Auctions preserve Asmat tribal traditions

Auctions preserve Asmat tribal traditions

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): The Asmat Art Festival and auctions have been
held since 1981. They are organized jointly by the Diocese of
Agats-Asmat and the regional administration.

Since Agats is not only the cultural center of the region but
also the center of the Catholic mission, the event received the
full support of the bishop of the region, Alphonse A. Sowada.

The bishop is not only in favor of the Asmat continuing their
tribal traditions, but it seems that he supports the auctions
because the event has the potential to heighten the quality of
life of members of the community.

Closing the morning session of the second day, after
witnessing the auction himself, Irian Jaya Governor Freddy
Numberi expressed his impressions of the event.

"This event has proved able to increase welfare, while at the
same time preserving the heritage of the community," he said, and
asked the organizers to continue their efforts.

Sowada mentioned that in the beginning he made a mistake in
approaching the issue. In the early 1970s, when he and the
members of the community of Agats were setting up their museum,
they wanted to keep the tradition of making Asmat artifacts
alive.

So, he organized a contest for primary school children to
carve objects. After five years, he came to realize that the
carvings were made by the parents of the children, not the
children themselves.

So, since 1981, the competition has been geared to
woodcarvers. Sowada hoped that the older woodcarvers would then
pass on the tradition to the younger members of the community and
the tradition would continue in that fashion, with the
competition as the catalyst. And, it seems to have worked; many
of the woodcarvers joining the competition are young men.

"I saw auctions when I was a kid," said Sowada, and it seems
that it was this experience that inspired him to hold auctions of
Asmat art. The participants of the auctions initially were
limited to the mission, but gradually they attracted outside
interest and a market emerged.

Last year, the auctions attracted many buyers. The pieces
fetched prices ranging from Rp 75,000 to Rp 2.3 million, thanks
to the support of among others Seichi Okawa, the Japanese
correspondent of the Indonesian news magazine Gatra.

In August that year, Okawa organized an exhibition of Asmat
art in Tokyo as part of the Indonesian Festival in Japan. The
auction fetched a revenue of Rp 120 million, 10 percent of which
is withheld by the organizers for the event the following year.

This year's budget consisted of funds earned from the previous
year plus donations from the regional administration, the
Diocese, the Asmat Foundation and Freeport.

What is truly remarkable about this event, apart from its
energetic and dynamic mood, is that everything in the auction
sold. Even in times of boom, the auctions of Southeast Asian
painting at Christie's and Sotheby's sell an average of around 70
percent of the pieces they offer.

In the Asmat auctions, the sale of all the pieces is the
result of the absence of reserves, the price limit that the item
must reach before it is considered sold.

However, on the other hand, the absence of reserves often
causes participants to overlook the value of the pieces. After
the sale in Timika, filmmaker Dea Sudarman asserted that Asmat
art is still undervalued.

She pointed out that the medium used by the carver, the costs
of production set by the labor and the costs of tools that the
artist use, and also the artistic value of the carving itself,
are often taken for granted by the buyers.

"Now the price of gaharu wood is so high," she said,
suggesting that most people would gather gaharu rather than carve
Asmat statues. For Asmat art to survive, their prices need to be
competitive compared to gaharu.

Better attention should also be given to the winners of the
art competition, whose works are not auctioned but obtained by
the museum in return for the cash award of Rp 1,000,000 provided
by the regional government and the Asmat Foundation.

Of course, they can return to their villages with pride
because their work will be on display in the Asmat Museum in
Agats. However, the money they return with may be much less than
what another carver managed to get from his work, which was not
even considered by the jurors.

Yet, photographer and writer Kal Muller mentions that the
Asmat know that the results of the auctions are determined by a
combination of the quality of the piece the carvers bring in, who
attends the sales and their tastes, the amount of interest in
their piece, and other factors of luck. After 17 years, the Asmat
already well understand the issues surrounding the auctions.

Due to the still relatively cheap prices of Asmat art, it
would seem logical to also hold an auction of Asmat art abroad.
Apparently, Sotheby's already has plans to do this in New York in
May next year.

Although Bishop Sowada is certainly supportive of this plan,
he emphasized the need for the annual auctions to continue to be
held in Agats. "It is important to have the auctions here,
because it is what gives them spirit and identity," Sowada
asserted.

Therefore, we can be sure that next year there will be yet
another auction of Asmat art in conjunction with the Asmat
Festival.

"The Asmat festival opens on the second Monday in October
every year," reminded Bishop Sowada. Next year, the Kamoro
Festival, which was held in April this year, will instead be held
on the weekend following the Asmat Festival. Therefore, we should
anticipate the two events will draw an even larger audience to
Irian Jaya.