Not Rowan's but mine

After reading your article Balai perupa honors three art forms from Pavan Kapoor in the Sunday, June 17, 2001 edition of The Jakarta Post, I am writing to offer my criticism on this subject. My name is Grace Siregar, I am an Indonesian artist and I held a solo exhibition of my work at Balai Perupa between June 9 and June 27, 2001. The exhibition was titled Pohon Jakarta (The Tree of Jakarta) and was opened on June 9 by Mr. Mohamad Sobari, the director of Antara News Agency. This was my first solo exhibition in Jakarta and I exhibited a total of 21 paintings and seven installations. Performance artist K-Cung was invited to perform his piece at the opening of my exhibition. Rowan Winifred Davey was also invited to show her work called Sparkling Celebration and Gloomy Days.

I felt disappointed after reading this article because the information regarding my work is not correct and the impression given by the writer, Pavan Kapoor, is that the work is rather that of Rowan Winifred Davey. Pavan Kapoor did not contact me directly prior to writing the article to discuss it and consequently the details of the exhibition were totally incorrect.

Pavan Kapoor states that "The second art form that was unique to Pohon Jakarta was the installation art, primarily displayed by artist Rowan Winifred Davey". In fact, the installation work exhibited in the main square was entirely my own, which had also previously been exhibited by Pohon Jakarta at the National Gallery between April 22, 2001 and April 30, 2001.

Regarding the paragraph "Although Rowan had some of his paintings also on display...", I would like to state that all paintings on display were my own work and not that of Miss Rowan Davey"."... his installation works such as Pohon Jakarta, which stands in the central arena in the Taman Kafe Complex, is more eye-catching. It consists of a central trunk with long narrow plastic bags billowing out and waving in the breeze". In fact, Rowan is a "she" and Pohon Jakarta is again my own work.

"The paintings on display are mainly by Grace Siregar...", whereas, previously mentioned, all the paintings in the exhibition were mine. Pavan Kapoor also states that "the show is part of JakArt@2001", but in fact this exhibition was independently funded by myself.

GRACE SIREGAR

Jakarta