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.