Art bourse gauges art and political conditions

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation holds its Third Indonesian Art Bourse at the Regent Jakarta on Tuesday. Scheduled during the campaign period for the general election, which is understandably considered by many to be a politically sensitive time, this auction will gauge the extent to which the Indonesian art boom persists.

Featured will be 141 paintings, representing the works of more than 80 painters, from the major centers of art in Indonesia. The ages of the painters span from the very young, such as 26-year- old Erica Hestu Wahyuni, to senior artist Salim, 89. All of the paintings will be displayed in the Regent's ballroom.

The combined minimum price for all the paintings in the exhibition comes to Rp 2.2 billion.

"The organizing committee expects to sell at least 60 percent of the paintings that are being offered," said Agus Dermawan T., a member of the curatorial council for the bourse. "I am optimistic that 75 percent of the paintings will sell."

The minimum prices in the foundation's second auction last year, which featured paintings from the collection of prominent collectors, totaled Rp 3.6 billion. Collectors, who usually purchase their paintings from dealers, get them at prices that are already rather high. The auction managed to sell around 70 percent of the 140 paintings in the first auction, and gathered a record amount of Rp 2.6 billion in total revenues.

This year's bourse by contrast features paintings obtained directly from the artists. The lower total minimum price in this bourse is due to reduced expectations from the sellers. Artists usually only expect their paintings to sell at comparable market prices, and can even afford to set lower prices than market prices for their works.

Prices in the upcoming bourse are generally lower than last year's bourse. In this auction, the paintings range between Rp 2.5 million and Rp 109 million. Even the highest priced painting in the bourse is lower than many of the paintings on offer last year.

Yet the lower total does not mean that the total revenues for the paintings will be lower. In fact, chances are that the auction will be even more successful than last year. Popular paintings offered at reasonable prices in auctions generally attract many buyers, and the more potential buyers there are for a painting, the more likely the paintings will sell.

The four paintings with the highest price in last year's bourse, W.G. Hofker's Australian Dancer Jean Spears, Affandi's Mesjid di Medan (A Mosque in Medan) and Barong, and Rudy Pranadjaya's Misteri Kehidupan (Mystery of Life), all failed to sell due to their astronomical prices. These paintings had a minimum price tag of between Rp 175 million and Rp 250 million.

In the upcoming bourse, apart from Antonio Blanco's Gadis Bali (Balinese Girl) which is outrageously priced at Rp 109 million, most of the paintings are priced quite fairly. The only other painting which seems quite highly priced is Roedyat Martadiradja's Bali Indonesia at Rp 105 million. As the painting is quite attractive and seems to be one of the painter's special works, there is the possibility it will sell.

Third on the price scale is Srihadi Soedarsono's Horison dan Perahu (Horizon and Boat) priced at Rp 75 million, followed by Blanco's Penari Bali (Balinese Dancer) at Rp 65 million.

The remainder are priced at Rp 50 million or below. A painting by Wayan Bendi and another Srihadi painting are both offered at Rp 50 million; at Rp 40 million follows another Bendi and two paintings by Arie Smit.

Decorative paintings

The paintings, most of which are from painters who are popular among collectors and whose works are commonly seen in "salon" exhibitions, are indeed decorative paintings with high aesthetic value. Having exhibited regularly in the past few years, these painters already have standard prices for their works and thus most of the paintings are priced fairly according to current market standards.

The curatorial council has also made an effort to include the works of painters who are not readily available in the market. Widayat, Kartika, Salim M., T. Sutanto and Sri Warso Wahono are among the senior painters whose works seldom appear in the common gallery market.

The paintings by these senior artists are also priced according to current market standards. However, several painters who are familiar with the auction mechanism, such as Widayat, have set their prices slightly lower than market prices of their works. In this auction Widayat's paintings are priced at Rp 25 million and Rp 35 million. In October 1996, a work of his sold at the Sotheby's auction in Singapore for S$82,000, around one-and-a-half times its estimated sale price. The painter understands that paintings offered at lower prices in auctions will attract more potential buyers. The increase in demand will boost the price of the paintings.

Council members have brought their own favorite artists into the auction. Council members include Titiek Prabowo, one of the foundation's founders and daughter of President Soeharto; prominent art collector Budi Setiadharma; former chairwoman of the Jakarta Arts Council and a retired rector of the Jakarta Arts Institute Toeti Heraty; Agung Rai, founder of the Agung Rai Museum of Art in Bali; and art critic Agus Dermawan T.

The rare appearance in the bourse of Salim "Perancis", an Indonesian painter who currently resides in Paris, seems clearly at the influence of Toeti Heraty, whose Cemara 6 Gallery has held a major exhibition of the artist's works in the recent past.

The bourse is even featuring emerging artists who have gained prominence through recent exhibitions, including the last two Biennials held in Jakarta. Sutjipto Adi, Astari Rasjid, Dede Erie Supria, Nyoman Erawan, Teguh Ostenrik, Asri Noegroho and Melodia appeared prominently at the ninth Jakarta Biennial in 1993. Meanwhile, Made Budhiana and Sonny Lengkong were featured in last years Biennial Jakarta-X.

The foundation intends to heighten the appreciation of Indonesian art through this event. Despite this effort, the role of the bourse is still considered marginal to the development of Indonesian art.

Yet the bourse does provide a wonderful platform for the assessment of current prices of Indonesian art, a field into which the international auction houses Christie's, Sotheby's and Glerum have not yet dared to plunge. The auctions of Southeast Asian, including Indonesian art, held by the three auctions houses tend to be much more conservative.

These tend to limit the paintings they feature to works by foreign artists working in the former Dutch East Indies -- dubbed "Beautiful Indies" paintings -- and those by prominent Indonesian artists who are already popular among mainstream collectors. The foundation's auction offers a great opportunity for Indonesian artists to also enter the auction market, and to find out how their works fare in the open market.

The auction will indicate the current commercial status of the development of Indonesian art, in particular the art boom. In addition, the event will also serve as a benchmark of the current condition of Indonesian politics and the economy. If the revenues exceed last year's total revenues, as is likely, it will bode favorably for continued strength of the nation's politics and economy in the years to come.