Indonesian art and politics on show in Australia

By Dewi Anggraeni

MELBOURNE (JP): Seeing the exhibition of Indonesian contemporary art in the Australian center for contemporary art building in Melbourne is like entering a microcosm of today's political situation in Indonesia, protected by the wide arm of Mother Nature, simultaneously personal and impersonal. The building, unpretentious and reassuringly friendly, is right in the midst of Melbourne's Botanical Gardens.

The Australian Center for Contemporary Art, with the cooperation of Asialink and Indonesian Arts Society, and funding assistance from the Australia Indonesia Institute, has made this experience possible. The works of 14 artists in AWAS! Recent Art from Indonesia are the source of fascination to Australian art lovers in Melbourne, for their political content and diversity of style, medium and message.

As one of the curators, Damon Moon, commented, too often Indonesia has been seen in a simplistic way in Australia. And Indonesian politics, put in a reductionist context by many Australians, has been equated with the conflict in East Timor.

Art is an ideal way of telling the inside story, especially to those who do not have the time or inclination to read lengthy articles and theses about the political situation in a country. And the works in AWAS! are so powerful they hit the viewer in the face.

Australian art lovers are more familiar with the self- indulgent style of contemporary art in this country, where the artists may be telling something, but not necessarily beckon for you to listen. In contrast, the works in this exhibition reach out and grab the viewer, recounting loudly their stories. In some, the viewer even has to step back and ponder the message, so loud is the voice that it sounds incoherent.

The president of the Indonesian Arts Society, Hugh O'Neill, believes that many of the eerie images of disembodied heads seen throughout the exhibition may have been the subconscious manifestation of collective anguish, which is so powerfully present in many parts of Indonesia at the moment.

Observers who came to see beauty in the conventional sense might have to look hard, but they certainly would not walk lightly past each item. They would stop to ponder over Hanura Hosea's series of paintings for instance, in which they would see dark layers of human psyche.

Most powerfully ambiguous is the poster of "Visit Indonesia Years" where the character representing Indonesia has two personae: one wearing civilian clothes with a happy family scene behind him, and another in military clothes, in front of images of pain and fear.

In Agus Suwage's Pressure and Pleasure (Visit Indonesia, Lovely Country), the viewer is likely to be puzzled when he finds himself in a military tent, where the walls and the ceiling are covered with images of the artist in poses similar to figures on advertising posters for Indonesian soft porn films.

One work with a powerful message without blinding the viewer first is Heri Dono's sculpture-cum-installation, Operation of Thought Control. Yet the clarity of the message can be chilling: the image of a master in plain human form controlling a number of small puppets in vague and comical forms.

All the works exhibited scream out their symbols, which in themselves are wrapped in layers of social political issues. The artists come across as extremely aware of what is happening to them and around them.

They even indulge in self-mockery. In Souvenirs a la Third World Agung Kurniawan highlights the fate of many artists in Indonesia. They are driven to sell their works as commodities to foreign buyers.

As art writer Rizki A. Zaelani observes, Indonesian contemporary art is now mostly marketed through international curators.

While in reality only a small proportion of Indonesia's contemporary art is unambiguously politically weighted, it appears that the curators of this exhibition deliberately selected these works to show to the Australian public.

The staging of AWAS! Recent Art from Indonesia, which is on show in Australia until June 11, 2000, involved a great deal of detailed planning. From Melbourne, AWAS! will head for Canberra, to be hosted by the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, until March 11. Then from March 23 till April 22, Ivan Dougherty Gallery will the host in Sydney. And its last call is Cairns Regional Gallery in Cairns, Queensland, until June 11, 2000.

For those art lovers who seek further information and explanation of what they see and experience, the Indonesian Art Society has produced a 108-page catalog, which is an accomplished volume in itself. Edited by O'Neill and Timothy Lindsey, the book offers erudite essays by recognized experts such as Arief Budiman, M. Dwi Marianto, Astri Wright, Alexandra Kuss and Rizki A. Zaelani. It explains the immediate significance of the works exhibited, as well as their backgrounds and impact in the wider historical, social and political contexts.

Curators Moon, Mella Jaarsma, Alexandra Kus and M. Dwi Marianto deserve congratulations for the perfect timing of the exhibition. Indonesia has been under the limelight lately, unfortunately in a one-dimensional way. It is often projected as a nation who cannot take criticism, whose people are blind followers of the authorities, having had all their abilities to express themselves effectively suppressed.

AWAS! will hopefully reveal that there is indeed a well of creativity, manifested in a wide diversity of styles and forms. The self-perceptive artists are also able to entertain in their self-deprecating mode, and provoke different emotions as well, all the while putting on a brave face.