of mountain with ocean,
\nand all that such a metaphor can contain.<\/p>\n
The writer is Associate Professor of Southeast Asian Art,
\nUniversity of Victoria, Canada, and Researcher of Contemporary
\nIndonesian Art.<\/p>",
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