Angkatan '60 attempts to fill gaps in art history

Margaret Agusta, Contributor, Jakarta, bungabahasa@plasa.com

The Angkatan '60 exhibition that opened on Tuesday at the Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) arts center in Central Jakarta displays not only the works of artists who first started showing in public forums in the 1960s, but also ample proof that this nation's art history is inextricably entwined with its political landscape.

The very choice of the name Angkatan `60, or Generation 1960, immediately identifies the participating artists with perhaps the darkest, if not most turbulent, period of Indonesia's modern history. The four decades from 1965 to 2005 saw an abortive coup that caused the eventual downfall of Indonesia's first president and led to a bloody, brutal backlash, upon which Soeharto rode to power and ruled for 32 years before widespread discontent drove him from the presidential palace.

The timing of the exhibition also seems to speak volumes of the link between art and politics in Indonesia, coming as it does at the close of the capital's 478th anniversary celebrations, just before the nation's 60th Independence Day and this year's 40th anniversary of the abortive coup of Sept. 30, 1965.

As the Jakarta Arts Council (DKJ) noted in the introduction of the exhibition catalog, "That time has passed. This exhibition is not intended to bring up old issues. The exhibition is being presented so that we, the younger generation, and the artists living in this market-driven era, as well as those members of the public yearning to study our history and the pillars of our past, can get a look at the significance of their (Angkatan '60 artists') presence in our midst now, and learn from our own history."

Although visitors to this exhibition could enjoy it entirely on the basis of the wide range of styles and thinking represented by the 30 artists in their drawings, paintings and sculptures, in order to fully understand and appreciate the significance of this show and the artwork on display, it is necessary to take a brief look at the political landscape through which these creative and dedicated artists lived and worked.

Studio culture

Most of the artists who emerged in the 1960s were products of an art education climate much different from the academy/institute-centered system that exists today. Although many of them had experienced at least some formal training at the art schools already existing in the 1950s, such as the Department of Fine Arts at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) or the Indonesian Fine Arts Academy (ASRI) in Yogyakarta, some were self-taught or affiliated with various sanggar, or studios.

The sanggar, which usually centered around one or two senior artists, such as Sudjojono, Affandi or Hendra Gunawan, were the prime organizers of exhibitions before the emergence of the gallery system in the late 1950s, which would not become a force in the art community until the 1970s. The studios were thus highly attractive to the young painters of the time as forums for exposure.

These studios, which mostly emerged along with the expansion of the independence movement in the 1930s and 1940s, provided an egalitarian communal environment in which the artists could exchange their thoughts on art theory, trends and, at times, politics. The latter was especially apparent as the nation moved toward independence in 1945, and as the ideologies of the Cold War seeped into the Indonesian consciousness in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Many young artists became caught up in this political debate as the studios they were affiliated with took one side or another.

Polarity

As the cultural arm of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), the People's Cultural Institute (LEKRA) began to exert increasing influence among the art community in the first half of the 1960s, the activities of the studios, as well as those of individual painters and sculptors, were impacted immediately. Artists whose works did not fall in line with the dictates of social realism or the communist ideology found themselves isolated and left out of important exhibitions and other cultural forums.

As sculptor Arsono notes in the catalog, "... the domestic political atmosphere was heating up with political debates ... escalating between the Bumi Tarung studio linked to LEKRA, which was affiliated to the Indonesian Communist Party, and the Nationalists and other free thinkers like myself and some of my friends gathered in the Baja Biru studio. ... The artists grouped in LEKRA considered my sculptures too bourgeois. Then I suddenly got an invitation to submit a work for possible inclusion in Indonesia's first major post-independence sculpture exhibition at the PKI Cultural Center. ... However, when my work was (reviewed) in the final selection process ... it was rejected on the basis ... that it was too modernist, too capitalist, and not Indonesian in character."

This ostracizing and sometimes outright harassment of individuals who thought outside of PKI's theological box was widespread, affecting not only visual artists, but also writers, journalists and intellectuals in various other sectors. People lost jobs or failed to gain employment solely on the basis of their politics.

According to Astri Wright in Soul, Spirit and Mountain: Preoccupations of Contemporary Indonesian Painters, the pressure to produce "correct art" in the late 1950s and early 1960s became increasingly intolerable for writers in particular, "who appear to have been under more pressure than the painters".

In late 1963, the journal Literature printed a Manifes Kebudayaan, or cultural manifesto, that had been signed by 16 writers, four painters and one composer, and which was signed by an additional 50 intellectuals after its publication. This document called for an end to the domination of cultural activities by any single group.

Six months later, the magazine was closed down, the manifest banned, and many of its signatories were either fired from their jobs or demoted.

Political upheaval

Then six Indonesian Army generals and one lieutenant were killed on the night of Sept. 30, 1965, heralding the fall of the PKI and a bloodletting of a magnitude nobody has ever measured accurately. Anyone even loosely affiliated with the party or leftist ideology either fell under suspicion or overt attack. Many people, artists among them, were killed, disappeared or went into hiding. Scores more were incarcerated for years as political prisoners.

Misbach Tamrin, an ASRI alumni and member of Bumi Tarung Studio, notes in the catalog: "Due to the influence of the political situation on the various studios, they became polarized ... whereas studios like Sanggar Bambu were moderately nationalist and fell into a relatively safe 'gray area', others like the Bumi Tarung studio, to which Amrus and I belonged, were clearly positioned in the leftist corridor.

"... No one person among us could have imagined what would happen, that the paths we took would lead us to unwanted fates. What meaning do the deaths of two Bumi Tarung members, Haryatno and Harmani, carry ...? Or the unintended exile of Kuslan Budiman, who meant only to study briefly in China, but was never able to return to his homeland? Or the fate of many other Bumi Tarung studio members who, as a result of the national tragedy of 1965, found themselves in prison for immeasurable amounts of time, like Isa Hasanda, Gumelar, Gultom and Soeroso, who experienced the concentration camp of Bulu Island?"

Reunion

It is within the context of the political polarization of the 1960s that the significance of Angkatan '60, which presents the works of artists on both sides of the political divide -- along with some who simply kept their focus on creativity and avoided political embroilment to whatever extent they could -- becomes most apparent.

"Maybe we should call this a reunion of those of us who are still around," said painter Sri Warso, who currently holds a senior management position at TIM.

This exhibition is, indeed, a coming together of artists adhering to vastly different and varied approaches to the creation of art. The well laid-out display in Galeri Cipta II near the front of the TIM compound provides a much more complete look at the various styles and creative stances of 1965 to 2005 than any other exhibition held within those four decades. This is because the works of artists excluded under the New Order regime have now been included among those of artists whose works had been widely shown over all these years.

Misbach commented: "... all that happened is just memory now ... Many questions have yet to be answered; hopefully the unjust distortions of humanity -- even though all of this happened so long ago --- can be set straight so that we, as a nation, can move forward."

At the very least, Angkatan '60 fills in some gaps in art history by providing a look at the works of artists whose thoughts and approaches were taboo for far too long. It is clear from viewing this exhibition that the directions taken in Indonesian art could have been very different, with perhaps more emphasis on realism, if these artists had been allowed to work and exhibit freely.

Angkatan '60 will run from July 19 through July 30 at Galeri Cipta II, Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center, Jl. Cikini Raya 73, Central Jakarta. Tel: (021) 31937325. Open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. TIM will also hold a public discussion on July 28 from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring Bambang Bujono, Rudi Isbandi, Kaboel Soenadi and Misbach Tamrin, with moderator Amarzan Lubis.T