Angkatan '60 attempts to fill gaps in art history

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