Shul: Int'l experiment in installation and performance art

By Jean Couteau

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): A challenging art experiment took place in Bali (from April 6 to April 26 at Sika Gallery and April 9 to April 23 at Gallery Sembilan): Shul, an international art event by contemporary installation and performance artists. With Shul, a Tibetan name for "imprint", Bali seems finally to be coming to age as a platform of international art.

This was not the first time "international" encounters have taken place on the island. Until recently, however, the word "international" had, with regard to Bali, a connotation ill- suited to the taste and action of contemporary artists. History weighed heavily in the matter.

When Western artists settled in Bali in the 1930s it was, "in the best case", to "teach the locals": Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet "creating" the Pita Maha school of village artists in Ubud. In the worst case, the Westerners fulfilled their exotic dreams and sexual fantasies -- the effete boys and bare-breasted women of international fame.

Some even married their models: Tarzan, Tintin and Gauguin among the natives! And the myth is alas still alive! In the 1990s at last, things started changing a little. "Cosmopolitan" artists came to the island to create works beyond exotica, and some started communicating on a equal footing with Balinese/Indonesian partners.

A new mentality emerged. With many ups and downs, it is this tendency which is now coming to fruition with the holding of Shul: an artist event, the first installation show really created in Bali "by artists", "for artists", in an atmosphere bereft of the ambiguities of tourism and aimed at exposing the real problems of the world. As the conceivers of Shul, motored by Victoria Cattoni and Wayan Karja, announce in their manifesto: "With Shul, we hope that as artists we can position ourselves to be sensitive to the cultural, local, political shifts, however small, and to find some new ground upon which to work artistically and create a shared field of activity and dialogue."

They add that "it is our hope that Shul will set a precedent for future collaborative installation projects in Bali, bringing together artists from all backgrounds to explore new media and concepts".

In the original concept, all the artists -- Wayan Karja (Bali), the Sudamala Group (Bali), Victoria Cattoni (Australia), Midori Hirota (Japan), Agoes Jolly (Jakarta), Michael Pinsky (Scotland), Pande Ketut Taman (Bali), Hendrawan Riyanto (Java), Cipung (Java) and Sigitas Staniunas (Lithuania) -- were to arrive at least two weeks ahead of the event and create their works in a collaborative exchange of ideas and materials.

This collaboration, however, didn't really materialize as the budget, mostly self-financed by the artists, didn't allow for such spare time. But the result achieved was nevertheless impressive.

On the opening night at Sika Gallery, two performances drew the most attention.

Hendrawan Riyanto and Cipung, sitting in front of a panel drawn with colored lines representing the waves and feelings of life, launched themselves into a long ritual wail calling down among the humans, in sounds derived from the wayang puppet master, the outer forces of the world.

Another impressive performance was Agoes Jolly's. Enmeshed in a net full of fish, he slow shuffled forward, half-dancing half- walking, in front of an imaginary outrigger made of colored planks. A dramatic fisherman, he performed the slow upcoming end of all sea life.

Victorial Cattoni provided the counterpoint to this dramatization of the social. In slow, controlled gestures, repetitively folding a kebaya (Indonesian blouse) and imprinting floral patterns onto the ground, she underlined the ritualistic role of the ordinary in life and ipso facto, enhanced it with a poetic dimension.

On the poetic, meditative side was also a painting/installation by the young Balinese painter Wayan Karja. His work, made in collaboration with Hendrawan Riyanto, represented an abstract version of the Balinese cosmic wheel or Pangider-ider: a flat monochrome amber surface, with barely drawn separations symbolizing the Pangider-ider. At the foot of the painting, two Cili-shaped wooden pieces (symbols of the goddess of rice) added an ecological connotation.

The last installation, by Pande Ketut Taman, was a flock of wooden ducks accompanied by a clattering sound: the squeaking of the ducks, real and symbolical. All in all, a very good show, although in a somewhat cramped space.

The second evening, three days later at Gallery Sembilan, was no less interesting.

Michael Pinsky presented a video criticism of the invasion of daily life by all sorts of means of transportation: from stalls on wheels to motorbikes, cars and trucks. By shooting his film in exactly the same spot and shifting the images inside this natural "stage", he skillfully managed to create on the screen the impression of a continuum of vehicles.

Midori Hirota exhibited a tall, phallic shaped "pottery" symbolizing both the cosmic mountain and the "Babel tower", common home of modern Man. The Sudamala Group, founded by students from the Denpasar ASTI School of Art, presented several meshed wire figures in the throes of pain as their bodies are transpierced by iron rods. Much of the attention of the public, however, was caught by the multiple shows -- performance, installation, paintings -- of Sigitas Staniunas.

His installation was a teepee made from local material. His paintings featured eerily, outlandish romantic women in the mood of the early 1800s. As for his installation, held under the vrooming noise of helicopters, it represented the release of balloons from the head of a youth and finished with a shadow map of Indonesia. Indonesia's fate in a few images and gestures.

More could, and perhaps should be said of all these performances and installations, now completed by a program of seminars and artist forum encounters. But a general conclusion has to be drawn.

Considering that these artists were brought together to Bali without consideration of religion, nationality or political ideology, one cannot but be happily surprised by what their encounter has revealed. All these young men and women, be they British, Japanese, Lithuanian or, of course, Indonesian, speak about the same things: the balance of Man and Nature, human brotherhood and peace. They are a ray of hope.

This is why, considering also the quality of the works and performances presented, a single question has now to be answered: when Shul II? Both Bali and Indonesia need a few more breezes of fresh air.

The writer is an art critic and curator based in Denpasar