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.