Semsar takes the system to task in life, art

By Lela E. Madjiah

JAKARTA (JP): I was quite unprepared to see the rented house that well-known sculptor turned painter Semsar Siahaan lives in.

It is a very simple house but with a large garden. The furniture is simple too and limited to a few chairs and a dining table where paint, brushes, books and letters have to make room for coffee mugs, an ashtray and a plate. No sofas in case guests stop by. The living room is dominated by a giant canvas -- a painting of his late son Christo, who died of toxoplasm only 25 hours after he was born last year.

"I'll finish that one of these days," promised Semsar, more to himself.

In the back porch, an empty bird cage suspended from the ceiling looks lonely without its occupant.

"Oh, I used to have a parakeet. I always let it out and it would always return. One day, the jackfruit tree fell and the bird went there for maggots. A cat killed it. I was very sad," said Semsar.

I know there are many artists who live in want, but someone as famous as Semsar? And in this era of commercialization, with everything defined in terms of money?

"Who doesn't want to be rich? It's a matter of how," Semsar explained during an interview with The Jakarta Post.

"If an artist gets rich at the expense of his art, would you call it rich? I don't know. He may be materially rich, but to me, it's an impoverishment of his mentality, his artistry," he argued.

Semsar mentioned I Nyoman Gunarsa, Ida Bagus Made and a number of young artists including Rachmayani, who maintain a balance between their artistic aspirations and their pursuit of financial security.

Semsar also noted artists who strive for moral richness.

"They claim to be this or that, and what happens then is treachery among artists."

"To quote Pram (Pramoedya Ananta Toer), when philosophy and politics are in a deadlock, artists are expected to find the solution. This means artists are actually expected to offer additional (human) values."

"Look at Ida Bagus Made. He could say no to a buyer. To him, his works are more valuable than any amount of money."

But Semsar admits it's hard to be like Ida Bagus Made when one lives in Jakarta.

"The most I can do is live simply. I take orders for illustrations and sell my concepts to ad agencies," said Semsar, who turned 43 on June 11. "Sometimes people buy my paintings, but I don't have a house and live meagerly though so far I manage."

The problem is, Semsar never puts any prices on his works. "I sometimes sell them at a price worth some paint or the rent."

His friends often laugh at him for selling at low prices, saying that for a painter as famous as Dede Eri Supria, his works should fetch more.

"I don't know the criteria for expensive," said Semsar, the second of six children who wanted to become an artist since he was a kid.

He could cooperate with the flourishing galleries in the city.

"I haven't thought of that, haven't seen what good it would do me. Unless they are willing to buy anything I make, which is unlikely. Who would buy my works and place them in their living rooms? They would feel uncomfortable," Semsar mused.

Human struggle

Sure they would, at least those seeking plain beauty in a painting.

For Semsar has not changed.

His earlier paintings focus on his outrage at a situation in which a huge number of people live in ignorance and poverty while those who have the ability to change the situation exploit it.

His still unfinished painting of his son -- Homage to Christo's Mother -- is also about pain, this time his own. In Homage, Semsar tries to describe the drama surrounding his son's death: the baby in a glass box with a large oxygen tube looming in the foreground, his wife next to the box with her hair standing, apparently in outrage, a group of people in anguish in the background. All speak of the pain Semsar still feels to this day.

As an admirer of German artist Kathe Kollwitz, Semsar is strongly influenced by her dramatic black and white descriptions of human struggling, anger and suffering. Like Kollwitz, he deals in pain and outrage.

"For me, beauty is everything that happens to human beings that is captured by an artist and which he expresses in symbols, new ideas -- complete with suffering, joy and the human struggle for life," said Semsar.

Also like Kollwitz, Semsar is obsessed with human struggle.

"Life in the army barracks brought me close to people who had to struggle to survive," said Semsar, whose late father was a major general in the army.

That's why the Non-Aligned Movement Exhibition was important to Semsar because it presented interesting works of developing nations which are struggling against the cultures of the North with their capital and mass media.

"Unfortunately, no one is interested in discussing the works," sighed Semsar.

The fact also illustrates that Indonesia lacks good art- critics.

"There is no one like (the late) Sanento Yuliman. The critics we have today serve more like brokers for certain galleries. This has resulted in artists commenting on the works of other artists. It is the duty of critics to comment on an artist's works so that artists can concentrate on creating," said Semsar, who also admires Hendra Gunawan and Van Gogh.

The lack of good critics, combined with the lack of media which provide information on art, has also resulted in a poor public appreciation of art works, he said.

"What publications we have focus more on literary works. Which is a pity, because the public is curious to know. Take the Non- Aligned Movement exhibition. Those who came included students and laborers. They wanted to know."

Semsar's participation in the Non-Aligned Movement Exhibition caused quite a controversy among artists. There were rumors that he was not going to join the exhibition, though he did in the end.

"What we need to realize is that it provides a forum for artists to express themselves and their works are autonomous and speak for themselves," explained Semsar.

He pointed to I Nyoman Erawan's work, which he said was a very strong statement, depicting the social condition of Balinese fishermen who have been displaced by the tourism industry.

Semsar also questions the claims by other foreign artists participating in the Non-Aligned movement Exhibition that their works are rooted in their (cultural) tradition.

"Is that so? Many of the countries are like Indonesia, where urbanization has uprooted people from their tradition, forcing them to work as laborers. What kind of a culture is that?" asked Semsar.

Semsar's concern for the exploitative use of the term traditional goes back to the years he spent as a fine arts student at the Bandung Institute of Technology. He was an angry artist and still is. His anger is strongly reflected in his works, although he hasn't used fire for quite some time.

In a controversial "artistic statement" back in 1981, he set fire to a sculpture by Sunaryo, his lecturer at ITB.

