Book covers raised to art form in Yogya

Asip A. Hasani, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

A good book cover is surely more than simply a jacket to protect the pages inside, but should be a work of art in its own right to attract potential buyers.

In Yogyakarta, Indonesia's "city of education", book cover designs truly have become an art form.

The 114 book publishers in the city, one of the highest numbers in any Indonesian city, are in neck-and-neck competition, and one way to win is by improving their cover designs.

As part of this healthy competition, several publishers in the city are exhibiting some 30 book covers at Bentara Budaya Yogyakarta.

Local artists have developed their own unique style in coming up with book covers; some are quite "independent", so the covers do not seem to reflect the book's content.

"The designs look more like artworks in themselves," says painter Hary Budiono from Bentara Budaya Yogyakarta.

One impressive book cover being exhibited was the work of graphic designer Harry Ong Wahyu, for a book titled Pembantaian PKI di Jawa dan Bali 1965 -- 1966, which is a translation of the Australian publication Indonesian Killings. Ong's sketch on the book cover depicts a man down on his knees, with his eyes covered and his hands tied up.

On the cover of a book titled Kill the Radio by Dorothea Rosa Derliany and published by Indonesia Tera, artist Agung Leak Kurniawan's expressive sketch shows a separated head with a square hole in it.

Meanwhile, a colorful naturalistic painting on the cover of Seno Gumira Ajidarma's fiction book titled Iblis Tidak Pernah Mati (The Devil Never Dies), published by Galang Press, looks like the cover of a comic book.

"We artists and cover designers never thought that our work would grow as art," said Ong Wahyu.

The end of former president Soeharto's New Order regime in 1998 brought about a new freedom not only for newspapers, magazines and tabloids, but also for books.

In Yogyakarta, the end of the authoritarian regime has been marked by the rapid growth in book publishing. From less than 10 publishers at the era of the New Order regime, the city now has 114, mostly small publishers with less than 10 employees.

"Many former student activists have found that books serve as a medium that allow them to express their ideas," Sigit Djatmiko, a translator who used to be a student activist in the 1980s, says.

Leftist-leaning books, which were forbidden during the Soeharto era, have sold like hotcakes since the strongman tumbled. Foreign books, especially those on Indonesia, are also important sources of income for publishers, despite the sometimes poor quality of the translations.

Fifty books are published in Yogyakarta a month, publishers say. Which means that the demand for creative covers will continue to grow.

Exhibition of Jogja's Book Art at Bentara Budaya, Yogyakarta, from June 12 to June 18.