Anusapati's works in wood an austere vision of life

Anusapati's works in wood an austere vision of life

By Carla Bianpoen

JAKARTA (JP): Art historians, art critics and the public may
well be at a loss when it comes to the distinction between art
and craft, but the contemporary crafts movement is proceeding to
erase that division, and at a surprisingly accelerated tempo.

The Indonesian Contemporary Craft exhibition, held at Galeri
Nasional recently, provides a significant hint in this regard. In
an auspicious exhibition, works that one would call handicraft,
utensils, applied art and contemporary craft were displayed in a
manner that often made it hard to draw the line between art and
craft. It must also be said, however, that accepting ordinary
bamboo baskets as art of an elevated level will not be easy.

Whatever the opinion, long before the discourse had even
entered the country, Indonesia's master craftsman Anusapati had
already started crafting art. Numerous exhibitions within and
outside his home country have seen his works sought after by art
connoisseurs. Their strong attraction may lie in the aesthetic
lines used within an austere simplicity and an extremely refined
finish.

Anusapati is certainly not the only artist who uses wood for
his artistic expressions. But as curator Hendro Wiyanto said, his
treatment of wood as a working medium and the sources of his
inspiration have made him a pioneer when it comes to integrating
local culture in contemporary wood sculptures.

The current exhibition, displayed at Galeri Nadi may be
considered confirmation of how craft can transcend boundaries and
become works that many serious art connoisseurs consider genuine
art. Shapes of boats, mortars and pestles, musical instruments,
farming and fishing tools and other objects made from wood have
been part of Javanese rural life for centuries. However in the
hands of this master, they surpass their mere utilitarian
function and emerge as stylized wooden sculptures.

The series, titled Genesis, highlights his most recent works
(2001) and consists of six wooden sculptures -- all egg-shaped
and in the size of an adult human head. The artist's love for and
obsession with carving is evident in the relief features, the
rectangular geometrical forms and semi-circles chiseled or carved
into the wooden eggs. Using different kinds of wood in the last
two eggs from the series, Anusapati lets two colors accentuate
the dynamic rhythm of his finely finished wooden sculptures.

Genesis is also the title of the exhibition, indicating "a new
possibility, a new construction or relationship. It might be
reconciliation," Hendro Wiyanto quotes the artist as saying in
his curatorial introduction. It is not clear whether he means
reconciling manual with technical tools.

Naturally resistant to artificial and restrictive
classifications and dissatisfied with consumerist trends that
tend toward extreme modernity and opulence, Anusapati chose to
work in wood, a simple and unpretentious material, when he came
back from art study in Brooklyn and began the search for an
appropriate medium. In all probability, the characteristics of
wood add substance to his austere vision of life. It also
contains a certain energy that supports life.

As one ponders his wooden creations, they emerge as bearers of
meaning, reflecting the time, place and culture in which they
were used as utilitarian tools. Yet they also appear to bridge
the past with the present in a transcendental but always
recognizable form.

Anusapati has worked with wood since the early 1990s. He likes
its simplicity, bareness, and the way the natural lines narrate
the age and history of the tree from which it was once a part.
Drawing his inspiration from the specific features of wood, he
usually leaves the fissures, fractures and other faults in the
wood, going over the texture with his loving hands, intensely
sensing its strength and taking in the scent of its fibers.

Awareness of the environmental implications of wanton
destruction of trees has made him consciously choose only those
logs that have been left behind, or by using other types of wood
usually considered as cheap firewood.

Sometimes the works of this 41-year-old artist are just
stylized artifacts, but at other times they are more like poetic
narratives, as they are in the Genesis series. In most cases, the
placement of the object becomes extremely important, and helps to
bring out its artistic features. And as in installation art, the
space in which the objet d'art is positioned is critical.

This has been well understood by the curator at the Nadi
exhibition, unlike the curator of the all-Indonesian exhibition
at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art last year, who ironically
dumped an Anusapati work in a far corner.

Featuring 13 works, Genesis runs through Aug. 5 at Nadi
Gallery, Jl. Kedoya Raya 53, Jakarta 11520 (tel. 581-8129). E-
mail: info@nadigallery.com.