Interchange and debate color RI art scene in 1995

Interchange and debate color RI art scene in 1995

By Margaret Agusta

JAKARTA (JP): This past year was a period of flux, conflict and contrast in Indonesia's art sector, with increasing political awareness and greater interchange with the outside world being the only constants.

The first major exhibition of the year, a show of 43 paintings by Yos Suprapto at Taman Ismail Marzuki art center from Jan. 9 to 15, continued 1994's tendency to establish links between Indonesia's art circles and those of other nations.

Although born in Indonesia and educated at the ASRI art academy in Yogyakarta in the early 1970s, Yos Suprapto has lived in Australia, where he has established himself as a successful artist and musician, for the last 18 years.

His exhibition in Jakarta in January 1995 was his first in Indonesia since his student days with artists Semsar Siaahan, F.X. Harsono and Hardi in Central Java.

Like other artists, curators and critics, such as F.X. Harsono, Heri Dono, Edi Hara, Sulebar and Jim Supangkat, who continue to live and work in Indonesia, Yos Suprapto is interested in " ... introducing a new way of looking at the problem of art in the Indonesian art scene".

F.X. Harsono and Jim Supangkat, who took part in international art fora in Japan and Australia this year, have been very outspoken concerning the role art plays in Indonesia and its rightful place in the global art scene.

F.X. Harsono, who concentrates on installation art for his creative expression, feels that the voice of the grassroots segment of society can be amplified and conveyed most readily through the medium of visual art. Like Yos Suprapto, Djoko Pekik, Semsar Siaahan, and to some extent Heri Dono, Edi Hara and Dede Eri Supria, F.X. Harsono addresses Indonesia's socio-political problems of corruption, the gap between the rich and the poor, the exploitation of workers and the destruction of the environment.

Yos Suprapto, who presented one installation and two performance pieces along with his paintings in his Jakarta show, believes that socio-political messages conveyed with imagination and creativity have long been missing from the Indonesia art scene, or at least pushed to the fringes through suppression.

"We can't just see fine arts as an entertainment industry," he wrote in the catalog for his January exhibition. Yos Suprapto believes the development of Indonesian art and imagination has been hindered because of the socio-political trauma induced by the abortive communist coup of 1965 and its immediate aftermath.

He said in an interview with Sarah Murray for The Jakarta Post that this trauma has yet to be confronted and processed through creative artwork in Indonesia.

He also bemoaned the fact that "The main aspirations of Indonesian modern art from Sudjojono and Affandi's era have been forgotten."

Both Sudjojono and Affandi advocated focusing on the plight of the grassroots level of society for inspiration for their free and expressive artwork. And like Djoko Pekik, they came under heavy fire in the wake of the upheaval of 1965 and 1966 for their alleged "leftist" leanings and the social themes they insisted on conveying through their paintings.

Only in the last two or three years have people begun to take a well deserved closer look at the work of Djoko Pekik. Most notably, the Norwegian-American art historian Astri Wright had the professional insight to discuss the impact of Indonesia's political history on its artists, in particular Djoko Pekik, and their art in her book Soul, Spirit and Mountain: Preoccupations of Contemporary Indonesian Painters, published in 1994 and available throughout this past year in Jakarta bookstores.

Astri Wright, like Jim Supangkat and F.X. Harsono, has actively striven to draw greater attention to and achieve long deserved recognition in international fora for Indonesia's modern and contemporary art.

This has not been an easy task, as could be seen by the outright rejection by American art galleries and museums of the exhibition of modern Indonesian art prepared for the 1991 Indonesian Art and Culture Festival in the United States. Up to now it remains difficult to get the international "mainstream" art institutions to recognize modern and contemporary Indonesian art as other than mimicry of existing western styles and "isms".

In 1995, F.X Harsono joined exhibitions and discussions abroad in Australia and Japan in an effort to expose his work and the work of other contemporary Indonesian artists in international fora with the hope of making the world pay attention to what is going on in the art of Southeast Asia.

Throughout 1995, curator and critic Jim Supangkat also made an effort to make the voice of Indonesia's artists heard internationally. He and several artists, critics and curators from Third World countries brought up the problem of the domination of Euro-American art theory, in particular avant gardism, universalism and post modernism, in international fora.

He believes that the art history scenario of the mainstream falls far short of reflecting what has actually been going on in art globally. He says that the socio-political development of countries throughout the world must be taken into consideration in any evaluation or analysis of art being produced. Jim Supangkat and an increasing number of artists and art lovers throughout the world are becoming ever more critical of the status quo and are demanding that attention be paid to the "marginalized" art being created in places other than the United States and European countries.

Foreign artists

Ironically, a similar debate continues in Indonesia itself, even as its galleries are opening up to more exhibitions of art by foreign artists and as foreign embassies and cultural centers, most notably those of the United States, Australia and Japan, are actively promoting art from their countries in Indonesia. Thus the international "mainstream" of art is gaining greater access than ever before to the attention of local art collectors and artists.

