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.