;JP;Asip A. Hasani;

;JP;Asip A. Hasani;

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Cemeti Art House on Panjaitan Street
Yogyakarta looked more like a market of secondhand goods on
Wednesday evening, September 5, during the opening ceremony of
young artist Bambang Toko Witjaksono's art exhibition.

The front room of the gallery was full of tens of second hand
goods sellers with their various merchandises such as
electronics, household goods, antiques, clothes, and so on.

If you were there attending the ceremony, you would have felt
like shopping in secondhand merchandise market where cheaper
goods are offered.

The scene in the exhibition room of the gallery gives no much
different impression from the front room's scene. Toko's art
works in the form of drawings, prints, and comics on various
media are displayed, still, dozens of secondhand goods with a
small note attached beside each of the secondhand goods notifying
the price of the goods were also displayed in the other corners
of the room.

The notes, among other things, read "VCD player, 100% new, Rp
345,000," "Blue Jeans trousers, original Levi's, Rp 60,000."
Beside some of the goods were attached notes informing that the
goods were already sold.

Those goods belong to Toko. And he is offering them to the
gallery visitors who wish to buy as well as his art works.

"He means it! You can even buy those goods if you like. My
staff will settle the things if you are serious," artist Mella
Jarsma, who is also the manager of the Cemeti Art House, told The
Jakarta Post.

"Several people have ordered Toko's secondhand goods. But,
it's quite difficult to explain them that they can take the goods
they order after September 30 when the exhibition is over."

Two art awards, which are displayed among the other secondhand
goods in the exhibition room, were probably the most astonishing
things. One of the two trophies, belong to young painter Agung
Leak Kurniawan from Yogyakarta Art Institute (ISI), is an art
award for Agung's victory in a national scale art competition.

The other one trophy is a Philip Morris Art Award obtained by
Agung in 1996.

"The trophy of the Philip Morris Art Award has been sold at Rp
12.000," Mella said.

Toko's art works, fewer in the number than his secondhand
goods, were displayed in the other corners of the gallery room.

In his drawings, prints, and comics exhibited in Cemeti Art
House, Toko puts his real experience of his daily life on his
works through funny ways. One of his drawings on a zinc plate
describes how Cemeti Art House's staff engages in a bargaining
with artist on the price of the artist's art works.

Entitled "Mas Makelar (Mas Broker)", Toko's art exhibition in
Cemeti Art House tries to express his satirical message, "art
works, art products, and art things are not sacred things." They
are just like any other stuff or merchandises which even need the
help of art brokers and art collectors if the artists or owners
of the stuff want to sell them.

"He wants to question the sacredness of the art works. He also
wants to skip the boundaries between art works and any other
stuffs," Mella said.

Toko has the "authority" to do that. The young artist, who
completed his study at ISI in 1997, is not only a visual artist
but also a broker who wish to gain money from his service in
selling any body's goods. That's why his fellow brokers and
secondhand goods sellers call him "Toko" which means "shop" in
English.

He is also lecturer at the Graphic Art Department at ISI
Yogyakarta.

His experience in brokering activities seems to have
influenced his way of viewing the arts, artists, and the art
works. He is realistic on the one hand realizing that artists or
any other professionals need money to survive. At the same time,
he doesn't neglect the meaning of the arts as the media to convey
the artists' idealism and moral messages which are considered as
pure and sacred.

"He warns us, artists, not to be hypocritical in performing
our professions," Mella said.

Common people have been visiting the exhibition since it was
opened. They wonder what's inside the art house after reading a
huge banner in front of the art house informing that many
secondhand stuffs are on sale.

Toko's way of performing his exhibition had encouraged common
people to visit his exhibition at least for the purpose to buy
his secondhand stuffs, Mella said.

"Art exhibition doesn't have to be exclusive," she said.