How to make museums attractive

JAKARTA (JP): Oscar Wilde, a well known British playwright, poet and novelist, once said that a museum is a place where the souls of the dead are preserved.

Indonesian museums, which are low on the list of places of interest, can learn from Japanese museums how to attract and enlighten visitors.

Presently, there are at least 1000 museums in Japan, and every day they draw a large number of visitors and supporters. Moreover, they function beyond merely displaying paintings, artifacts and historical items.

Japanese museums today serve as an arena for displaying and discussing state of the art technology, inventions, arts and other contemporary ideas and products.

This new paradigm for Japanese museums was recently discussed at Teater Utan Kayu in East Jakarta. Moderated by Chandra Johan, a contemporary Indonesian artist, the seminar featured Asikin Hasan, a curator at Lontar Gallery who has conducted a study of Japanese museums.

Japan has seemingly managed to not only gain a leading role in economics, but also to be the cynosure in the realm of art.

Japan now boasts world-class artwork and masterpieces by artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Liechtenstein, Marchel Duchamp, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Henri Matisse, Frank Stella, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore and Robert Raushenberg.

Museums in Japan are proud of their unique, distinguished collections, and each museum usually displays artworks from home and overseas which maintain a certain theme. One museum can boast as many as 3,000 to 5,000 pieces of art, Asikin noted.

The museums are generally supported and financed by big industries, which explains why Japan is usually the most ravenous buyer at art auctions across the world.

The industries which support the museums are wide ranging; from supermarkets, railways, cosmetics, newspapers and telecommunication companies. With such affluent aegis, the museums can organize spectacular art exhibitions, inviting artists from all over the world to participate in the shows.

Moreover, these artistic endeavors are always fully supported by the government and the general public, who are willing to line up patiently and pay between 700 yen (about US$6) and 1,200 yen for a ticket.

The visitors come mainly from the upper and middle classes, and the Hiroshima Contemporary Art Museum, for example, is reportedly visited by no less than 200,000 people per year. Contrast this with a museum in Jakarta which draws only about 5,000 people per year.

Running a museum is serious business for curators in Japan because they are not only required to produce an entertaining show, but they must also, in order to produce an enlightening show, perform in-depth research prior to an exhibition. For this reason, Japanese curators must sometimes travel to Africa, Asia and other parts of the world.

Tokyo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima and Kyoto are some of the Japanese cities which sometimes hold contemporary art exhibitions. In March 1999, Fukuoka will host an international art exhibition titled The First Triennial of Fukuoka at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, featuring contemporary artwork from 21 Asian countries.

The buildings themselves are mostly modern and artistic structures, with cutting edge technology and located in strategic locations. However, do not be surprised if you find a museum in an office building, a supermarket, next door to a restaurant or a beauty parlor, or on the second floor of a small shop.

There is even a school that has been converted into a museum, with the desks and chairs used to display the paintings and artworks.

Japanese museums now function as cultural as well as social centers. Japanese go to museums for entertainment, culture, amusement or to meet friends. Museums are usually spacious, strategically located and accommodate visitors with public facilities like libraries, audio visual rooms, discussion rooms and many other services that are designed to make people feel comfortable and eager to spend the day at the museum.

Museums are respected institutions in Japan, although some people criticize them for being too heavily dependent on western artworks and neglecting local traditional arts. Moreover, artistic appreciation in Japan is largely based upon political and economical motives.

Some of the questions raised at the discussion on Indonesian and Japanese museums were why are Indonesians so indifferent toward museums, why does the government seem to not care about museums and why does the government not fully appreciate the works of Indonesian artists?

There were no easy answers to the questions, although some people suggested that maybe the reason for the seeming indifference is that Indonesians are still poor and busy thinking about food and other basic commodities, so they have no time or money to visit museums.

But are things really that bad in Indonesia? With a population of 200 million, how can only 5,000 people per year visit the Art Museum in Jakarta?

One participant in the discussion said that Indonesians need to revolutionize their way of thinking about museum and enhance their appreciation for museums and art.

It is quite ironic, but the Japanese seem to appreciate the works of Indonesian artists more than Indonesians do. Heri Dono, Dadang Christanto, Agus Suwage, Khrisna Murti, Chusin Setyadikara and Arahmaiani are some of the many Indonesian artists whose works are collected and proudly displayed by leading museums in Japan.