Spirit of collective culture represents local arts

By Putu Wirata

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): A recent painting exhibition featuring 135 artists grouped in Sanggar Dewata Indonesia (SDI) spread over five venues in Denpasar and adjacent areas was one of the significant art events on the island in the face of 2000.

The artists' works were on display from Dec. 20, 1999, to Jan. 15, 2000, at Neka Museum, Rudana Museum, Nyoman Gunarsa Museum, Agung Rai Museum and Denpasar Art Center.

The exhibition was proof of SDI's creativity, and what is more important is its significant role in enriching and shaping the Balinese art map.

The SDI art community houses Balinese artists who graduated from and studied at ISI Yogykarta Arts Institute in Yogyakarta. Its activities include painting, dancing, music and theater.

The founders of SDI include senior artists like Made Wianta, Wayan Sika, Pande Gede Supada and Nyoman Gunarsa.

In its so far 25-year existence, Sanggar Dewata Indonesia has grown as a modern banjar (traditional Balinese community), which strongly maintains communalism.

The communal spirit is vividly reflected in the artists' pattern of thinking and, of course, their displayed works.

In Balinese rural areas, banjar communal life and activities have influence over residents. Collective arts have flourished for centuries.

In Bali, there are hundreds and maybe thousands of artists who produce similar kinds of artwork. For example, a talented artist produces a stunning and elaborate duck carving. His business is successful and produces a large amount of money for the artist.

Learning of the artist's success, dozens of sculptors in the village will soon follow the artist's business to produce duck carvings in various forms and qualities.

There is no convention to claim the property and intellectual rights of the pioneer artist who first created the duck carving. In traditional Bali, an artwork is communal art, which belongs to everyone. The creator is anonymous. Those who do not follow this "convention", are required to leave the community.

In Sanggar Dewata Indonesia, the spirit of the collective culture remains very intense.

In Western art terms, their styles resemble abstract expressionism. To laymen, their works may look similar in terms of choosing colors, brush techniques and painting styles.

Bandung-based painter Hardiman said that what is occurring among SDI members is an "eye-to-eye dialog" not "an intellectual dialog".

Young painter Nyoman Masriadi, a student of ISI Yogykarta, presented a distinguished work. He did not apply any of SDI's traditions in blending Balinese tradition and modernity. Instead, he represented all symbols existing in traditional and modern Balinese society; rangda (devilish creature), Batman, greedy investors and various others.

In the late l980s, Made Wianta, who tended to search for self- creativity and individuality, quit SDI to pursue a solo career as one of Bali's famous painters.

Since then, Made Wianta and Nyoman Gunarsa have become symbols of rivalry in the Balinese art map.

Actually, both artists have been involved in ideological conflicts for years. The conflict stemmed from the different perception of SDI's principles. Gunarsa insisted on putting Pancasila, the national ideology, as SDI' ideology and Hinduism as its basic principles.

The reason was practical. During that period, the government (the New Order regime) could easily accuse any organization of violating the law if it refused to apply Pancasila as its ideology.

Wianta, on the other hand, was aghast that SDI could have been used as one of the regime's political wings. Knowing the political culture at that time, Wianta decided to leave SDI.

Cultural and ideological friction between Wianta and Gunarsa have actually enhance the dynamism of art and culture in Bali. So far, their discord has been almost hidden.

Gunarsa seeks for a Balinese visual movement and culture, which he manifests in visual forms that maintain the originality of Balinese elements. Wianta, on the one hand, is obsessed with modernism and universalism, drawing only on values and the spirit of Balinese culture as sources of inspiration in his creations.

Wianta, for instance, will not draw a Balinese dancer or a cremation ritual procession. Yet, he incorporates philosophy, spirit of movement and ritual as potential energy in creating artwork.

In Gunarsa's pieces, one is still able to trace the evolution of pretraditional to posttraditional Bali.

In Wianta's work, there is a vast leap to a contemporary world, leaving tradition behind. Wianta, who lived in Brussels (Belgium) in the late 1970s, returned to his hometown and found an intense interaction between local and foreign cultures.

Concerned over the flood of external influences, then Bali governor the late Ida Bagus Mantra launched a cultural festival called Bali Arts Festival.

The annual festival was originally aimed at providing a proper place for Balinese arts and to shield local culture from external influences. The festival was also intended to enhance pride among the Balinese people of their own art and culture.

Many contemporary painters responded to Mantra's idea. But, they did not want to adhere to all existing traditional elements. What they did was to maximize Balinese visual enchantment, philosophy and values as sources of expression and inspiration. Their break with traditions could be comprehended from different views.

In the l930s, the Pita-Maha (literally Great Spirit, Guiding Inspiration), a society for Balinese artists, was established by German painter Walter Spies, Rudolf Bonnet and Balinese aristocrat Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati from Puri Ubud. The Pita- Maha art society introduced new painting techniques, materials and new themes into Balinese paintings.

Contemporary artists have never had any intention of continuing the Pita-Maha tradition or other styles. Yet, they are reluctant to entirely overpass the visual richness of traditional Balinese arts.

Avant-garde

While Wianta leaps beyond tradition, Gunarsa and other SDI members prefer to undergo a gradual process.

Tradition is respected and questioned at the same time. This is reflected in Nyoman Erawan's Wayang Kamasan (Kamasan puppet) painting. Erawan utilizes the centuries-old Kamasan painting tradition from Klungkung, East Bali, as a source for his collage.

Erawan's collage clearly depicts his intellectual exploration and probing on culture and tradition. According to him, tradition and culture must be dynamic. Erawan believes in the life-cycle concept -- birth, life and death. Art critic Jim Supangkat considers Erawan's works as an Avant Garde of Tradition.

Since the l980s, the works of Wayan Sika, Pande Gede Supada, Made Budhiana, Nyoman Sukari, Putu Sutawijaya, Pande Ketut Taman, Made Supena and many others clearly show the artists' mixed expressions of tradition and modernity; communalism and individualism.

The exhibition by SDI artists portrayed the present Bali filled with modern and Western icons like large-scale holiday resorts, discotheques and a transit area for drug traffickers and an important part of the Balinese art journey.