Art bourse gauges art and political conditions

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.