"Actually I did not set fire (to Sunaryo's work), it was only a technique," he argued. "I was doing to him what he did to the people of Irian."

To Semsar, Sunaryo's Citra Irian dalam Torso was an exploitation of traditional (Irianese) art. Sunaryo, he contended, "took advantage" of Irianese strokes for his work.

"Why couldn't I do the same to his work? All I did was use fire. Technically I set fire to his work which I used in my work, entitled Oleh-oleh Dari Desa II. It was a strong (statement) because it sacrificed another person's work. My work was an exploitation of Sunaryo's exploitation of the works of the Irianese works. It was no more than a game of statements," Semsar explained.

Semsar believes that the exploitation of traditional art and artists will continue as long as there is no equal distribution of wealth among and within nations.

"The art institutes could help change the situation by providing training to local artisans from the country's 27 provinces and once they complete their training, they can be expected to set up workshops and disseminate their knowledge and skills," he said.

The incident concerning Sunaryo's work cost Semsar a lot, although he was aware of the risk he faced. He was suspended for two years and finally expelled from one of the country's most prestigious universities.

Another blow came from home, where he was labeled the "failed son". He left home and lived on his own -- desperately -- until he eventually held his first solo exhibition in 1988.

Again, he "played" with fire and burned his 250 black and white drawings in Bandung at the close of a five-city "liberation art" exhibition tour of Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Salatiga, Surakarta and Bandung.

He then explained that the destruction of his works by fire was meant to express the return of production of art works to the original spirit of creation. "This is a necessary step to be taken for the sake of the artist, the community and upcoming artists."

Last year he planned to hold an exhibition called Belantara Jakarta, though it never materialized.

"It was my reaction to the art-enter-gallery trend, the trend of art works entering the financial game," he explained.

"It's as if there is this norm that certain esthetic values are salable. Quite a lot of artists are trapped into that game, selling certain colors, textures and techniques have simply become cosmetics."

However, Semsar admitted that the galleries mushrooming around town act as a bridge between art with the public. It is unfortunate that the audience is very limited and their motivation is mostly commercial.

"Through Belantara Jakarta, I wanted to return art to the community, to everyday's life, to record social and human activities on the street, in the suburbs, in the city center; the frictions among people. I wanted to portray them in black and white pictures, going around the city in a spiral, blow up the pictures for the exhibition. That was my plan," Semsar said.

He never had the chance to realize his Belantara Jakarta. On June 27, 1994, he was hospitalized after his leg was broken by the police during a demonstration against the banning of the Tempo, DeTik and Editor weeklies.

"Then this French photographer, Herv Dangla, visited me at the hospital to take my picture for his photo exhibition. I told him about Belantara Jakarta, which apparently startled him. He asked if he could use it, and I said 'Let's talk about it later'. But he never returned. One day I got an invitation to his exhibition entitled Belantara Jakarta. I was very disappointed. As an artist, we have to be honest," said Semsar.

The day before the exhibition Semsar asked Dangla to explain to the audience that the theme was his, but all Dangla did was to explain that Semsar would use the theme for his paintings.

"That was funny. He was not being honest," said Semsar, whose late father taught him that honesty is all important.

As if that was not enough, a few days before our interview a friend of his came and told him Dangla was planning to publish a book about his Belantara Jakarta exhibition and asked if Semsar had any objections to that.

"I don't understand. He was here, and he didn't come to see me and ask for himself. Foreigners are like that, they act as they like," said a furious Semsar.

Politics

Semsar's latest fury concerns the label people put on him. Earlier this year a colleague asked him to co-stage an exhibition and contacted the Jakarta Arts Council. Somebody there asked why he wanted to hold an exhibition with Semsar. "He is not a painter, he is not an artist, he's a politician," was the comment.

"I'm an artist, not a politician," stressed Semsar. He is still trying to find out who started spreading the nasty rumor.

"I cannot play politics. Politicians play with their logic, we artists play with our conscience. Politics is a strategy of building power while I'm not trying to build power. I'm talking about conscience," he argued.

It was not the first time Semsar was denied a chance to display his works. In the early 1980s, the rector of the Jakarta Arts Institute refused to issue him a permit for an exhibition.

"He said my works were uneducative and vulgar, that I was bringing an uprising to the campus, and because I had not settled my problems with ITB," Semsar recalled.

But such a ban will not stop him from showing his works.

"I can hold an exhibition anywhere, and if they don't allow me to, I will ask for the reasons," said a determined Semsar.

It's true that he used to be active in a number of non- government organizations and has produced a number of political posters, including one of Marsinah, the labor activist murdered in 1993.

An artist, he pointed out, cannot be separated from politics because people are inseparable from their socio-political environment.

"There's no other place like Indonesia," said Semsar, who spent long years abroad, including in Beograd as a child where his father was military attache at the Indonesian embassy. "I love this country, because we have our own culture and the people are nice. The problem is, why isn't there justice? People pay taxes, but there is no democracy," said Semsar to explain his involvement in political activities.

However, he stressed that as an artist he tries to always be free from any political influences.

"My own works are based on my socio-political experience, my problems with my family, the environment, God. In my own work, I try to be as pure as possible. I am not restricted by the political messages of the NGOs I am involved with. My poster of Marsinah and the struggle of Indonesian laborers, for example, are political works. Like other propaganda works, they serve a purpose, which is to bring forth the labor problems."

Semsar is still limping as a result of last year's beating, but it's not the wound which has made him decide to concentrate on his artistic life.

"I'm 43 now and it's my wish to hold as many solo exhibitions as possible before I turn 50," he said.

Semsar is far from being docile and it is not his style to keep silent.

"Wait until my exhibition next year," he warned.