A bride's interpretation of the apocalypse

By Chandra Johan

JAKARTA (JP): In contemporary art, especially in the genre of installations, the work of art, the exhibition room, the artist and the curator are inseparably intertwined.

Take the installation project of Pangaradeon Ni Oroan (The Bride's Preparation), which is at the Lontar Gallery in East Jakarta until March 17. The artist, Alce Ully Panjaitan, cannot be separated from the exhibition room, the objects and the curator, Jim Supangkat.

Asikin Hasan, a curator of Lontar Gallery, calls the project "an installation of poetic space". Indeed, space is important here. The objects on display stem from seven separate installations, which are bound in a narration which is not linear. That is why we must not expect the seven installations to be in harmony; in Alce's work, the problem of aesthetics is not among the main issues.

It took Alce a year and a half to prepare the exhibition with the help of Jim Supangkat, an independent curator and serious art critic who pays a lot of attention to contemporary arts. He happens to be Alce's husband, and the couple make a good team.

The installation project apparently focuses on the problem of meaning and semiotics. Take, for example, an installation of a cupboard with its collection from the past. You might think that the cupboard is a part of the gallery's accessories. But let's put aside perceptions about art which are limited to paintings and other artistic objects: The cupboard, with its old collection, will bring you to the problem of meaning (interpretation, association and perception). As Jim Supangkat puts it, Pangaradeon Ni Oroan really depends on the viewers' interpretation and association. It is just like dark or vague poetry, and its darkness at the end will become an open text for interpretation.

Pangaradeon Ni Oroan consists of seven installations: Instalasi I: Apocalypse, Instalasi II: Surat-surat Cinta (Love Letters), Instalasi III: Tiga Konteks Perempuan (Three Contexts of Women), Instalasi IV: Histeri dan Ekstasi (Hysteria and Ecstasy), Instalasi V: Perkawinan Roh (The Spiritual Marriage), Installation VI and Instalasi VII: Lemari Kaca (Glass Cupboard).

In the first installation, Apocalypse, or The Seven Spirits in Asia, there are seven porcelain bottles containing oil, which are placed in a circular formation on the floor. Some dried flowers are sprinkled among the seven bottles, creating a pattern of a star with seven corners. Without an understanding of the apocalypse in the Bible, it is hard to catch the symbolic meaning in that work. Apocalypse, as written by John, is an ancient symbol which is interpreted as the end of the world.

Alce seems to be interested in Apocalypse spiritualism, a warning of the parishioners of the seven churches in little Asia, which was made by John before he was isolated on Patmos island. Is The Seven Spirits in Asia about the end of the world?

Alce said: "The end of the world according to my point of view is the time when Christ is leaving and Christ is coming and we, in this period, are living at the end of an era."

Whatever the background of the statement, The Seven Spirits In Asia inspired her to make the next space installation. Installation II: Love Letters, which shows her realm of her soul, which is inspired by Khalil Gibran's thoughts, especially through a book called Broken Wings. It tells us about his love for May Ziadah which did not happen physically but spiritually. Some ceramic discs are presented to express the spiritual love between Gibran and May Ziadah. To Alce, a spiritual relation dims the relation between femininity and masculinity. Helped by Asmujo Irianto, a curator and ceramic artist in Bandung, Alce created ceramic discs of 40 cm x 50 cm and scratched them with Gibran's text. The seven ceramic discs are arranged and hung in the room.

Three Contexts of Women are three hangings of dresses, with ladies' dresses hung with several tools and Batak traditional symbols. The attributes on the dress show three female contexts in life, as a virgin, a wife and a widow. Above the footing, she has hung three white, female masks (made of fiber resin) showing the character of a virgin, a wife and a widow. Through the traditional Batak symbols, the virgin's attributes are symbolized with banyan tree leaves scattered around them. In Batak traditional ritual dances, called manortor, there is one session in which the males have an opportunity to pin one leaf of a banyan tree on a virgin's hair as a sign of love. If the virgin refuses, the leaf will be thrown on the ground.

In the other mask, we are presented with traditional symbols like headbands as a symbol of marriage, and ulos (shawl) with a pattern denoting that the wearer is a widow.

In her fourth and fifth installations, Alce also uses ceramics as a medium to express her ideas. Spiritual Marriage features ceramic disks in the form of rolling letters, hung above scattered broken ceramic pieces and three masks symbolizing a virgin, a wife and a widow, like in Installation III.

The last two installations are an endless meditation for Alce. The cupboard contains accessories and Alce's old photographs and pieces of an open window, which is both her inward and outward looking introspection.

It is quite difficult to understand Alce's work without reading the accompanying text. Here lies the role of a contemporary work of art, to facilitate interpretation of the message through a book and local traditions through liquid symbols. Alce's work is a kind of new text that is open for multiple interpretations.