Diversity of Indonesian art starts to emerge

=============== Amir Sidharta Contributor Jakarta ---------------

Even though the new era of post-Soeharto openness started over three years ago, only this year did we get the sense that diversity was emerging on the art scene. It was a year that saw the emergence of a significant number of young artists, particularly through art competitions and festivals.

There were also many more exhibitions of the works of female artists than ever before, and art forms other than painting, particularly sculpture, gained prominence. A number of significant books on both senior as well as junior artists were published. While the news from the Indonesian art world has for the most part been happy, it also mourned the deaths of a number of its prominent members.

Many promising young artists featured at the annual Yayasan Seni Rupa Indonesia - Philip Morris Indonesian Art Awards held in November. This year, competition entries seemed much more expressive as a result of the elimination of a number of restrictive rules that had been applied in previous years. Consequently, highly creative and imaginative works were produced by the 10 winners and even by some other of the almost one hundred competition finalists.

Unlike previous years, the work of a female artist, Ay Tjoe Christine, and the work of an artist residing outside Java or Bali, namely Andrie Artawang of Palembang, appeared on the winners' list.

The JakArt@2001 packaged various art events in one festival. Although the festival itself was quite a success, the organizers unfortunately did little to offer promotional materials such as a bulletin or calendar of events that would have meant art enthusiasts were better informed about the events happening throughout the city.

Featuring more fine arts, the Bandung Art Event unfortunately failed to gain much attention because of its distance from the centers of the mass media. Very little about the event appeared in the national news.

It was a promising year for female artists. In April, Erica held her second solo exhibition, Reka-reka Erica, featuring four gigantic new canvases, as well as many of her earlier works.

Later that month, the Indonesian Women Artists Exhibition was held at the Galeri Nasional. The following month a similar group show was held at the Bentara Budaya Jakarta. The two exhibitions showed the diverse scope of the art being created by Indonesian female artists.

Dolorosa Sinaga held a series of exhibitions of her sculptures, culminating in her solo exhibition at the Galeri Nasional Indonesia. The exhibition, which featured many of her recent works, showed the current state of the sculptor's artistic progress.

In November, the painter Wara Anindyah showed her depictions of what she imagines the life of the Chinese to be, which seem to be derived from portrayals of life of the inhabitants of mainland China in the 19th century as can be seen in movies or television serials. Frankly speaking, these works lacked the witty humor, not to mention the quality of the craftsmanship evident in her earlier works.

Apart from Dolorosa's sculpture exhibition, other sculptors also had good opportunities to exhibit their art. Iriantine Karnaya and G. Sidharta held a joint exhibition at the Galeri Sisi of the Bentara Budaya Jakarta in September. In November, the Association of Indonesian Sculptors (API) staged a large show featuring the works of its members at the Galeri Nasional Indonesia.

Leading sculptor Anusapati exhibited his familiar pieces in wood in an exhibition entitled Genesis, held at the Nadi Gallery in July. Teguh Ostenrik, who is better known as a painter, surprised his collectors when he featured a series of intriguing bronze sculptures at his solo exhibition at the Alila, Jakarta, in October.

One of the best shows held this year was the Art-craft Exhibition prepared by curator Asmudjo Jono Irianto for the Galeri Nasional Jakarta. The show revealed another way of looking at crafts as a fully-fledged art form.

Another interesting exhibition, Membaca Frida Kahlo, featuring a number of artists' interpretations of Kahlo's personality, thoughts and art, was held at the Galeri Nadi, West Jakarta,

However, by far the best art exhibition held this year was the display of Bung Karno's collection at the Gedung Pola, Central Jakarta, in September-October. For the first time, the artworks collected by the late Indonesian president were made accessible to the general public.

The great collection of paintings and sculptures by many of the most important artists in Indonesian art history, which had until recently only been available in the form of reproductions in five-volume albums, could finally be viewed directly in this show. The exhibition featured many monumental paintings, including Rudolf Bonnet's exquisite rendition of the backstage preparations for a Balinese dance, Basoeki Abdullah's depictions of legends and myths, as well as Le Mayeur's paintings, striking due to their sheer size. However, other, smaller paintings were just as impressive as they were scrupulously selected by the president, who was a refined connoisseur.

Despite the uncertain economic conditions following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, regional art auctions held in Singapore experienced a surge in sales. At the end of September, the auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's reaped revenues of S$6,423,985 and S$5,682,780 respectively. The paintings fetching the highest prices were still those depicting Indonesian subjects. Christie's revenue figure included sales from an auction of modernist Balinese paintings, which collected $607,005. This represented an improvement on their combined sales in early April, which had totaled over S$ 9 million.

Despite the successful sales, the Indonesian art market was shocked by rumors that Christie's would be quitting Singapore as an auction base. This was later confirmed in a letter signed by the auction house's new director, Cecilia Ong, which said that Christie's would from now on be including its Southeast Asian section in its Hong Kong salesrooms. The move came just as the local auction houses dealing in fine art, namely Balindo and Larasati, were starting to gain prominence on the Indonesian art market.

At least five new galleries opened and a significant number of art books were published this year, the most important of which was the volume on Hendra Gunawan. It is the first book on an artist associated with the People's Cultural Institute. Previously, publishers had been reluctant to release material on artists associated with the Indonesian Communist Party.

The year also saw the passing of some of Indonesia's best known artists. The Decorativist Soeparto (1928-2001), known for his use of geometric motifs and psychedelic colors in depicting his figures, passed away in March after suffering a chronic illness. The death of Redha Sorana (1952-2001), who was known for his paintings of fish and Menong dancers from West Java, came as a shock to the Indonesian art scene, as the artist was still relatively young. The older Amang Rahman (.-2001), whose paintings often included dreamy imagery of his thoughts, also passed away rather suddenly. The paintings he left behind were later exhibited at the Museum Nasional in October.

The hearing-impaired painter Tarmizi (1935-2001) passed away in late November, just a month after being diagnosed with cancer of the liver. He died before he could see the solo exhibition that his friends and colleagues had prepared for him. A solo exhibition of his works was something he had longed for throughout an artistic career that spanned almost half a century.

"One lost, a thousand to emerge," an Indonesian saying reminds us. Despite the gloomy economic outlook, Indonesian art faces a bright future, and in the years to come it seems that there will not only be many more Indonesian artists, but that they will come from even more diverse backgrounds and will produce more diverse forms of art.