Exhibition frames Indonesian art through history

Exhibition frames Indonesian art through history

By Chandra Johan

JAKARTA (JP): It all began in the mid 1950s when the late art
critic Kusnadi broached the need for a museum to present the
journey of Indonesian art. This employee of the Directorate of
Arts of the Ministry of Education and Culture did much to build
up the collection of his own office.

There are now over 1,500 works, about 350 of which are on
display at ministry's Fine Arts Gallery on Jl. Medan Merdeka
Timur, Central Jakarta, until March 23.

The exhibition, held in conjunction with the gallery's 11th
anniversary, is important and interesting.

The public can observe up close the works of Indonesian
masters such as Raden Saleh, S. Sudjojono, Hendra Gunawan and
Agus Djaja, although only a little of their output is exhibited.
Visitors gain an understanding and knowledge about the historical
road of Indonesian visual arts, as well as trends over time. The
exhibition is also interesting because the works, as part of the
state collection, are national assets.

Another interesting aspect is that the arrangement, grouping
and selection of each work is done through categorizing the
trends of each work chronologically. But the arrangement does not
merely follow the line of development.

According to Jim Supangkat, a member of the curatorial board
of Gedung Seni Rupa Depdikbud, standard exhibitions, which only
present this line, are boring and fail to build in-depth
understanding for viewers.

The curatorial board agreed to use a different approach for
the presentation, based on time setting and events which
influenced the creative process of each artist. In each period,
various trends or styles developed in different ways, in line
with the response of the artist toward the existing social
situations.

This is clearly expressed by Suwarno Wisetrotomo, the
executive curator of the exhibition, in his article Melacak Garis
Waktu dan Peristiwa (Tracing the Time and Event Line) in the
exhibition catalog.

Suwarno made the groupings by examining the tendencies of each
artist and his works in each period. Making these selections with
limited collections is, of course, not an easy job. To make it
easy for visitors to understand each work within the context of a
particular period, the organizing team made a short chronology in
each room containing basic information on the event, the artist
and the work.

Great works

The vanguard of Indonesian art history is represented in the
first row in building A.

Raden Saleh's Portrait of Dutch Governor Wearing the Williems
Order (1867), considered lost at one point, is eye-catching. His
work is placed separately from other great painters such as
Sudjojono, Affandi, Basuki Abdullah, Hendra Gunawan, Kusnadi,
Fadjar Sidik and Gusti Solihin.

Their works are grouped by the trend of portrait paintings,
which started to emerge around the 1940s. Although there was a
vacuum period after Raden Saleh, his work still has a connecting
point with the works of artists in the Persagi era, and also
shares one those of the nostalgic "Mooi Indie" movement like
Basoeki Abdullah, Dullah, Wahid and many others not represented
in the collection.

Portrait and landscape paintings were the early phenomenons of
our painters. Yet this did not exclude them from the themes of
other painters after them, like Srihadi Soedarsono or Sapto
Hudoyo, who are also placed in the front row.

The social, decorative, abstract, fantasy and calligraphic
styles are displayed in building C. This grouping is also based
on artistic trends identified with a particular period, but which
also appeared in works of painters in other eras. This features
works of early decorative painters to contemporary artists.

Decorative paintings have proven to be the most dominant in
Indonesian works since their earliest appearance in the 1950s,
from Kartono's work Melukis di Taman (Painting in the Park,
1952),Open Ceremony IV (1973) by Made Wianta and Kebun Binatang
(The Zoo, 1983) by Idran Yusuf.

It could be said that decorative paintings are the unique
expression of Indonesian artists, and so painters show in these
rows easily free themselves from trends of Euro-American art
which became the mainstream. Suwarno contended in his catalog
that decorative tendencies were the answer to the impatient
questions about true characteristics of Indonesian art.

Social themes consist of works of painters such as Dede Eri
Supria, Sudjana Kerton, Hendra Gunawan and S. Sudjojono. Social
themes, as with the decorative form, are found in works of a
number of artists from the 1940s up to the present. Fundamentally
and ideologically, however, it received the most attention during
the Persagi era, mainly because of Sudjojono's rejection of the
Mooi Indie aesthetic as bourgeois and elitist.

Persagi's works are represented by Cap Go Meh (1940) by
Sudjojono, Pertemuan (Meeting, 1947) by Otto Djaja, Kuda Lumping
(Bamboo Horse, 1950) by Agus Djaja and others. We can compare
with Dede Eri Supria's Yang Berusaha Tumbuh (Those Who Try to
Grow, 1992), in which the context of the problem and the view of
it have both shifted.

The fantasy or absurdist theme emerged in the 1940s. The
relatively well-known Sayang Aku Bukan Anjing (It's a Pity I'm
Not a Dog, 1943) by Sudjojono is an example. However, few
artists, especially those from the artistically important city of
Yogyakarta, were interested in this theme at the time, compared
to artists in the 1980s, As a result, the "Yogya Surrealism"
movement emerged.

Unfortunately, the collection does not include works of some
prominent Yogyakarta artists of the 1940s, such as Sudibio and
Sukirno, or Handrio prior to 1958. But it has the works of young
painters, including Lucia Hartini, and veteran artist Amang
Rahman, allowing us to see the inclinations of Yogyakarta artists
in the 1980s who used this form of expression.

Abstract

Abstract paintings arose here in the 1960s, mainly promoted by
Bandung's academic artists, who believed in "the authority of
visual elements". It later spread, and is found in works of
artists from other areas like AD Pirous, Ahmad Sadali, Umi
Dachlan, Yusuf Effendi, Sunaryo, and Bagong Kussudiardjo.

Those who adopted the style although they still depicted
objects were Popo Iskandar, Aming Prayitno and Zaini. Formalism
with a base in Gestalt is strongly felt in the works of these
artists, whose output is at times representative of the Bandung
school. It is not so evident in pieces by Danarto, Syahwil and
Sudaryono, who seem to be straddling the line between abstraction
and fantasy

The trend toward Islamic-influenced art, with calligraphy as a
medium, started in the 1970s with Ahmad Sadali as the pioneer.
But this does not necessarily justify Suwarno's statement that
this style could be an answer in the context of the search for
Indonesian art characteristics. It represents a phenomenon of its
own, and could become a general visual expression of the Moslem
aesthetic around the world. It is not, therefore, a unique
expression owned by a particular community.

The exhibition also presents sculpture, batik painting and
graphic art. Graphics on display range from Suromo's Pasar
(Market, 1957), to the contemporary, including Setiawan Sabana's
Gerbang Alam (Natural Gate, 1991). Works of recognized artists
like G. Sidharta, T. Sutanto and Eko Suprihadi are also on show.

Organizers admitted this representation of graphic works is
inevitably deficient because of the directorate's small holdings.
They said they would welcome any contributions from artists.