Indonesian art vies for world-class status

Agus Dermawan T., Contributor, Jakarta

The South-East Asian Painting auction held at The Regent Hotel in Singapore on April 7, 2002 by Sotheby's saw collectors involved in an exciting bid for the paintings put on offer. Hundreds of collectors, mostly from Indonesia, were highly enthusiastic.

The auction, which released 213 lots, consequently had to be divided into two series and brought quite a few of surprises in terms of prices.

Hendra Gunawan's Fish Seller (148cm by 199.5cm), previously estimated at only between Sin $ 120,000 and Sin $150,000, finally fetched the price of Sin $418,200. Dominated by brownish yellow hues, Hendra made this painting in 1975 when he was still a political prisoner at Bandung's Kebon Waru penitentiary in 1975.

Surprises came not only from the works of several late painters. Take for example, The Ballad of the Clowns (114cm by 98cm) by one of Indonesia's contemporary painters, Dede Eri Supria. This painting was a great attraction in the auction and was sold at Sin $23,600, an almost fourfold increase of its original price of Sin $8,000.

Perhaps thanks to its inclusion in the book Elegy of Megacities, 1999, this work, which is about four clowns in action in a busy and bustling city, is popular among collectors. Beside paintings from Indonesia, also auctioned were works from Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia. On this occasion Sotheby's collected $5,654,558.

The auction was not as festive as the one held last semester, though. Last week, the only auction bureau appearing in the auction forum was Sotheby. Its rival, Christie's, has decided not to auction South-East Asian paintings, usually offered in a package titled Southeast Asian Pictures or SAP, in Singapore.

"We have transferred all our lots for a bigger auction in Hong Kong. At least, for the time being," said Anthony Lin, chairperson of Christie's in Asia. Now that Christie's will no longer hold painting auctions in Singapore, painting transactions in this city state have lost much of their excitement.

Several semesters earlier, Glerum bureau was also absent in Singapore's auctions. This Holland-based auction institution has opted to join Larasati Bureau and take part in Jakarta's auction.

The fact that Christie's has moved from Singapore has puzzled everyone. Some people suspect that the economic situation in Singapore and Southeast Asia is not promising enough to allow Christie's to remain active in Singapore. Others, meanwhile, believe that Christie's has found it hard to obtain high-quality works of renowned artists, paintings which can be sold in a prestigious auction.

All these allegations have met with a firm denial from Cecilia Ong, business director of Christie's for Asia. She said SAP had left Singapore prompted by more idealistic, rather than pragmatic reasons.

It is worthy of note, she said, that the proceeds that Christie's had collected from SAP auctions in Singapore in the past eight years had continued to go up.

When it began to auction paintings, the proceeds stood at only some Sin $2 million, but in later years, these went up regularly. In its October 1996 auction, for example, the proceeds were recorded at Sin $4.6 million. In March 1999 the proceeds stood at Sin $5.3 while in October 2001, SAP last auction, the proceeds stood at Sin $5.8 million.

A drop in auction proceeds came only in the October 1998 auction when Indonesia, rocked a few months earlier by the bloody mid-May riot, was still in the grip of an acute monetary crisis. On this occasion, Christie's booked only Sin $2.3 million. This drop confirms that most SAP enthusiasts come from Indonesia.

Promoting SAP

It indeed has been Christie's ambition to promote Southeast Asian art, particularly the dominant Indonesian paintings, in a grander forum. These paintings will be promoted not only on a regional scale, as they were in Singapore, but also on an international level, as they plan to organize in Hong Kong, in which Asian paintings will be featured.

In this forum, the label of Southeast Asian paintings will no longer exist as each Asian country will be represented in its own right. In this auction, the works from Indonesia will compete directly with paintings from Japan, India, Korea and so forth.

In the forum of Indonesian painting, the focus will be on the works of maestros who have successfully passed the test of time. This strategy is in line with the tradition prevailing for decades in the auction of Asian paintings, in which only the works of maestros are featured.

Of course, in this respect it is not only the superiority of these masters that has been taken into consideration. More importantly, it has to do with business considerations, which are linked with the market and the price. The works of renowned painters will be attractive to the market and can fetch higher prices. The paintings selected to be included in the Hong Kong auction were exhibited at Singapore's Grand Hyatt Hotel between April 4 and April 6 and drew the attention of the public.

So, in the upcoming auction organized by Christie's in Hong Kong on April 28, 2002, paintings by Hendra Gunawan or Affandi, for example, will "compete" alongside the works of Chinese masters like Ting Tsaokung or Zou Wuki. The works of Srihadi Soedarsono and Lee Man-fong, will vie for buyers alongside those by India's legendary artist Mazumdar Hemendranath.

Meanwhile the paintings of Nyoman Meja or Arie Smit will compete with the works of noted Vietnamese painter Buo Xhuan Pai or top Philippine artist, Anita Magsaysay. Despite these big names, however, it does not mean that Christie's will not give an opportunity to "emerging maestros". The representatives of Christie's in Singapore and Indonesia will continue to be on the lookout for and select new painting masters. They will popularize these works in their next auctions.

The question now is how far international arts enthusiasts appreciate or are well-informed about Indonesian paintings. Another question is the measure of legitimate value for Indonesian paintings in the eyes of international collectors who are more familiar with legendary artists like Karel Appel, Basquiat, Picasso, Wu Guangzhong or Kees van Dongen.

It will also be interesting to see how Christie's place the names of Indonesian art figures, who have yet to be recorded in important museums, alongside the names of the world's fine art icons.

Though urgent in nature, this last question is more an aspiration. Although Christie's auction bureau is a commercial institution, it continues to be recognized as a prestigious institution that can introduce local names to the international art world.

--The writer is an art critic based in Jakarta.