Insecure about signifying decorativism?

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): Two related exhibitions, Patterning in Contemporary Art: Layers of Meaning, and Signifying Decorativeness: Layers of Meaning, were displayed together at the Exhibition Hall of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Gambir, Central Jakarta, until Aug. 21.

Patterning featured the works of 11 Australians and artists of each host country of the event's tour in Asia, whose contemporary works incorporate patterning as the main element. The exhibit was curated by Merryn Gates of the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University.

The Australians, Gates wrote in the catalog, share an interest in patterning that "would have originally carried cultural meaning", in traditions referred to as craft.

The curator further explained, "Patterning examines abstract languages that have a lineage distinct from that of Western modernism" and that the artists worked in "the relationship between the decorative, the ritual, and the functional, the migration of motifs and the possible nexus of patterning in the fine and applied arts..."

For example, in Indian-born David Sequeria's works, geometric patterns were formed using threads sown through various surfaces. In his Creation theory (hand sewn, home grown) the patterns were sewn onto a surface of dried leaves, overlaying cultural patterns on to natural patterns.

His interest in "systems of knowledge" was perhaps best epitomized in his work titled Between the sensory and the intuitive, in which he sewed patterns through books. Gates wrote, "Sequeria enjoys the fact that the string could be unthreaded, and that such a fine thread holds together the weight of knowledge."

The artist explained that to open a book, which contains information and ideas, the string that binds it must be cut and the pattern unraveled. In other words, to access the layer of meaning beyond the pattern, the pattern's code must be first broken. This work seemed to provide an appropriate metaphor for the exhibition itself.

The Patterning exhibit included the works of women artists, Aborigine artists, as well as artists of non-Western or non- Australian descent.

It seemed clear that Patterning not only tried to feature a tendency in art so far marginalized, but to also address issues of gender and ethnicity marginalization in discourses of modern art.

The Indonesian counterpart in Patterning's tour in Indonesia -- the first show was in Bali -- was prepared by two Indonesian curators, Jim Supangkat and Asmujo Jono Irianto. Signifying Decorativeness, as the exhibit was called, together with Patterning, were hoped to be able to generate a discourse regarding patterning and decorativeness in art.

In the catalog, the curators explained that "in preparing the curatorial of Patterning, Gates seems to have developed a non- Western tradition where decorative form is the mainstream".

Jim and Asmujo noted that most Patterning participants were not born in Australia, and therefore "considered to have relationships with tradition (especially non-Western tradition), and most of them are artists who work in the world of craft".

They wrote further that this consideration showed that in raising problems of decorative form, "Patterning enters the confrontation of art and craft, an old issue in the discourse of Western art that is currently reemerging in Australia."

Meanwhile, Signifying does not enter the debate between craft and art, the curators said.

Instead of attempting to reveal the layers of meaning represented through the selected art pieces, as Gates did, the curators seemed to be more in defense of the curatorial issues of the exhibition itself.

The participants of Signifying, they explained, included painters, sculptors, textile artists, ceramicists, graphic artists and installation artists. "The formation shows that Signifying applies contemporary art conventions but with an addition that also enters the realm of craft."

Signifying Decorativeness featured, among others, the works of AD Pirous and Heyi Ma'mun, two graduates of Bandung's Institute of Technology (ITB) who are known to have been influenced by painter Achmad Sadali; the high craftsmanship in the textiles of Nia Fliam and the fiber works of Biranul Anas. Others included the exploration in ornamentation by Noor Sudiyati and the works of Widayat and Amrus Natalsya.

Emergence

Decorativeness has actually been a central element in the discourse of Indonesian art history. In his book Modern Indonesian Art and Beyond, Jim says the emergence of decorativism between 1940 and 1950 was important, showing the influence of the kagunan framework within the development of the Yogya School.

He describes the painting style as characterized by lines, flat shapes and colors, with each form converted into carefully organized two dimensional shapes.

Jim wrote that the founder of this style was Kartono Yudhokusumo, who adopted this mode of painting when he and his followers worked in Bali in the mid-1940s. "He consciously adopted this style because in his vision, decorativeness shows the characteristic of Indonesian visual art, especially its ornamentation, its craftsmanship and its lyricism."