Among the exhibitions of the works of foreign artists held in Indonesia in 1995 were the Jan. 24 to Feb. 1 show of "mood paintings" by Yuri Gorbachev of Russia at the Koi Gallery near Blok M; the exhibition of contemporary art by artists from Non- Aligned Movement member countries at Wisma Seni Rupa in Gambir, Central Jakarta, in April, a by-invitation-only showing of modern art from the United States, including works by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol, at the American ambassador's residence shortly before outgoing ambassador John Barry and his wife left Indonesia in July; the Classroom Connection 2 show featuring 49 works by students from 12 schools in Victoria, Australia, at the STEKPI campus in Kalibata, South Jakarta, in June; the July 24 to Aug. 17 show of works by artists from the Helpmann Academy in Australia at Dimata Gallery in Yogyakarta; a joint exhibition by five Dutch artists and five Indonesian artists sponsored by the Amsterdam-based Gate Foundation and the Cemeti Art Foundation of Yogyakarta at the Wisma Seni Rupa in Gambir, Central Jakarta, in August; the display of works by Dutch graphic artists at the Erasmus Huis cultural center on Jl. Rasuna Said in September, and the exhibition of lithographs by Canadian artist Ken Pattern, also at Erasmus Huis, toward the end of the year.

Exhibitions by works of Indonesian artists who have lived and worked abroad, such as Teguh Ostenrik and Kartika Affandi Koberl, also colored this year of art with a colorful, expressive view of life and art.

But perhaps the only large-scale exhibition of Indonesian art to be shown abroad this year was a collection of children's art called The Giant Who Swallowed the Moon: Indonesian Children's Art from Java and Bali. The show was presented in museums and galleries throughout the United States up to the end of 1995. Ironically, the idea for the exhibition did not originate with an Indonesian art institution. It was the brainchild of curator and critic Joseph Fisher of the United States.

The other sporadic showings of Indonesian art abroad this year were also mostly organized or sponsored by foreign art institutions, or initiated by individual Indonesian artists who wanted to expose their work internationally through the sponsorship of foreign art bodies.

One of the most important impacts of the greater influx of international art into Indonesia this year, continuing a trend starting in 1993 and growing throughout 1994, is that local artists are enjoying greater first-hand access to art from around the world. Unlike the Indonesian artists working up through the 1980s, who were able to see art from abroad only in books and magazines, or in films, or by actually traveling overseas, the artists of 1995 have been able to look at original works of foreign art and to gain a greater understanding of the trends and techniques artists could only read about previously. Hopefully this will do something to demystify the origins and actual significance of the various "isms" that have come to dominate a great deal of the work of Indonesian artists over the years.

Unfortunately, the situation in Indonesia continued to mirror the overall condition of the international art scene in 1995. This could be seen clearly in the various "theme exhibitions" sponsored by Jakarta's galleries, in which the Euro-American "mainstream" art theories reflected in realism, impressionism and expressionism and others, including post modernism, continued to dominate the Indonesian art scene.

One example of this type of show was the Golden Balinese Barong painting exhibition held at Santi Gallery in September. The gallery managed to bring together attractive and interesting paintings of the Balinese mythical creature "barong" by 17 Indonesian artists, including the highly respected Popo Iskandar, Affandi and Srihadi. Another theme exhibition was seen at the Wisma Seni Rupa in Gambir in September. This exhibition, Realistic Image of Indonesia, was sponsored by the Bimantara Foundation and curated by Jim Supangkat. It featured the works of painters Dedi Eri Supria, Ivan Sugito and Lucia Hartini, all of which paint in styles reminiscent of either photo realism or surrealism. Other theme exhibitions in 1995 either focused on women, flowers or animals, with the artwork displayed usually conveniently classified under one "ism" or another.

Jakarta

Most of these shows featured the works of artists who are either based in Jakarta, or who frequently visit the capital, reflecting the fact that whether intentional or not, there is a tendency to overlook the work of artists, particularly those whose works are not readily classifiable within the context of international "mainstream" theory, or who live and work in the provinces, too far from the political and economic center of the nation.

Fortunately, 1995 saw a slight -- albeit vital -- tendency on the part of the more far-sighted galleries in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bali to take a closer look at the works of younger, less established contemporary artists, who are working with unconventional materials, or in undefinable styles.

This forward looking and egalitarian approach to the displaying of art deserves praise and support, as in the long run it will bring to the public view works of art that are of more than esthetic significance. Works of art that reflect more than just the taste and thinking of Indonesia's elite.

Although it may well be that works of art by contemporary artists, many of them taking forms other than the most acceptable form of paintings of pleasing subjects like landscapes, figures and still lifes, may not sell well, it would truly be a shame if sculptures, ceramic works, drawings and installations, or paintings with heavy socio-political content continued to be overlooked, or shunned, because they do not fit into the current gallery-museum scheme of things.

For that reason, a rare exhibition of the sculptures of noted Balinese artist Nyoman Nuarta from Nov. 28 to Dec. 7 at the Wisma Seni Rupa in Gambir was exciting and refreshing.

And even more notable were the efforts of institutions outside of art circles to bring attention to forms of art other than painting in 1995. Among these exhibitions were the September showing of ceramic sculptures featuring the traditional hairstyle called ukelan by F. Widayanto at the Regent Hotel on Jl. Rasuna Said; the exhibition of unusually innovative and highly attractive ceramic works by the senior painter Widayat at Bentara Budaya, also in September, and the October exhibition, also at Bentara Budaya, of the drawings of six artists, all graduates of the Bandung Institute of Technology. All of the exhibitions were sponsored by the Post.