JP/19/NUDES
JP/19/NUDES
Female Nudes exhibition: An act of provocation
Carla Bianpoen
Contributor/Jakarta
On September 22, CP Artspace Jakarta launched an exhibition of
Mochtar Apin's nudes, to honor the memory of a great artist.
Provocative Bodies, as curator Jim Supangkat has titled the
exhibition (after his book that is to be published shortly) shows
24 nudes painted by the late Mochtar Apin, and 10 sculptures of
nudes by 40-year-old Teguh Priyono.
Realizing the exhibition was bound to provoke controversy,
Jim, in his introduction, propounds the theory that Mochtar
wanted to present naked females as subjects instead of objects,
or, looked at the "woman behind the physical nude", putting
female sexuality to the fore.
However, not all agree. Feminist and professor of philosophy
Toeti Heraty said it was not women's sexuality but men's that was
at the crux of the work, with Mochtar's women simply the objects
of his male gaze.
A similar view is expressed in John Berger's well-known book
Ways of Seeing about artwork that represents the male gaze. "Men
act and women appear", he states.
Taking the concept further, Daniel Chandler in his Notes on
the Gaze, reminds the reader Berger advanced the idea that the
realistic, "highly tactile" depiction of things in oil paintings
and later in color photography, (in particular where they were
portrayed as "within touching distance)", represented a desire to
possess the things, or the lifestyle, depicted.
This concept also applied to women depicted in this way.
The female nude, as such, is an ancient object of artistic
interest, and one of the first things learned about in the early
stages of an art history course.
The full-figured Venus of Willendorf, and the bare-breasted,
nursing Madonna in religious paintings are examples that have
continued to serve art courses.
But the emergence in the 1960s of a powerful feminist movement
and the concomitant development of a feminist critique of art
history has challenged patriarchal assumptions and changed
critics' field of vision.
Linda Nochlin alerted a generation of readers and students to
the "genderedness" of modern vision, and to the figuration of
liberation in solely masculine terms.
This exhibition, which combines Mochtar's female nudes made in
the last few years of his life, with nude sculptures in the same
mold by a young Indonesian sculptor, is once again a token of
Indonesia's patriarchal society, where pleasure in looking has
been differentiated between the active (male) and passive
(female).
Although it is not clear why Apin, who was a painter in a
variety of styles, switched mostly to nudes in his old age, and
even the curator's notes in the catalog are unable to provide a
convincing explanation, there is no denying that the nudes
represent women who are being looked at, an act of the active
male gaze that projects its fantasy onto the female figure.
Nudes appeared much earlier in his career as a painter, but
then they were somehow blurred by the exquisite colors that
dominated his canvases, as revealed in works such as Wanita Tidur
(Woman Asleep, 1980), Wanita dan Ikan (Woman and Fish, 1970),
Wanita Bersarung (Woman Wearing a Sarong, 1992/1993) and
Pemandangan Bukit Bukit (View of Hills, 1991), almost all others
placed the nude as the highlight of the canvas appearing in full
and various poses, expressionless as if submitting to the will of
the male viewer.
Only Bahagia Ibu (Mother's Happiness) and Ibu dan Anak (Mother
and Child) reflect a nude where the joy of motherhood takes over
from the fact of nudity.
Clearly, not all of Apin's nudes in the exhibition are
masterpieces. How much more of an honor to the master it would
have been had the curator at least blended the female nudes with
other examples of Apin's work that have gained him a place among
the country's pioneers of modern art.
Mochtar Apin was involved in the arts at a very early age.
Even before he entered ITB as a student he was considered an
accomplished painter.
Born in West Sumatra in 1923, he was barely 16 -- a high-
school student -- when he learned drawing from Dutch art teacher
JV Lookeren and painting from oil painter HV Velthuyzen; during
the Japanese occupation he was in close contact with Jakarta
artists.
He obtained various scholarships that allowed him to study at
the Amsterdam Kunstnijverheid school, the Paris Ecole Nationale
Superieure des Beaux Arts and the Deutsche Akademie der Kunste in
Berlin.
Over a period of eight years he explored contemporary European
art, became skilled in various techniques, and also studied
lithography, offset and graphic art techniques, in which he
excelled.
For sculptor Teguh, it came as quite a surprise when the
exhibition curator contacted him and requested he exhibit
together with a senior artist of another generation.
A graduate from the Yogya Institute of Arts (ISI), Teguh says
he has always sculpted what he feels when viewing the female
nude.
With more than 10 years' experience, his bronze female nude
sculptures vary between innovations that are marked by leaving
certain body parts unfinished or cut off, and a sexual fervor
that reveals a man in the fullness of his male power.
Titles like Room No. 1, 2 etc., suggest a place where
prostitutes ply their trade.
While some will indulge in this world of female nudes, others
may find it suffocating.
Provocative bodies
An exhibition of Nudes by Mochtar Apin and sculptures by Teguh S.
Priyono
Sept. 22 through Oct. 12, 2004
CP Artspace
Jl. Suryopranoto 67A, Central Jakarta
tel. 3448126 ext. 604