Contemporary RI art shown in Madrid

By Carla Bianpoen

MADRID (JP): At a time when the language of words tends to destroy instead of construct, artworks increasingly take prominence in conveying messages with genuine meaning.

This is well understood by the Yayasan Seni Rupa Indonesia (YSRI), or The Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation. Encouraged by its successful venture at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art last October, YSRI continues in what it sees as its calling: to help bolster Indonesia's image abroad through the works of a new generation of artists.

In cooperation with the Indonesian Embassy in Madrid and six contemporary Indonesian artists, YSRI brought 40 paintings to Spain for an exhibition called A Look from Within, Indonesian Contemporary Art Exhibition.

Held at the Gallery of the Casa de Cantabria, the exhibition which opened on Sept. 12 and runs until the end of this month is the first of its kind in Madrid, and is considered a step in further bolstering Indonesian-Spanish ties.

The works in A Look from Within are a direct response by the artists to a society where terror, violence and gender inequality have taken their toll. Highlighted by a rich plurality of cultural backgrounds that makes for the unusual variety of styles, the exhibition has attracted the attention of the Spanish and the international community in Madrid.

The paintings of Entang Wiharso, born in Central Java (1957), which often focus on the issue of power and its repercussions on the human mind and behavior, are not only stirred by the impact of sociopolitical turmoil in his country, but also by his struggle in coming to terms with the unexpected realities of a foreign country like the U.S., where he lived for some time.

Distorted figures, disembodied heads and caricatures of his personal as well as social realities in suggestive colors fill his canvases in the mode of the macabre, reminding of the old Buddhist legend about the carnal world represented on the Borobudur Temple in Central Java.

The works of Tisna Sanjaya, a graphic artist by training who was born in West Java (1958), describe the same turmoil, but use the absurd to reflect a world upside down.

Four of the six participating artists are women. Traditionally, the art world consistently has seemed to favor the creative efforts of men, so this appears as recognition on the part of curators Ritzki A. Zaelani and Suwarno Wisetotromo of women's parity.

In a conspicuous departure from the usual Balinese traditions and value system of her society, I GAK Muniati (b. 1966) explores the interplay between the sensuous imagery of the vital organs and the veilings and concealment of art. Hovering between reality and fantasy, her Munch-like images send out signals of personal discontent, sometimes comical in appearance, but with a distinctly deeper meaning than would be expected.

Sekar Jatiningrum was born in Yogyakarta (1969), a center of art in Central Java. Sekar's pencil drawing in this exhibition reveals how she enjoys doing the things she wants, just like a child playing in a safe place. But her oil painting, Bleeding, Ha, reveals a sense of despair, pain and suffering.

Diah Yulianti was born and brought up in the cultural environment of South Kalimantan (1973), where a syncretic religion believes in a world above and a world below which is connected by a spiritual aura. This may explain the mystique in her abstractions of images linking modern reality to the symbols and myths of women's history of the ancient cultural tradition.

Astari Rasjid is an artist who has openly and daringly opposed the values of her Javanese tradition, which tends to give priority to men over women. But her critique is as subtle as the Javanese culture she was born into. Valuing the aesthetic in a fashion that hovers between Western classicism and traditional Javanese, and weaving her personal story into the chronicles of the nation's tremors, she gives substance to efforts at developing a personalized style.

As YSRI director Susrinah Sanyoto Sastrowardoyo steers the foundation into foreign waters, more Indonesian ambassadors can be expected to take to contemporary art to represent the potentials of their country.