Then, the painter Widayat became a key figure in the dissemination of the influence of decorativism in Indonesian art, and decorativism characterized the Yogya School of art.

Since the 1950s, decorativism has become a central issue in the heated debates regarding Indonesian art.

In reaction to an exhibition of Bandung painters at Balai Budaya in 1954, Trisno Sumardjo criticized the Bandung School of Art, which evolves around the Bandung Institute of Technology, as being antinationalist.

Observer Helena Spanjaard writes that Trisno divided Indonesian art into two categories: "the spontaneous art from the fatherland, born in the 'Indonesian soul' and 'Indonesian experiences' and the artificial art inside the school buildings of the 'western laboratory', where the intellectual Western art climate was slavishly adhered to".

Sumardjo categorized the Bandung School as being such a "laboratory". Although his criticism did not seem to refer to decorativism, it was implicit that he preferred this style to its modern counterpart.

In 1974, a group of artists protested the awarding of the prizes of the best paintings at the Jakarta Biennial. All recipients of the awards leaned toward decorativism.

The protesters rejected the judges' tendency favoring this style, as if they considered the decorativists' works as a valid representation of the trends of Indonesian art at the time.

The Indonesian New Art Movement that emerged the following year rejected not only the artistic and creative stagnancy in decorativism, but also rejected the entire modern tradition as well. The exhibition titled What Identity? (Identitas Apa?) held in 1977 questioned the formulation of an Indonesian identity through the use of ethnic forms and symbols. Jim was an influential figure in these two exhibitions.

Apart from Kartono Yudhokusumo and Widayat, the works of Indonesian decorativists, such as Irsam, Suparto, Arief Sudarsono, Mulyadi W, Mujita, Sarnadi Adam, Batara Lubis, Sri Yunnah, Nyoman Gunarsa, Edi Sunaryo, Suwadji and Adi Munardi, have been marginalized by architectural critics such as Jim.

In Indonesian Modern Art and Beyond, he only devotes one paragraph to some names of those he considers as decorativists.

This exhibition actually offered a wonderful opportunity to reexplore the works of several artists using the decorativist approach, who since the late 1980s were marginalized from the academic discussions of contemporary Indonesian art.

Yet the curators seemed to have opted to look for decorative tendencies in the works of artists who have already been included in the academic discourses of Indonesian art history.

To be sure, the exhibition includes the works of Widayat, a senior artist and "grandfather" of Indonesian "decorativism". However, the exhibition showed Widayat's late works, which were clearly more expressive rather than decorativist.

Perhaps Nyoman Erawan's series of works, Citra Bali Kuna (Ancient Balinese Imagery) which are explorations of Balinese motifs, fitted the theme of the exhibition perfectly. Yet, the inclusion of an installation piece by the artist, titled Lingga Yoni, once again obscured the exhibition's direction.

What was most confusing was perhaps Setiawan Sabana's work in the show, a series called Energy on Life. This work was certainly an anomaly in the show. There was little in the mixed media collage consisting of recycled paper, gauze cloth and found wooden elements that evidences traces of decorativeness.

The impression was that the selection was based more on artists' reputation than on their works.

The Signifying exhibition seemed to reveal the curators' insecurity and reluctance about presenting the crafted decorativist art pieces as contemporary art pieces per se.

The installations of Heyi Ma'mun and Nyoman Erawan in the exhibition showed that the curators still deemed it necessary to offer other elements apart from decorative ones, to be accepted in the contemporary art scene.

Nonetheless, the exhibition did provide wide opportunities for other art researchers and curators to revisit decorativism in the development of art here.

When the time comes, the works of the well-known decorativist artists mentioned above, and many of their younger counterparts such as Nisan Kristianto, Idran Yusuf, Gunawan Hanjaya and Y. Eka Supriyadi, will be given the opportunity to emerge as artists of national acclaim.

Certainly, that would also mean that it is also time for these artists to start sharpening their artistic thoughts and ideas, and not only concentrate on perfecting their visual abilities and techniques -- a challenge of Indonesian artists, critics and curators in approaching the next millennium.

The writer is curator of the Museum Universitas Pelita Harapan, Lippo Karawaci in Tangerang, West Java.