Art exhibition voices struggle for freedom

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): Nine images of hands sign various letters of the alphabet. In front of each letter is a short pedestal equipped with a wooden stamp and stamp pad with which people can print the letters the sign represents.

Quietly but effectively, F.X. Harsono's piece spells out D E M O K R A S I, voicing an on-going concern of the artist. Voice without a Voice/Sign, is one of eight pieces of Suara exhibited at the Galeri Seni Rupa, Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur (opposite the Gambir Railway Station), Central Jakarta, until Friday.

Most of the pieces are presented in a highly ordered fashion, reflecting the artist's graphic design background. At the same time, however, they convey his serious dedication to art. Harsono's presentation of his works, that were previously exhibited in Australia, is an effort to show the works in Indonesia as works-in-progress.

However, Harsono's recent works are stronger than even a modified previous one.

The most interesting of his previously shown pieces, modified from one shown at the Asia-Pacific Contemporary Art Triennial at Brisbane's Queensland Art Gallery, is Monument of Reflection/Voice of Culture of Violence.

The centerpiece of the exhibition, it presents a pyramidal structure of bamboo encircled by panels of mirrors. Images from the Borobudur temple, some from the hidden Maha Karmavibangga reliefs of hell on the base of the famous Buddhist stupa, are silk-screened onto the reflective surfaces of the pyramid. The pictures of guns, tanks, and war ships placed on the mirrors facing the pyramid, are representative of his intentions in portraying "the culture of violence with which we are long familiar," he said in a Kompas article.

Although his use of mirrors attempts to trigger self- introspection, the work is not haunting enough to evoke the viewer's memories of violence.

Voice from the Throne/Power and Oppression stages a chair, symbolizing the seat of power, enhanced by kris and fire images stenciled on a white backdrop. Mounds of dirt, each covered with a white cloth tainted with blood, arranged in front of the chair, provoke images of victims of an oppressive hegemony. The barbed wire encircling the chair is a militaristic element which further distances the power from the victims.

His recent works, predominantly executed this year, are much more specific and are clearly undergirded by substantial research.

Voices from the Base of the Dam/Devotional Visit presents an arrangement of objects and crafts found in Madura. Microphones connected to water-filled terra-cotta vessels are placed in front of these objects. Rather eerie sounding voices trickle out from black pots covered with small twigs, placed within these vessels. The recordings of children's chants, musical ensembles, and interviews with farmer's from Sampang, voice the Madurese perception of their land as being adequately productive.

Dialog

This work is meant to illustrate a central-periphery difference in the perception of welfare. Harsono stresses the need for dialog in order to reduce this difference.

The most developed work is perhaps That Woman Said or Words of the Woman, which is set in two rooms. Images of daily life projected onto a white sheet at the entrance implies an atmosphere of social change. As the viewer enters the first chamber, the monotonous sound of a drum amplifies the repeating sequence of two slides showing a concrete pile-driver at work; the voice of development.

Opposite the projection, is a back lit panel of nine variations of the image of Kartini, a pioneer of the emancipation of Indonesian women. Windows are cut in the middle of three images in the second row. Smaller images of Marsinah, the deceased labor activist, lie within the left and right panels, flanking an image of Kartini in the middle.

In the dark second chamber, a video shows a woman, enacted by dancer Laksmi Simanjuntak, attempting to seize an oil lamp which is symbolic of Kartini's light of freedom.

"Freedom has to be seized," states an interpretive voice. Unfortunately, the lamp falls and creates a fire. The struggle to achieve freedom will not be without sacrifice.

Finally, Harsono's arrangement of mouthless wooden masks on a piece of black cloth seems merely to be an effort to include the Indonesian Memorandum, signed by artists and intellectuals in reaction to the recent press bans, into the exhibition.

It is clear that the artist has not put enough thought into the piece's development. As a result, it fails to reflect the content and intentions of the statement.

Suara not only reflects the work of a contemporary Indonesian artist, but also voices a social commentary on the current political situation in Indonesia. The artist's struggle for freedom of expression is voiced through the exhibition, but whether or not the exhibition can trigger other voices remains to be seen.

"Do we still have a voice?" asks the artist.