Mother and Child series define Indonesia 'Baroque'

Mother and Child series define Indonesia 'Baroque'

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): Galeri Nasional Indonesia, usually rather
sterile in appearance, was transformed into an environment which
one might mistake for a mountainside villa outside Jakarta.

Once you pass through the main gateway, a large gebyok
Javanese house facade, you enter a garden filled with elements
from other traditional Javanese dwellings: doorways, large
armoires, tables, chairs, placed in the midst of lush green
plants.

Numerous ceramic figures appear prominently amidst the garden,
or even jungle, if you prefer. The highly stylized elegantly
deformed sculptures are undoubtedly the works of F. Widayanto.
The artist has held several exhibitions of his works, among the
most prominent are Loro Blonjo (1990) and Ganesha-Ganeshi (1993).

The two shows are particularly worth mentioning as they
feature the artist's flamboyant reinterpretation of icons that
are already well-known in the Javanese tradition of sculpture.
Loro Blonyo, the traditional Javanese wedding couple, usually
depicted in their canonized, static, cross-legged sitting
posture, are transformed by Widayanto into wild characters posed
in various relaxed reclining positions. Certain features of the
faces, such as the forehead, cheeks, lips, and chin, are deformed
and exaggerated creating an exotic appearance.

Widayanto's Ganesha-Ganeshi is a significant departure from
the famous Ganesha statues that appear in many Hindu temples on
Java and Bali, the source of inspiration of his work. The statues
show the elephant-headed Hindu deity as a prankish pot-bellied
character in various posses. Sometimes he appears alone.
Sometimes not -- Widayanto has created a mate, Ganeshi, whose
character is as frolicsome as her name.

In his most recent exhibition, actually his seventh solo
exhibition so far, Widayanto features the relationship between
mother and child as his main theme. "In 1996, when I was in the
midst of creating the Golekan ceramic sculpture, I was suddenly
inspired to add a suckling baby and cradle in it in the woman's
right arm, while she is holding a kitchen implement in the other
hand," writes the artist. The sculpture caused him to be obsessed
with the theme of mother and child.

In Ambung-ambungan, Kissing and Hugging, a boy kisses his
mother while lying happily on her fat body. Developed from his
previous Ganesha-Ganeshi series, the obese form appears over and
over again, but always semi-reclining, full breasted and her
large pot belly comprising most of her body. She is made with
double or triple-chins, enhancing her obese appearance. Her eyes
are half closed, suggesting more her laziness than tender loving
care for her child as the artist actually intended.

If you listened to the British band The Smiths in the mid-
1980s, you might be familiar with a line a the song, which goes,
Some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers. Well,
the rest of Widayanto's mother figures are not as big as the ones
mentioned above.

Ajar Mundak depicts a boy climbing affectionately on his
mother's back, while the prankish boy in Pon Guyon tries to climb
on his mother's head. In these two works, the mother figures are
elegantly slim and endowed with upturned breasts and full
protruding buttocks, making them rather sensual.

The faces of the sculptures are deformed and exaggerated with
exotic facial features, similar to the ape-like figures of the
Dutch colonial painter G.P. Adolfs' paintings. The figures hair-
styles are highly overdone, almost to the extent of Bart
Simpson's mother. It is clear that they have been derived from
the artist's Golekan heads and busts, but developed into full
human form in this series.

Yet the artist claims to be even freer. "I freed myself of the
conventional human form, which resulted in the half human, half
mermaid, half deer, or half snake creature. I even went so far as
to add butterfly wings and beautiful claws to these creations. I
thereby created more freedom for myself.

If is only natural for my creations to move and fly wherever
their fancy takes them," he writes. Indeed, in Dayang Kiprah,
mother and child appear equipped with wings of butterflies, here
made of a kind of metal.

F. Widayanto's ceramic sculptures are highly controversial.
Many like them, many hate them, and you either like them or you
don't. Yet, whether you do or do not, you will have an idea why
other people might feel differently about them. Sometimes, it
depends on your mood. Widayanto's works are highly stylized and
gaudy, yet in some ways they also appear elegant. Can gaudy works
also be elegant? How? In any event, what is clear is that
Widayanto's Mother and Child series define the "Baroque" in
Indonesian sculpture.