Painters vie for Indonesian Art Awards '95

Painters vie for Indonesian Art Awards '95

By R. Fadjri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): One of the drawbacks of a competitive arts
world, that of paintings in particular, is that some painters
refrain from taking part in what they perceive as a competitive
event, believing that art works cannot compete with each other.

Consequently, such a competitive exhibition does not reflect
the reality of the art world, as was apparently the experience of
the Indonesian Art Awards 1995 organized by the Indonesian Arts
Foundation and the Philip Morris Group of Companies.

Many artists from Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Malang,
Surakarta, Bali, Ujung Pandang and Medan with more than 1,000
works of art, took part in the competition. Yet, it is hard to
say that this competition represented Indonesian contemporary
painting because many well-known Indonesian painters did not
participate in the exhibition.

The jury, consisting of Abas Alibasyah, AD Pirous, Fadjar
Sidik, Nyoman Tusan and Gregorius Sidharta, selected 50
paintings. The selected pieces are on a traveling show, starting
with Bandung (Oct. 2 to Oct. 5), Yogyakarta (Oct. 9 to 13),
Surabaya (Oct. 16 to 20) and Ubud (Oct. 25 to 29).

The jury nominated the best 10 paintings, of which five were
chosen to represent Indonesia in the ASEAN Art Awards 1995 in
Singapore recently. The five paintings were Balbos-Kania III by
Effendi, Seni Bukan Segalanya (Art is Not Everything) by Rotua
Magda Pardede, Hidup Damai (Peaceful Life) by Eka Suprihadi,
Kembali ke Alam (Back to Nature) by Bambang Pramudiyanto and
Tiada Lagi Kenyamanan di Kampungku (My Village Is No Longer
Pleasant) by Sunaryo.

Of the best five paintings, only Effendi's work won a prize.
The other winners were two painters from the Philippines, one
from Singapore and one from Thailand.

Is Effendi's award representative of the quality of Indonesian
paintings? And how does it compare among the other ASEAN
countries?

It is difficult to answer these questions because apart from
subjectivity of the jury, the paintings entered in both the
national and regional competitions did not reflect the acme of
Indonesian art although some of the artists are nationally well
known.

Effendi, for example, has established a national reputation as
a painter who makes use of the realistic technique which explores
the image of stone surfaces on his works. His Balbos-Kania II is
contemporary in ideas. It speaks of the human tragedy in the
Balkan peninsula. A woman and a child, wrapped in plastic, a
string entwining their bodies from head to toe, are lying
helplessly under the solid feet of a man with a firearm in his
hands. A strong, gripping situation emanates from Effendi's
painting, as if the man with the firearm has changed into stone
on account of seeing the absence of humanity in the war.

Bambang Pramudiyanto also applies the realistic technique in
his work Kembali ke Alam, depicting the front of what remains of
an old truck trapped in bushes. The image of its ancientness is
given in minute detail so that a crack in the blue paint on the
truck's body is covered for the greater part with the brown of
rust. The front light has no glass and there is no engine under
the hood. A graduate of the Fine Arts School of Yogyakarta's
Indonesian Fine Arts Institute, Bambang is known as a painter who
is wont to paint various kinds of automobiles in uncommon angles.

The Indonesian Art Award 1995 was open to all styles and
techniques so it was not surprising to see all were represented
in the exhibition. Just look at Sunaryo's Tiada Lagi Kenyamanan
di Kampungku. Of Bandung origin, Sunaryo tends to use the
abstract style by applying the technique of mixed media in the
form of shreds of plaited mats, torn pieces of gunny sacks,
bamboo cuttings and metal plates. Sunaryo presents traditional
life symbols through well-worn shreds of plaited mats and
modernization symbols through a rigid square plate.

Tisna Sanjaya also applies the technique of mixed media in his
Aura Ideologi, Aura Kesenian (The Aura of Ideology, the Aura of
Art). This graphic artist of the Bandung Institute of Technology
uses an etching placed in the middle of a wooden frame. The
Garuda Pancasila state symbol flanked by two pallid gloves is
seen in the upper part of the frame. The artist has placed small
decorative lights around the wooden frame. The lighting resembles
that of a Christmas tree. A number of Christmas carols are also
played. The incessant playing of the music and the alternating
flash of the lights give the impression of routine activities
which create an atmosphere of depression. Tisna Sanjaya's work
was one of the ten nominees of the Indonesian Art Award 1995.

The acceptance of mixed media works for the competition shows
the jury's openness toward non-conventional paintings which have
so far been strongly rejected by senior artists. There was once a
protest launched by young artists in Yogyakarta against the
Yogyakarta Painting Exhibition Biennale which did not allow the
participation of unconventional works. The mixed media technique
was not considered art work.

The development of contemporary art has shown its ability to
break through the convention of painting, so that it is no longer
seen as limited to works with conventional techniques using paint
and canvas.

However, the tolerance of the Indonesian jury was not in line
with the criteria applied by the ASEAN Art Awards jury. For
example, Nyoman Erawan's mixed media work, considered by the
Indonesian jury as the best among the five paintings, did not win
an award at the ASEAN Art Award 1994 because the jury did not see
it as a work of painting. Instead, it was other works by
Indonesian artists using conventional painting techniques which
obtained awards in that competition.

Many international competitive painting exhibitions no longer
limit technique or expression. Some biennials in Japan, Australia
and the U.S. are open to any form of painted work. After all,
does not each form of painting basically possess the same
strength? What makes the difference is the strength of the artist
to express his ideas by means of the medium consciously chosen.