Expo heralds birth of Indonesian 'realist tendency'

Expo heralds birth of Indonesian 'realist tendency'

JAKARTA (JP): It is time to declare the birth of Indonesia's genre of realist paintings. A painting exhibition entitled "Indonesian Realist Image", to be held from Sept. 1 to Sept. 10 at Wisma Seni Rupa Depdikbud, Central Jakarta, will declare its birth.

A total of 182 paintings, by 22 painters, will be featured, sharing a common mark: They show a strong touch of realist image, curator of the exhibition, Jim Supangkat, said.

Some of Indonesia's well known painters, such as Dede Eri Supria, Ivan Sagita, Lucia Hartini and Asri Nugroho are among the exhibition's participants, organized jointly by the Bimantara Foundation and Grand Hyatt Hotel.

"However, the similarity they share is not one particular style, or school. Also, it's not born under a movement, which is usually established by a group of painters who share a belief in a single principle," Supangkat said in a press conference held recently.

"For this reason, I call it a tendency, a realist image tendency. It is different from realist paintings done by Indonesian realist painters like Trubus, or Basuki Abdullah, or by painters the world over," Supangkat explained.

The realist image painting features a very sharp painting technique. Painting subjects are not fixed and can be replaced by other sources, such as photographs.

"It is only a tendency because if we make a more detailed observation of the 182 paintings, we will find -- beyond their similarity -- different concepts, different insights and different ways of thinking," Supangkat said.

The similarity they share is actually a product of social conditions in Indonesia. Until about 1965, Indonesia was a closed country, dominated by a socialist power. During this period, Indonesia's world of information was cut off from the international world. Films, magazines and books, as well as other printed matters from western countries were banned because they were considered as supplying Indonesia with a capitalist's liberal spirit. Films, magazines and books distributed in Indonesia emphasized more on the contents on ideology and heavily burdened with propaganda. Physical appearances were neglected. Such conditions led also to the pauperization of visual experiences, he explained.

Suddenly, after 1965, as a result of political changes, Indonesia started to open its door to the international world. In the early 1970s, multinational companies began to invest in Indonesia, information flew fast, press and printing technology developed and the culture of advertising grew, Supangkat said.

The sudden changes took many people by surprise, including a number of young painters in Yogyakarta. The world had become more colorful and their visual experiences were getting richer in no time at all, he said.

For the young Yogyakarta painters, the presence of magazines, advertisements, pictures and posters moved them to use these materials as a medium of expression, using them to make collages by copying them into realist paintings, said Supangkat.

Since 1970, collage painting and later painting of realist image tendency has developed in Yogyakarta.

Dede Eri Supria, for example, is known for his large sized realist image paintings, which are done by copying photographs, pictures and advertisement onto canvas.

Dede, who confirmed Supangkat's statement, said that when he started creating realist image paintings, in 1974 or 1975, there was a new awareness among young painters that a subject was no longer necessary because they could copy a picture or a photograph.

However, the new trend was not well-accepted by senior painters of that time, Dede said. Dede once painted on a table, and at the same time put real materials, like pencils and a note book on the table, so that from a distance of one meter, people cannot tell which materials are painted and which ones are real.

More senior painters from that period preferred styles such as abstract, decorative and expressionist.

According to Supangkat, some critics try to make a connection between that particular trend, which grew first in Yogyakarta, together with surrealism, which had originated from a movement in Europe from about 1930 to 1940. Others classify the trend in Yogyakarta as hyper-realism or super-realism, which developed in the United States from about 1960 to 1970.

"I cannot deny that, at a glance, they resemble surrealism and super-realism, especially on the level of techniques they use," Supangkat said, "But, through conversations with the painters, I have found that they don't agree if people categorize their paintings as surrealist or super-realist because of their unfamiliarity with the concepts of surrealism and super, or hyper-realism."

Besides the social conditions, the painters' educational backgrounds are another factor which helped push the birth of realist image tendency, Supangkat said.

"From the 22 painters participating in the exhibition, only two or three are not graduates of Yogyakarta's Indonesian Arts Academy," he noted.

He said that at the academy, which holds a great belief in Indonesian paintings, students are taught to paint in a certain style, which is clearly influenced by one of the concepts of Sudjojono, one of Indonesia's noted painters.

It was Sudjojono who started expressing society on his canvas in an emotional way. Later, through the realist image tendency, this theme is again strongly reflected, Supangkat said.

"To evaluate Indonesia's realist paintings we cannot use international, or other principles on realism because those which exist here are of a particular discourse, which was pioneered by Sudjojono and is very much influenced by social conditions here," Supangkat argued. (als)