Indonesian artists reflect on past horrors

Indonesian artists reflect on past horrors

By Astri Wright

VICTORIA, Canada (JP): The staged and spontaneous riots with
violent repercussions in Jakarta in early 1998, leading to
Soeharto's stepping down, continue to reverberate through
contemporary Indonesian art. While this was evident at home,
throughout 1998 and 1999, it has become increasingly evident
abroad as well. The May violence against the Chinese has by now
become an established theme in Indonesian literature and art,
both in its own right and as a symbol of human rights abuses and
killings in other provinces, East Timor and Aceh being among the
most notable recent examples.

Contemporary Indonesian art is no longer dominated by
decorative canvases infused with the spiritual cliches which so
easily grace the settings of elite life styles. It has now
branched out into multimedia, installations and performance art,
no longer as avant garde art forms, but as regular, established
genres. And while contemporary Indonesian art a decade ago was
hardly known beyond a narrow orbit which included Singapore and
Malaysia, it is now known internationally as one of the most
dynamic parts of the new hot art commodity, contemporary Asian
art.

This shift in international art consciousness has come about
due to the efforts of individual artists and writers and the
enormous public relations and funding machines of the huge
international exhibitions which developed in the course of the
1990s. Indonesian art is now featured, several times a year, in
the Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, in Biennales in Kwangju,
Korea, Havana and in numerous exhibitions in Japan. Even Europe,
the stronghold of western art, has opened its doors through the
Venice Biennale and other smaller galleries and academic venues.

During the 1998 riots, many artists watched in shock and
horror. Many of them, resisting their sense of powerlessness,
responded to these events later in their work. Several Indonesian
artists left the country for shorter or longer stays abroad; the
mental toll of going against the dominant grain at home, year
after year, is heavy.

In Jakarta, Non Hendratmo, a young female artist, staged an
installation at Jakarta's Taman Ismail Marzuki a few weeks after
the tragedy. By 1999, she was living in New York. Seno Gumira
Adjidarma, a well-known writer, journalist and editor of Jakarta-
Jakarta, wrote a chilling short story entitled Clara, or the
Woman Who was Raped which was translated into English and
performed informally abroad during a speaker's tour he made to
the U.S.A., Canada and Japan.

In August 1998, Dadang Christanto created an installation in
Australia entitled Cannibalism, or Jakarta-Solo Memoirs May 13,
14, 15, 1998.

In the same year, Dadang accepted a three-year teaching
position at the University of Northern Territories in Darwin,
Australia. While living there with his wife Nana, son Gunung and
new baby daughter, he continues to travel widely, representing
Indonesia in the Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane in September
1999, along with Tisna Sanjaya, Moelyono, Agus Ismoyo, Nia Fliam
and Mella Jaarsma, and in the Kwangju Biennale in South Korea
early in 2000.

Arahmaiani

In May 1998, Arahmaiani, Indonesia's most experimental female
artist, stood among the bystanders in the night by looted stores
and burning homes where the charred and wounded bodies of
Chinese-Indonesian women of all ages, many of them raped and
tortured, lay. All she could do was sketch, watch and weep.

In March 1999, at a conference exhibition of art by Southeast
Asian female artists in Manila, Arahmaiani created a huge on-site
mural, before which she gave a performance, quite different from
that of her usual provocative style.

Three large white walls were painted in mostly black, with
gray and white accents painted with huge brushes. The space was a
dark semi-void embraced by ghostly shadows which resembled
larger-than-life figures. Female figures? Yes, they seemed to be.

In June 1999, Arahmaiani staged a performance art piece at the
Centre Culturel Francaise, Bandung: Dayang Sumbi: Menolak Status
Quo (Dayang Sumbi: Rejecting the Status Quo) and Tunjukan Hatimu
Padaku (Show Your Heart To Me).

"This is a show with a special theme: Voice of a Woman. My
idea this time is to rework or subvert a story from local
mythology. While before, woman in the story were given a passive
role, I give her an active role, " Arahmaiani said.

Semsar

In February 1999, Semsar Siahaan arrived in Canada as a
visiting artist and speaker at the History of Art department at
the University of Victoria. In June his status changed to that of
a one-year political refugee, with the possibility of receiving
permanent refugee status after the year was up.

Semsar's three months hosted by the University of Victoria
brought many people into contact with this artist, who to many
was completely unknown in the context beyond the issue of East
Timor. To those who had experienced Indonesia through travel,
work or activist lobbying, Semsar's presence provided a shot of
vital new energy, including perspectives and opportunities for
meeting other like-minded people. Professors of art and history,
writers living in exile in Canada from South Africa and
elsewhere, students of bahasa Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific
region, activists and local artists staging a solidarity
exhibition for the struggle in Chiapas, most of those who
attended were moved by Semsar's public appearances.

In mid-March, Semsar finished his first painting in Canada, a
large canvas (200 cm x 140 cm) which he had started only six
weeks earlier. Entitled Black Orchid, this painting was presented
at a university colloquium. The composition centers around the
artist's self-portrait. As the focal point in the canvas, it
binds together the other turbulent scenes represented.

Black Orchid shows how the internal and external mix and merge
in Semsar's work. While this was often a feature of his earlier
works, it appears now with the addition of metaphors of distance
and reflection and the incorporation of memory and commemoration
into his statement. It shows how Semsar's art ties together the
political and the personal, the distant and the immediate.

What, one wonders, does an activist artist in exile, enforced
or self-imposed, dream at night? How does exile change his work?

Basuki Resobowo's art has never changed its focus, even during
34 years in exile in the Netherlands, where he died on Jan.5,
1999 at the age of 83. Revolution era artist Sudjana Kerton's
mature work, throughout 27 years in the U.S.A., even as he
continuously probed new media and stylistic approaches, for the
most part persisted in depicting Indonesian themes and subjects.
Hendra Gunawan, while in prison and after his release, continued
to paint historical paintings of local battles against the Dutch
colonizers, revolutionary guerrillas at rest and women going
about the business of selling and buying and nursing the children
of the nation.

At least in terms of ideas for future art works, Semsar has
some very clear ideas rooted in his Indonesian experiences over
the last 20 years. At the same time, the artist is dealing with
the shift in identity in which seeking domicile in a new nation
involves: Between June and July 1999 he painted a huge canvas
entitled Confusion, which depicts human figures, including his
own and ghosts of people from his past, reclining, struggling and
reaching across a space defined, from left to right, by a banana
and an oak tree.

On the question of exile and artistic focus, Dadang quotes
from Darwin: "I believe that, as of yet, there are no changes,
because until now, my spirit is still the same as when living in
Indonesia ... If, nevertheless, there has been a change, it is
that I feel I can be more courageous when it comes to expressing
my thoughts in Australia ... I feel less hampered and more bold
and able to sharpen and intensify the themes in my work. For
example, I am beginning to dare to think about themes surrounding
Indonesia between 1965 to 1966, which, until now, these events of
bloody butchering have not been touched on by the reformists."

What will become ever more clear, as historical understanding
matures, is that this past year has most likely awoken the
consciences of and mobilized larger numbers of artists and other
people than at any one time in the last 32 years of Indonesian
history.

The writer is Associate Professor of Southeast Asian Art at
the University of Victoria in western Canada.