'Bunga Rampai Lima Kota': Senior painters reflect on dark times

Mehru Jaffer, Contributor, Jakarta

In the daily scramble to get on with life, the past does not often receive the respect that it deserves.

The One Gallery provides a unique opportunity to reflect on the work of 25 painters from five cities, out of which about one dozen are the oeuvres of those painters grouped in the People's Painters movement, back in the 1950s.

It was an extremely inspiring moment to find oneself in the midst of the senior painters, to talk to them about their lives, art, and above all about the future of Indonesia.

Many from this group broke away from the ideas of the Mooie Indies (Beautiful Indies) style of painting and went against the concept of Indonesia as little more than a fantasy in the Western mind.

In the late 19th century, many painters, in admiration of the Dutch, recorded on canvas life in idyllic, rural surroundings that dripped with nostalgia.

But one day the powerful portrait of an impoverished looking couple, with a glazed look in the eyes by the late Affandi appeared on the art scene to contradict all the romantic images that had existed of beautiful Indonesia.

An attempt to define a new, national identity for the people in the midst of the war with colonialism was pioneered by artists like Affandi, Soedjojono, Hendra Gunawan and Sudjana Kerton, all of whom participated in different ways in the country's fight for independence.

The People's Painters became an important movement in the Yogyakarta of the 1940s and 1950s, with members painting documentary scenes of the revolution and engaged in a passionate debate as to how artists could contribute to defining the new national identity? What did it mean for the artist to refer to Hindu deities in association with figures from the shadow puppet theater? As citizens of the most populous Muslim country in the world how should they relate to the great Buddhist and Hindu monuments of Central Java at Borobudur and Pramabanan, and what relevance did the art of Islamic calligraphy have to the canvas? The debates brought up different points of view on all such topics.

However, the People's Painters were united in their determination to dedicate art to the people and to make sure that it was understood by all.

This idea was so inspiring that it became the most popular theme of many more artists especially towards the last years of the presidency of Sukarno. And precisely for the same reason, perhaps, the entire movement was regarded with suspicion throughout the three decades of military rule that followed.

Members of the movement were arrested in large numbers and confined in remote places like Buru Island in Maluku.

Isa Hassanda, 62, spent 10 years on the island in the company of other "criminals" like author Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

"From morning till night we worked in the fields like peasants and sometimes were asked to chop wood. In 1975 two years before my release, the officials brought me materials to paint with. The first painting I did was titled Arjuna and Bhima in a Box. I did about 10 paintings in total which were taken away by the officials. I have never seen them since," says Isa.

But why was he arrested?

"We were accused of being communists. I was never a communist. I was just a follower of Sukarno. I believed in a plural society where different styles and ideas would be allowed to blossom and where the weakest person in the country had access to justice. For this belief, I was imprisoned," says Isa, an asthma patient today whose paintings hang in the prestigious collections of Dr. Oe Hong Djien, the Hadiprana Gallery, Titik Prabowo (a daughter of the former President Soeharto) and the Rockefeller Center, New York, among other places.

Son of a goldsmith from Sumba island, Isa was sent to school in Bali where his teacher from Yogyakarta encouraged him to paint. In the twilight years of his life he now feels a sense of disappointment with most aspects of development, which has changed the landscape here but not the mentality of the people.

What troubles him most is that the true nature of the people, their innate kindness and humanity, is being increasingly buried under the growing belief that the country is just a nest of corruption and criminality.

It worries him that the world feels that bribery and robbery are part of Indonesia's culture and tradition. Nevertheless, he is pinning his hopes on the younger generation, which he prays will eventually force society to turn its back on violence, terror and looting.

Misbach Thamrin, 61, spent 12 years in a prison in South Kalimantan for the same reason. One of his works is a painting of Pramoedya encased in glass from where the author of the Buru Quartet and the country's most celebrated writer is able to only gaze at the skeletons, guns and debris mounting around him but can do no more. The canvas is titled Bermenung di Kaca (Contemplating at a Mirror).

Back in the 1940s, Djoko Pekik was very young to play an active role in the People's Painter movement but he was old enough to get a feel for the inspiring environment that the likes of Affandi and Hendra helped to create.

Today the movement no longer exists but the spirit of the movement has been carried into contemporary times by the likes of Djoko, one of the most senior artists represented in the current exhibition.

At the age of 64, the moral contract made by the painter to reflect the plight of the people seems to have only been strengthened.

Djoko is not really interested in the beauty of nature but how people cope with the landscape in order to survive.

He concentrates not so much on the individual but rather uses the human figure to represent the voiceless masses. His canvas is often filled with an army of endless people in a crowd waiting at a railway platform or depicted as part of the humble hustle and bustle of a traditional market.

While at the beach he does not see the grains of sand glittering like gemstones under a clear sky and warm sun but rather the fatigue of a coconut seller in search of customers.

At the exhibition, it is indeed a privilege to behold Wild Boar, which Djoko painted in 1998. It shows a crowd of people carrying a big, black pig on a pole through a public place where a party is being held and much dancing is going on.

This is the second canvas from the Pig series with the first one from 1996 depicting a wild boar from an ancient Javanese legend keeping all its milk to itself as crowds move threateningly towards the animal.

The third is called Without Flowers or Telegram of Condolence and the year is 2000. The corpse of the captured pig is now abandoned and left to the birds and insects for justice against a background of a landscape that seems to be on fire.

After learning to paint from Sudjojono and Affandi, Djoko's art was nipped in the bud by the forces behind the 1965 aborted coup and the violence that followed. The painter remained artistically paralyzed and as he looked forward to a public exposure at last in 1989 the past returned to prevent him from exhibiting his work after 25 years of silence.

Djoko is the first one to admit that life can be both just and unjust. The stoic acceptance of that important fact of life perhaps is what gives him the strength to continue painting in the face of all odds as well as in the good times like now when his works are priced at not a cent less than one billion rupiah.

Bunga Rampai Lima Kota is open till June 5 at One Gallery, Jl. Panjang 46, Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta. Further information at 5321267/5321268 or e-mail at onegallery@yahoo.com