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)