RI's art market based on ignorance, greed
RI's art market based on ignorance, greed
In this second of two articles, Dr. Astri Wright, PhD discusses
the roots and consequences of art theft in Indonesia.
VICTORIA, Canada (JP): Unlike older centers for modern art,
such as those in Europe and America, Indonesia's art market
(through galleries and auctions) is the dominant institution in
the art world and operates on a basis which combines artistic
ignorance and profit-making desire.
How could this be different?
In the "old modern world", another institution shares the
power and the authority with the art market, which indeed makes
the art market possible. This is the institution of art
history/art criticism. Sometimes these two institutions are
pitted against each other in controversy, but more often they
collaborate, even existing in a very close symbiosis. In fact,
even though they have different goals and agendas, the "number
two" (art market) generally listens to "number one" (art
history/criticism), as will be explained below.
Historically, the European art market in the "pre-modern
world", came into being just a few horse-lengths behind the dawn
of art history as a discipline. From the beginning, the two have
been closely associated, though the actors in one have often
despised the actors and values in the other. This is a strained
marriage, similarly to how the symbiosis -- the relationship of
mutual need -- between artists and art historians/critics has
been strained.
Strained or not, art historical analysis has laid the
foundations for the monetary values placed on art. The art market
in the "old modern world" has based its initial prices and
marketing activities on the documented art historical facts and
analyses of individual artists and their work. This is the only
way that art can become an area for investment that carries any
guarantees or security. The scholarly and well researched
catalogs of Sotheby's and Christie's demonstrate this.
This is the partnership that Indonesia is lacking: here, there
is no solid tradition of knowledge and practice in art history
and art criticism. In Indonesia, the "number two" (the art
market), which cannot be properly born without its mother,
"number one" (art history/criticism), is ruling the art world
alone. This rule is very problematic because any value attached
to art works by people who are mainly businesspeople, who do not
have the necessary art-related authority and insight, is merely
speculative.
This serves only to fill the pockets of the sellers of art and
does a disservice to collectors who are relying on their advice.
People who invest in art in this kind of climate risk making
very bad investments and losing lots of money that could be
better used elsewhere. If one is going to spend money in ways
which may not yield any return, money which may need to be
written off as loss a few years down the road, then donating it
to social projects for poverty, health and literacy would have
more far-reaching effects. In a climate like the present art
market in Indonesia (and elsewhere in Southeast Asia) the best
advice one can give to collectors who buy 90 percent of the art
that is up for sale is, only buy what you like and do not hope or
expect that there will be any financial gain from this.
If collectors face serious investment risks, buying art
legally on the market, how much more risk is at hand for thieves
of art? As to the question of who they are, some general
conclusions can now be drawn on this matter.
Why steal art?
If certain parties steal Raden Saleh paintings from
Indonesia's national collections in Jakarta and Bogor, steal
Kartika paintings from the Affandi Museum storage unit in
Yogyakarta, and steal paintings from the private home and gallery
of the late Sudjana Kerton in Bandung, clearly they cannot
possibly be poor people looking for a way to feed their families
and give their children an education.
This is an area of criminal behavior that requires
considerable expertise, familiarity with the modern art world
(still an elite and upper middle class arena), and connections.
It also requires considerable financial resources and the ability
to muster transportation and crews, also of the kind that are
willing and able to undertake smuggling across international
borders.
In addition to the resources needed to be an art thief, this
person or persons unfortunately suffer the misperception that
stealing art and reselling it, anonymously, in a different place
than where it was stolen, can be a successful and lucrative
business in the long run. However, in an age where information
traverses the globe instantaneously through fax machines and the
Internet, where images can be transmitted in a second, and where
larger networks of people are communicating than ever before, how
do art thieves think that their attempts to resell the works will
not be discovered or at least aborted?
Since by now the whole art world, both above ground and
underground, knows that 19 of Sudjana Kerton's paintings were
stolen on the night of Feb. 2, from Sanggar Luhur (Illustrious
Studio) on Bukit Dago in Bandung, who is going to risk buying
them and displaying them in their homes or offices, with their
original name still showing? On the other hand, if the original
name is erased off the canvases, what small worth will they be,
without any place in art historical record, since it is the name
of the artist that ensures the financial value of a piece?
Another factor of hope to the violated artist and his family
is that these paintings had just been extremely well documented,
photographically, in the past year during the preparations for
the large retrospective exhibition of Sudjana Kerton's work held
in Jakarta at the National Gallery in November and December 1996.
It will be no problem at all to verify the identity of the
originals when they are recovered somewhere, either in Indonesia,
in Singapore, or elsewhere where the modern international art
world spreads its tentacles.
But perhaps they have been stolen because the criminal master-
mind behind the actual thieves plans to use them as models for
the forgery industry which has been developing alongside the art
market in the last 10 years.
