Jakarta lacks sense of art: Sculptor

By Ida Indawati Khouw

JAKARTA (JP): Sculptors of public art in the capital city of Jakarta should always be ready to be disappointed as their works might be abused either by the city administration or people in general.

Such condition occurred several times in the past. Some public art is neglected, other works are poorly modified or even demolished for the sake of development.

Many parties have protested such poor treatment many times but what they deemed as uncivilized deeds occurred again and again.

The recent removal of the statue of the (late) great poet Chairil Anwar, located at Monas square in Central Jakarta, is the latest example.

Initially the statue of Chairil, whose poems are mostly about nationalism, was located in front of the Diponegoro monument at the northern part of Monas park, but the statue -- measuring two and a half times life size -- was then be moved to the western part of the Diponegoro monument.

Many parties are of the opinion that the administration do not consider artistic taste in placing public statues.

"I placed the statue as such so that the two art works (Diponegoro and Chairil) supported the monumental aspect of Monas," said the statue's sculptor Arsono, "for that reason I calculated any aspect regarding the placement."

The "Chairil" was made facing to the north, because nearby was the location of the so-called (former) Chairil Anwar Park, the place where the poet usually meditated for inspiration.

Two plates containing Chairil's poems were pasted in the pedestal.

Late last year the sculptor was stunned when he found that his work was no longer there. The original pedestal had been demolished and the bust was simply put at the western part of the Diponegoro monument on "a wide pedestal that is not proportional to the bust," said Arsono.

The marble plate containing Chairil's famous poet Krawang- Bekasi has disappeared while the one titled Diponegoro was just pasted into the pedestal of the Diponegoro statue.

"It (the work) is totally ridiculous, moreover it clearly shows that the Jakarta administration (which manages Monas park) did not consider the artistic aspects when locating public statues. They should have consulted me first before doing something about the work.

"It is easy to know the sculptors of each public statue in Jakarta because the city museum and restoration agency has published a book about the city monuments, including the information on the name of each works," he added.

Arsono said further that he completed the statue in 1984 as an order from the Jakarta administration. At that time the Monas park had been "decorated" with statues of Diponegoro and M.H. Thamrin, the famous Betawi-national hero.

The Diponegoro bronze statue, created by Italian artist Cobertaldo in 1965, depicted the Javanese prince wearing a robe and turban and riding a horse.

The Thamrin statue was also made by Arsono in 1982 and now is placed at the western part of the Monas park.

Later in 1988, the administration also placed the so-called Ikada statue to commemorate the huge gathering to support Indonesian independence in 1945 at the southern part of the biggest park in Jakarta.

"The administration allocated parts of the Monas park to place some statues of national heroes as a kind of immortalization of their spirit of struggle. I then immediately suggested that the statues should not only be about military figures because heroes are not always those struggling with guns," said the sculptor who made several portrait statues during the late first Indonesian president Sukarno and former president Soeharto era.

It was deplorable if the spirit was not felt only because of improper positioning, Arsono added.

Stronger criticism was uttered by architect and urbanist Marco Kusumawijaya, sculptor Iriantine Karnaya and the director of the Taman Ismail Marzuki cultural center Wisnu Murti Ardjo.

Marco said that such kind of action could be categorized as an ethical offense against artists.

"For me it is something savage, because not appreciating arts is an uncivilized deed," he said.

But he added that the offense occurred probably because of the ignorance of the administration's officials.

Iriantine agreed that art works could not be treated just like any other property because artists always have specific calculations for all aspects of their art, for example regarding its positioning.

"Thus, I can sympathize with the sculptor of the Chairil statue when the city administration just removed his work without prior notification, let alone consultation," she said.

Iriantine deeply regretted that the city park agency merely consists of field officers who do not have enough knowledge of art.

"It's okay if they don't have experts on art. If it's their shortcoming, why don't they build a relationship with artists, for example, so that they won't be considered neglecting the arts when they need to do something on the artwork?" she said.

She admitted, however, that certain development projects sometime even supported the existence of statues.

According to Wisnu, in many cases the city administration had no sense of art appreciation "only because they do not know what they are doing."

"The administration seems to consider that sculptors no longer have rights on the statues they created after they are installed in public places. It's certainly not like that, public art can't be treated like furniture you can remove as you like.

"I think the administration should first ask for inputs from the artists before something is done to their work," Wisnu said.

But comments from the administration officials reflected that they treat public arts merely as "furniture" as the institution has the authority to do whatever they want.

"It's just like we buy certain things, and they then belong to us after the transaction," said the head of the planning subdivision of the Jakarta Park Agency, Setiadi.

Moreover, he argued that the statue's removal in Monas park was just a temporary one to make way for the Rp 9.3 billion Monas beautification project.

However, head of the park agency Dadang Ruskandar apologized for the misdeed. "Yes, we did not consult the sculptor before the work was underway. I'm sorry because we had no contact with him," he said.

For this reason, Dadang said, he had declared that the Chairil statue should be returned to its original condition, "I will call the sculptor to listen to what he wishes."