Indonesian art vies for world-class status

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.