Exhibiting war, arts to commemorate end of WWII

Exhibiting war, arts to commemorate end of WWII

This article is based on an interview with Dadang Christanto, the
only Indonesian artist to participate in the Asian Peace, Artwar
and Art '95 exhibition held in Osaka, Japan. The exhibition
opened on Oct. 8 and closes on Dec. 17.

Text by R. Fadjri photos by Dadang Christanto

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Fifty years after the end of World War II,
Asians are still suffering the aftermath of the Japanese
occupation. They still feel how the war diminished humanity.
Thousands of comfort women, used by the Japanese armed forces on
the Korean Peninsula, in the Philippines and in Indonesia, are
now in the twilight of their years and are forgotten amidst
Japan's prosperity. Thousands of Indonesian romusha (forced
laborers) who survived the cruelties of the Japanese armed forces
in Burma (Myanmar), still have a bitter aftertaste from the
inhuman experiences of the war.

On the other side of the coin, anti-war sentiment has been
born in Japan, 50 years after the war ended. Chauvinist Japanese
elders are now being replaced by nationalists who lean towards a
universal humanism which knows no boundaries. Japan's younger
generation also criticizes Japan's neo-imperialism of economic
domination.

The ongoing exhibition of Asian Peace, Artwar and Art '95
which opened in the Osaka International Peace Center on Oct. 8,
is being held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of
World War II. It grouped 20 artists from Japan and one from
Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, China and Korea, all the
regions occupied by the Dai Nippon.

The exhibition hopes to reflect Asian artists' view on war and
how they see the present world situation, explained Professor
Ichiro Haru of Wako University, which organized the exhibit.

The anti-war spirit is clearly felt in the exhibition, which
in fact echoes the aim of the Osaka International Peace Center
established in 1991. The founders of the center wanted to remind
the Japanese about the importance of peace, while educating the
young about second world war history and the other wars in which
Japan was involved. They also like to provide Japan's younger
generation with the opportunity to reflect upon the destruction
war brings. The objectives chosen by the center were further
extended into managing the International Peace Museum, which
stores documents related to Japan's suffering during the war, and
that of other Asian nations treated cruelly by the Japanese
military.

Medium

Artists are free to use any medium in the exhibit, from the
conventional arts to mixed media and the performing arts. Most
works develop symbols of war's cruelty and its inevitable
results. The artists are trapped into featuring symbols of death,
dehumanization and cruelty.

A Filipina artist projected the idea of death as a coffin. Lee
Kyong Shin, a Korean artist, interpreted Korean women's
sufferings as a brown wall decoration of a skirt, the female
uniform at the time. Lee Kyong Shin sketched the body of a woman
in listless lines above the skirt as a reminder of the bleak
future Korean comfort women faced. The work bears the title The
Night of A Comfort Woman Full of Pain.

War naturally brings physical destruction. But, more than
that, war degrades human values to near bestial levels. Threats,
being in the shadow of fear, or hunger, brings out the animal in
men. The drive for self-perseverance proves stronger than the
call of humanity.

Tang Dawu, 53, projected, with the aid of performing arts, how
difficult life was during the Japanese occupation of Singapore.
The work, called Tapioca Friendship, revealed that Singaporeans,
because of the scarcity of rice, were forced to consume anything
they could get their hands on. The London-based artist cooked
cassava, once a substitute for rice in Singapore, and then
distributed it to viewers who were mainly elderly Japanese.

"Fifty years after WW II made me realize that we spring from
the same roots, now that we're eating cassava together," said
Tang Dawu while enjoying a piece of cooked cassava.

Dadang Christanto, 38, from Indonesia, drew attention to the
violence during the Japanese occupation with his work entitled
The Suppressed. His work is a reminder to people about the cruel
treatment the romusha experienced. Provided with scant jute
clothes, they were forced to construct bridges or railroads in
Burma. Dadang pinned 17 terra cotta heads on the wall, each clad
in jute clothing.

To a postwar generation, jute sacks may not mean anything, but
to people who survived the ordeal of the Japanese occupation,
jute sacks trigger a sharp shooting pain inside.

Even through the conventional medium, Gou Pei Yu's work of art
entitled Nanjing Massacre, could not diminish the cruelties
inflicted by the Japanese army in China. The artist, who is of
Chinese origin and lives in Tokyo, has drawn fragmented black and
brown shaded scenes of the Japanese army's cruelties. The picture
depicts a Japanese soldier with an elongated tongue wagging
towards the dead bodies lying around him.

Japanese artists view the past and presence with a very
critical eye. Their work is an expression of unleashed self-
criticism on the nation which once ruled the Indonesian
archipelago with an army and now rules it through trade.

Arai, 28, accuses his country for manipulating historical
facts and spreading misinformation about the suppression of other
Asian nations -- Japanese school history books describe the
Japanese armies occupying China and Korea as liberators.

The Tokyo-born artist expressed his objection by stripping
until he stood, quite naked, upside down, against the wall with
his head resting on a bundle of history books filled with
manipulated facts.

While the artist stripped, slides of what seemed like life in
Tanzania flashed up on the wall. When the show came to an end, he
flipped over onto the misleading history books. The show resumed
a little later with contrasting pictures of Japan. One of the
pictures of modern Japanese life was of the late Emperor Hirohito
which appeared simultaneously with Arai's naked body.

This anti-nationalist feeling was also expressed by Yoko
Higuchi, 25, who pasted stickers resembling the Japanese flag on
the landing of a staircase. People ascending the stairs could not
avoid treading on the Japanese flag. The Japanese, without a care
in the world, stepped on their own flag. This could not happen in
Indonesia.

Criticism of post-war Japan's prosperity was portrayed by
another Japanese artist as the result of Yendaka (yen
appreciation).

Clad in an evening suit, a white shirt and black trousers --
to portray Japan's middle class -- the artist stood on a red
square cloth. In front of him stood two pails, one filled with
water and coins, the other empty. Suddenly, he lifted the coins
and water filled pail over his head and poured the contents over
his body. The cynicism portrayed by this performance reminded
viewers of the greedy McDuck, Walt Disney's version of a tycoon
who likes to swim in an ocean of money.

The exhibition Asian Peace, Artwar and Art '95 pushes visitors
to remember the degradation of human values in past and present
wars. The birth of neo-colonialism has given rise to economic
wars and new oppressions.