However, also such a forgery venture is doomed to fail after a
short period of time, because the choices made by one person
attempting to copy the work of another, no matter how skilled he
or she is, are always somewhat different than those of the
original creator. It may be a matter of a nuance in color; the
brand of paint used; the type of canvas used; the way the canvas
was assembled, stretched or framed; the juxtaposition of colors,
or forms, ideas in the composition; or any number of other tiny
details and features.
The experienced eye by someone trained in art history can pick
up these signs and read them like a kind of script. Traveling
around Jakarta in 1994, for example, I believe I saw nearly as
many fake Hendra Gunawan paintings as real, authentic ones.
However, to my eye, which has studied Hendra's work for 10 years
now, the fakes were clearly weaker in a number of significant
ways not, it seems, apparent to the owners of the works.
In an age where photography has reached such superior levels
of sharpness and detail, and where the ouevres of artists are
being documented by the artists, their families, or art
researchers, and where there are art historians and other
connoisseurs who have the trained eye who can verify whether or
not an unknown work is a fake or an original, it is a mystery how
the art thieves think they will be able to turn over their stolen
merchandise successfully.
The problem as well as the advantage of art thieves in
Indonesia or Southeast Asia at present is that hardly anyone,
whether thieves or proclaimed experts, have good enough art
historical training to authenticate art works by artists who have
passed away. However, this situation is beginning to change in
ways that will make it harder for forgers and art thieves to be
successful.
Expertise
In Indonesia, art auctions and galleries began to multiply
quickly in the late 1980s before there was any broader
understanding of the principles and practice of art history or of
art criticism.
It is still not possible to get a PhD in art history in
Indonesia, and only a few people -- like the late Sanento Yuliman
(Bandung Institute of Technology, or ITB), Hildawati Soemantri
(Jakarta Art Institute, or IKJ), and Dwi Marianto (Indonesian Art
Institute, or ISI) -- have pursued PhD degrees in art history
abroad. A small number have pursued MA studies in art history,
either at Indonesian institutions like IKJ or abroad; but an MA
is only the very beginning level of the expertise needed to be
able to create the necessary frameworks of knowledge for art
markets to develop in reasonable ways.
Furthermore, because there is still little appreciation in
Indonesian art circles for the importance of such training,
people like those mentioned above do not receive the time,
resources or technical support they need to continue their
research and writing and to start educating museum people,
gallery owners, collectors, and publishers.
The few curators and critics in Indonesia, foremost among whom
can be mentioned is Jim Supangkat, are for the most part former
artists with strong intellectual gifts who are self-taught in art
history. They work extremely hard with no secure income and
without having had the opportunity to immerse themselves in
reading and thinking in good libraries for any extended period of
time. Because there are so few of them, they are increasingly
overworked by national and international demands. This is
especially true in the last six years as modern Asian art
in the last seven years has become increasingly popular
internationally.
Meanwhile, in the midst of all the art exhibition and
publishing activity, Indonesia's art market and artists and
collectors continue to suffer.
If "art historical knowledge" represents the horse that pulls
the carriage called the "art market", then at present, in
Indonesia, the carriage has been put in front of the horse,
resulting in chaos and no possibility for progress. Things have
to be rethought; funding and the will to promote the development
of "the horse" must be found. If it is not being offered from the
government, then it will need to come from the private sector. If
all the actors in the art world, particularly the market side of
it, were to stop and think for a moment, and think in a more long
term perspective, for a moment, it would become clear that all
the different parties concerned -- artists, art writers,
curators, collectors, and art sellers -- stand to gain from art
being taken seriously and studied deeply.
No one in the art world benefits from a climate where theft
and forgery is possible. Until there are enough trained experts
around (people who are driven by disinterested motives rather
than the desire to sell their expertise to the highest bidder),
the only way to combat this is to enhance communication between
all parties and join ranks to ensure that the turnover of stolen
art works becomes exceedingly difficult and the chances of being
caught are increased.
Art collectors should not buy any Raden Salehs or Sudjana
Kertons that appear on the market in the next few years, pending
necessary advice from a competent institution. The advice should
come from a not-for-profit, well-funded research center in
Jakarta, with branches in all of Indonesia's major regions,
staffed by people with the best training available
internationally and the resources to undertake the most high-
quality research, nationally.
Hopefully we will be able to find such a center listed in
Jakarta's yellow pages very soon. In addition to their more
short-lived fame as successful entrepreneurs and self-made
millionaires, the sponsors of such a center will go down in
cultural, national and international history as truly refined and
well-rounded human beings.
Window: No one in the art world benefits from a climate where
theft and forgery is possible. Until there are enough trained
experts around, the only way to combat this is to enhance
communication between all parties and join ranks to ensure that
the turnover of stolen art works becomes exeedingly difficult and
the chamnces of being caught are increased.