Artist Moelyono intends to promote social awareness

By Chandra Johan

JAKARTA (JP): Three village men rest in their chairs, blanketed in their sarongs and enjoying a smoke. The image is sketched in pencil all over a single wall of Galeri Lontar in East Jakarta.

Of the men in their uniform kopiah (traditional pillbox-shaped hat), artist Moelyono says the picture reflects the seemingly agreeable, conforming Javanese culture in search of security. It is titled Sluman, Slumun, Slamet, referring to the phrase meaning "entirely safe".

Other drawings also show various images of chairs -- an old man carrying a chair and a woman on a chair with her head bowed.

The viewer senses that Moelyono is conveying the relationship between those in power and the public. Though a repeated theme, the sketches are nevertheless touching.

This artist from Winong village, Tulungagung, who earlier exhibited his installation works, has deliberately gone out of his way and settled with a widely accepted metaphor for his message, the chair.

In fact this is his first drawing exhibition.

But if he is trying to sell his work, he does not seem to be trying hard enough, with his pencil drawings on crude material, all in simple frames made by village craftsmen.

Even if Moelyono, 40, has been frequently invited to international workshops, such as in Australia and Japan, one needs to be more appealing in the market here which favors artists from Bandung, Jakarta and Yogyakarta.

Other painters who exhibit in Jakarta usually see their paintings bought up in a few days. At the end of the first week of his exhibit, which runs until Jan. 15, only one of Moelyono's pieces sold for Rp 500,000.

Moelyono, a graduate from the Indonesian Fine Arts Institute in Yogyakarta, is known for his work in encouraging village children to draw from their experiences.

As in his work with children and in his installations, it seems people are more the subject, instead of the object, in his expressions -- and in the process.

Speaking about his earlier activities in Brumbum village, South Tulungagung, Moelyono said he "often took children to draw in the sand or other mediums, to let them express their imagination, until the problems around them were visible through their drawings. One result was a drawing of people lined up for water."

The process he undertakes could be described as "consciousness-raising," as his catalog describes, where people are involved in discussing the problems they face, until they are finally capable of thinking critically for themselves.

They would eventually even start to look for solutions among themselves.

Moelyono may be one of a few artists practicing "cultural action" -- an attempt to "know the local language", by living in the culture, to be able to find a contemporary expression through local idioms. What about esthetics? People have their own esthetics, he says.

As an illustration, he cites the Jaranan folk art in his village.

"The relationship between their ideology, esthetics and entertainment cannot be separated," Moelyono said. In Jaranan songs and dance, people find an outlet to express their grudges. Songs, composed for the gamelan, include themes on self- introspection, and while dancing, performers are free to shout out anything they wish.

The display on the villagers and chairs is in contrast -- there is obviously not much room for joy.