Leased house, alternative fine art gallery

Leased house, alternative fine art gallery

A. Sudjud Dartanto, Contributor, Yogyakarta

A new trend is emerging with youths prefering to display their
works in rented homes instead of galleries or museums.

The new venues can be seen in the middle of Soboman village,
Bantul regency, Yogyakarta, where three young artists -- Narpati
Awangga, from Jakarta, I Made Aswino Aji, from Bali, and Georgia
Sedwick, from Australia -- are displaying their various fine art
creations.

The exhibition, running from May 3 to June 3, has turned the
previously quiet area into a bustling community, with guests,
fellow artists and villagers observing the works in every room,
which made it hard to distinguish the house from a gallery.

Most of the artists' works on display cover multimedia and
cross-genre types of photography, paintings, drawings, graphics,
video art, computer art and sound art, with all being meant to be
appreciated.

Nobody is present to attend to visitors but fortunate guests
will be welcomed by their hosts. This rare exhibition has 13
participants from the Indonesian Arts Institute, the Gadjah Mada
University and Australia.

The artwork is displayed in the order as one moves through a
house, starting from the bamboo hedge of the porch, where two
paper lanterns by I Made Aswino Aji are hanging.

Titled Sebuah Awal 1 (A Beginning, mixed-media 2002), these
lamps are very attractive in the evening with printed silhouettes
of neighborhood children. The porch wall becomes a large canvas
for visitors' to offer drawings and messages, under a sign that
reads: "write your comments and impressions below".

Furniture and decorative objects in the living room made it
difficult for visitors to identify the items without the help of
a caption.

Sedwick's Room to Move (mixed-media photography, 2002)
comprises a series of self-portraits and photos of her fellow
artists in cans and bottles. On the ceiling are Narpati Awangga's
drawings on a plastic sheet titled Days' Enemy 1 (mixed-media,
2002). Narpati, better known as Angga, is exploring the language
of games in fine art.

On an inner wall, Sedwick also presents her Room to Move
pictures of friends (photography, 2002) in a vertical
arrangement. Along with the living room photos, they form a
semblance of wayang (shadow puppets) in a modern light.

Right between the middle and rear of the house, a dog will
bark or digital sounds will be produced. It's Play That Funky
Music by Arif Wicaksono (multimedia, 2002), which is activated
when one steps on a sensor in the floor and presses two square
panels on the left and right.

In the rear of the house is a dining room and a bathroom. A
computer is set up on the dining table as a video art piece
created by F. Tejo Baskoro under the title Cuci Tangan Sebelum
Makan (Wash Your Hands Before Meals, multimedia 2002). He
presents a three-and-a-half hour show of washing hands, a
metaphor linked with shirking responsibility.

Monggo Mampir, Bu (Please Drop In, Ma'am, mixed-media 2002) is
Nuraini Juliastuti's conceptual art work in the form of a
refrigerator with texts all around the ice box.

In the bathroom, the bathtub is covered with photos taken by
Angki Purbandono in his I'll be Watching You (photography, 2002),
with dozens of eyes staring upward.

In the backyard are installation art objects, such as Samuel
Indratma's soft drink bottles with paper fans that rotate as the
wind blows, giving an impression of interaction with nature.

With limited space for displays at mainstream galleries,
leasing homes as an alternative for hosting fine art events
should be welcomed as a reason to have closer communication with
society and to foster their appreciation for art.

The theme "Don't Try This At Home" for the room-to-room
exhibition is contrary to what happens in leased homes, and seems
to challenge others to undertake the same venture.