Grande dame of sculpture for 40 years

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

Looking back is no small effort, let alone when it concerns four decades of your life.

But Rita Widagdo has done it. A solo exhibition of 110 works made during her 40 years as the grande dame of Indonesian sculpture presents the wider public with an striking impression of her oeuvre.

Impressive through their stark beauty, elevating the human mind through an inner "light", her work on display at the National Gallery is a celebration of the spirit of life.

One stands in awe before her work, which testifies to her perfect command of theory, her thorough knowledge of every material she uses and the incredible precision with which she executes her work. But it is the spirit imbued in her work that elevates the human mind to a level where words become irrelevant.

Choosing an artistic path is always a lonely task, says Rita. It also gives one plenty of time for reflection, for meditation and for thinking about things that matter in life. Yet, as evident from the depth of her oeuvre, she doesn't get lost in such indulgence.

Rather, it stimulates her to be attentive to her environment. Finding parallels between plant growth and human life, any movement, form or line unfolding before her eyes will find its use in works that represent the self-evident in life.

The sight of a banana shoot, the budding of a flower, but also the rubble in a workshop and even the onion that she cuts open in the kitchen, provides ideas for forms and structures in her art.

Rita's art is her way of trying to achieve perfection: "In life, one tries so many times, and yet we often fail to reach that much aimed-for point of perfection. But in my art at least I can come close to complete faultlessness'.

Rita Widagdo, who was born as Rita Wizemann in 1938 in Rottweil, Germany, and is a graduate from the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste, Stuttgart, married Widagdo, professor of interior design.

Since 1965 she has lived in Indonesia, which she has come to regard as her home country. The early years in her new country were a period of careful observation, of learning and of adjusting to a way of life that was in many ways different from where she came from.

Today, it seems the various `streams' have unified in her very being, as evident in her art in which even the hardest metal is transformed into shapes that produce a sensation of softness, with delicate and lyrical touches.

Similarly, her representations of women, which suggest firm and solid strength, are always marked by femininity, as in the 210 centimeter-tall Lady, made of Sulawesi granite and marble, the 283 cm Jeanne d'Arc, made of Padalarang marble, and the 177 cm Young Woman, made of brass and patina.

Her entire oeuvre is marked by the unison of softness and starkness, as seen, among others in the sculpture Crossing Line (1996).

It is made from brass wire and brass sheet. The sunken hollow from which the borders emerge is like an embossment, and the fold that runs across the space is like an uncertain slant, and gives the illusion of softness against the hardness of the material.

Similarly, the carved, undulating Vs in her 152 cm tall sculpture Rhythm of Growth, made of East Java marble gives the illusion of marble as a soft material, but it took three months and nine saws to get it ready.

In addition, her eight-meter-tall public art sculpture titled Dinamika dalam Gerak (Dynamics in Movement) that was erected in Slipi, West Jakarta in 1974, consists of curved aluminum along which water flowed. But the sculpture had to make way for a road widening scheme.

Lines are prominent in almost all of her works. But they are never straight. Likening the flow of life, which is marked by ups and downs, and by points of new directions, Rita's lines are marked by flaws, sometimes appearing like slants, wrinkles, or the movement of waves.

This can be seen in the sculpture Energy, or her reliefs for Aneka Tambang, Freeport, the monumental stainless steel sculpture for the Asean Aceh Fertilizer company at Lhokseumawe, the brass Cakra at the Supreme Court, the aluminum and stainless steel sculpture at Atmajaya University, Jakarta, her ceramics sculpture at the Ministry of Education and Culture, and many more.

While most of Rita Widagdo's works have been contemplations on or sublimations of life, two recent sculptures denote an even more profound deepening of the meditative.

The Cakra, a symbol she used in 1990 for the Supreme Court, is back in her recent sculpture of the same name. Made of resin, electroplated copper and patina, and consisting of many parts that seem to go against one another, Cakra 2004 (85 cm) holds them all together in a oneness denoting totality and suggesting life's energy. Meanwhile, her 40-cm sculpture made of anodized aluminum-Dural, titled The Inner Soul makes one think of the roof at the entrance to a church.

Rita Widagdo who began sculpting when she was barely 16 years old, is considered among the greats in sculpture. She is also considered a pioneer who introduced, together with Gregorius Sidharta, abstract art amid the trend toward realism at the Bandung Institute of Technology, where she is continuously trying to infect her students with her ascetic discipline, while sharing her vision on the powerful beauty of the abstract in the arts.

Although this is only her second solo exhibition in Indonesia since 1970, she was a competition winner for the Slipi monument in 1972, for the Kuningan Youth Center in 1973 and for the monumental sculpture in Ancol in 2001.

In total, she has produced at least 50 monumental sculptures, and numerous reliefs in addition to countless works for joint exhibitions. It is more than any other artist here could possibly accomplish.

Rita Widagdo
Marking the 1965-2005 Journey
Galeri Nasional Jakarta
Exhibition runs through April 25