Colors and lines on canvas conform two trends

Colors and lines on canvas conform two trends

By Chandra Johan

JAKARTA (JP): This is an artist's story. He is a graduate of a
noted university here. There is no doubt about his knowledge and
skills in fine arts. His paintings demonstrate his talent and
ability to grasp the visual elements. He explores a variety of
themes: daily life, scenery, dances and staggering bodies. He
also makes use of a wide range of styles. We may flippantly
comment that he is still "searching" and is yet to find a settled
style.

He is saved, however, by contemporary art discourse, one
element of which considers style as "language" that may be used
any time. However, to the artist, this is not quite an important
problem. His frequent changes are simply an attempt to attune
himself to the demands of the society. Society must be taken as
the "market" here.

This story shows that in the present era of commodification,
the "market" also has a say in shaping the mission and vision of
an artist. If he is considered to be unprincipled or simply
catering to the market's demands, he has his own argument. He
says that the market has never dictated anything to him but that
it is he that tries to "adjust himself" to the market, "to
create" sweeps of colors and lines on his canvas to conform to
the developing trends.

He was nominated in a Philip Morris painting contest which was
held by the Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation last year. He was not
disappointed because he felt he was almost able to prove the
correctness of his theory as he could "attune" his paintings to
the trends prevailing among the judges in this contest.

After observing the works that won prizes for a number of
years, he could guess the trends popular among critics, art
observers or curators, who are only small in number in Indonesia.
So the artist has come to a conclusion that actually fine art
discourses in Indonesia are easily predicted, especially
regarding what judges in painting contests like the Philip Morris
one have as their preference. Just adopt grand themes about the
national crisis, horizontal crises, socio-cultural conflicts,
environmental crises, the gender issues and it is almost certain
that your works will get nominated as prize winners.

If these grand themes are explored by artists with an adequate
ability to "create" the visual language, it is not unlikely that
the works may get to the top ten group. Simply compromise with
the "market", here at the competition, and you can win a prize
worth at least Rp 15 million. This amount does not mean much to
the artist compare with the "way to success" that he has opened
up. (The fund that Philip Morris sets aside for each person is
US$ 5,000, mind you.)

In addition, a Philip Morris contest, to the artist, is enough
to explain that the discourses now emerging in Indonesia's fine
art world today are the "market" discourses, and therefore what
assumes greater significance will be the "courses" and
"predicting" of the market, be they "a market of discourses" or a
"market discourse".

Trend

Here then, is a story of "predicting the market trend"
undertaken by another painter recently exhibiting his works in
two places at the same time.

In one place, an arts center, he exhibited paintings,
installation works and performance art works fraught with social
and environmental problems. The artist is well aware that a
gallery at an arts center like Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM) is only
a venue for him to practice arts "seriously" in order to get the
media spotlight and "a market of discourses" (a number of artists
have recently shown a tendency to believe that serious art must
be associated with social criticism) and therefore in this
exhibition he was prepared for no transactions. He made the
exhibition, assumed an air of greater seriousness and organized a
foreign cultural attache to officially open the exhibition.

However, in a commercial gallery somewhere else, he exhibited
his works with simpler, more focused and easily digested themes.
It seems quite clear what the artist was after with this
strategy. In the first place, he would like to get what is called
"a market of discourses" while in the second place, it was his
intention to get a "market discourse". This may also be expressed
this way: in the first place he "played his role" as a true
artist without any compromise, while in the second place he was
ready with compromises and treated his works as real commodities.
Nobody will prohibit him from playing a dual role in the present
era of "the market". So, why bother about this at all?

There are some implications, of course. First, both "a market
of discourses" and "a market discourse" that artists are after
today, may result in "dishonest" art works if they are considered
as a trend only. As a matter fact, arts are concerned not only
with what you can see on canvas but also with morality and
conscience.

Second, amidst the present euphoria of "carnivals" of
paintings -- with exhibitions being held at a much higher
frequency and painting transactions increasing in number -- what
are distributed are actually pseudo-art-packed products. This
kind of art merely keeps up with the trend prevailing in the
"market" and popular among curators.

An art market today can be "created" in such a way to meet
certain wishes. Therefore, it is a quasi-market. A financially
strong investor can "shock" the art market of a particular artist
by, for example, buying up his paintings in certain exhibitions.
Automatically, the works of the painter will be in greater demand
because his works are believed to sell well. When his works can
be sold at higher prices, it is the investor that can reap the
profit because he keeps this artist's works ahead of other people
and then can easily sell them, either through galleries or in
other ways.

Third, this practice will lead to a belief that an art work
that sells well in the market is an art work of a good quality.
As a matter of fact, there is no relationship at all between
selling well and good quality. The next implication is that a
market trend will encourage the emergence of trend followers,
plagiarists and duplicators. As a result, our art world will get
farther away from values and "honesty". If values and honesty
have been distorted by certain interests, do we still consider
them "valuable"?