Jakarta reflections take a surreal turn

Jakarta reflections take a surreal turn

David Kennedy, Contributor, Jakarta

d_kenn@yahoo.com

Banana trees and other bright green foliage run riot in an
abandoned lot. In the distance, dull gray skyscrapers peer out
from behind a patch of city jungle, half obscured from view by
the tangled mess of greenery. A fertile patch of land has been
reclaimed in the heart of the city.

This is one of the rare Jakarta scenes that Canadian-born
artist Ken Pattern recently revisited for the first time in
almost seven years.

Up until the late '90s the artist, who has made Indonesia his
second home since 1989, was a man on a mission, racing to record
the city's ramshackle and often idyllic kampong scenes in his
tightly drawn, photo-like, black and white pictures before they
disappeared for good. His work cataloged the economic and social
upheaval that saw many of Jakarta's inner city housing districts
leveled to make way for high-rise developments.

Pattern returned to the Setiabudi area in Central Jakarta last
year to paint an area earmarked for development which had
featured in his earlier work, only to discover to his glee that
the jungle had grown back.

"When I drew this area in 1996, it was hot real estate ready
to be developed and here we are some years later and it's gone
backwards in some ways and yet it's also gone forwards, as people
have taken over the land and are using it for what it should be
used for -- to feed people!" he said.

Seeing himself as a documenter first and an artist second, Ken
Pattern produced almost a hundred pen and ink and lithographs
during the boom years of the 1990s, works which highlighted the
stark contrasts in a city where extreme poverty and wealth are
found side by side.

His Jakarta series is a sort of social commentary full of
visual puns and subtle satire; a view of an urban heritage
teetering on the brink of annihilation until the monetary crisis
of 1998 brought the frenzied construction of glass and steel
towers to a standstill.

By that time, Pattern felt that he had gone as far as he could
with his Jakarta scenes and he turned to more symbolic,
surrealistic perspectives, which pack more social and political
punch.

He first used labyrinths to describe the impossible journey of
the foreigner struggling to understand Indonesia. To even begin
this trip, he says, you have to start understanding Javanese
culture, a virtually impenetrable labyrinth of complexity to the
outsider.

Just when you get to the stage where you think you might have
figured it out, he says, you realize you've not got anywhere yet.

Influenced by Dede Eri Supria, a local artist renowned for his
use of the labyrinth to depict the alienation of modern man,
Pattern incorporates labyrinths in his paintings today to express
another form of alienation -- man's disconnection with his planet
and the natural order.

"I've started to move toward universal themes, like those I
was doing 30 years ago -- the dilemma between the human race and
planet earth. It's that whole thing of being out of sync with our
environment."

In one of these pieces concrete labyrinthian housing blocks
replace the green slopes of Puncak, a favorite mountain retreat
for Jakartans.

"When all the development was going on, they couldn't build
golf courses and housing developments fast enough; they were just
stripping down the hillsides. It made me think the whole thing
was turning into a monumental urban nightmare."

The absurdity of Western capitalism is another target for his
satirical surrealistic art.

The Golf Between -- a pun on the gap between rich and poor and
the spread of golf courses throughout the developing world --
shows a series of villages arranged in labyrinths which intersect
a golf course. Originally named North-South Dialogue, the
lithograph shows the artist's discomfort with the elitism of
golfing and what he sees as the absurdity of selling the
developing world an alien lifestyle replete with golf courses,
fast food franchises and MTV.

"The Western model of so-called democracy and consumerism is
thrown at them in a very unfair way I think. Everybody wants to
buy into the MTV thought pattern," says Pattern with regret.

"It not just in Indonesia but all over the developing world,
there's this increasing clash of cultures. It's almost as if we
give the developing world McDonald's and golf courses as if
that's going to help people."

At 62, Ken Pattern shows no signs of waning idealism and has
no plans to retire and paint landscapes. However, he admits to
enjoying them more now than in his youth and intends to include
some new pieces in his forthcoming exhibition in Jakarta, a
fundraising event for the Canadian Women's Association.

The exhibition will focus on his Jakarta lithographs but
Pattern's recent work is heading down darker paths than those he
has trod in the city's back streets and kampongs. At the CP Open
Biennale in Jakarta last year, his contributions included trees
strangled by concrete labyrinthian buildings and a stone maze
engulfing a fragile oasis; an apocalyptic vision of the future
where nature is wiped out by man's overindulgence.

His latest surrealist work, Landscape Cityscape Escape, unlike
most of his earlier pieces, goes even further by offering the
audience no landscape to get their bearings by -- instead they
are faced with one stony labyrinth superimposed on another. Some
viewers feel disturbed by this lack of a reference point, which
is surely the aim of the piece.

When pressed on what he is trying to achieve with these
images, the artist, who spent the early days of his career as an
environmental activist, reveals that he has little hope for the
future of the planet and believes that we may have "gone too far
to turn the ship around".

"Almost everyday there are speeches and reports about illegal
logging in Sumatra, or destruction of the rain forests, or the
annihilation of various animal species. But no one's really doing
anything about it and they won't do anything about it until it's
gone; the need to acquire material wealth is stronger than our
need to preserve our heritage; we've come unglued; unhinged"

A self-declared "short-term optimist and long-term pessimist",
Pattern hopes he will be proven wrong some day. In the meantime,
he will continue to raise the alarm. "It's my way of saying; hey
I think we're out of touch here!"

In what direction will his art go now? There's no way of
knowing. Ken Pattern's output regularly swings from colorful
landscapes to black and white cityscapes, from political satire
to traditional pastoral scenes.

But his work is easily recognizable from its tight meticulous
attention to detail, a process which takes months to complete. By
the time he finishes one piece, the original idea has often
morphed into a completely new set of ideas, but the idea can also
come to an abrupt ending after one piece as if the art has a life
of its own.

Economic realities also come into play and surrealist images
of labyrinths do not have the same market appeal as recognizable
scenes from everyday life.

"At the moment I'm being really idealistic on one hand but
also a little pragmatic and doing other things I really enjoy. If
I was only doing one or the other it would probably drive me
crazy," he says, comparing his harsh black and white Jakarta
scenes and surrealistic labyrinths to the more colorful idyllic
nature scenes.

Perhaps the Eastern concept of yin and yang is at work in his
art. "It feels safer," he says "to have the two bounce off each
other".

I-box

Ken Pattern's lithographs will be exhibited at the Canadian
Women's Association Fundraising Art Exhibition in Hotel Gran
Melia, Lobby Level I, Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta, from
April 30 to May 8. Opening hours 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Preview: 10
a.m. to 6:30 p.m., 29 April.