Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center loses its touch

Yusuf Susilo Hartono, Contributor, Jakarta

Today, Nov. 10, the Taman Ismail Marzuki arts center, better known as TIM, in Cikini, Central Jakarta, celebrates its 33rd anniversary.

Again, the November Festival is being held to mark the event, featuring lectures, exhibitions and performances. The festival will be launched on Saturday with a cultural address by Azyumardi Azra, rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Institute for Islamic Studies in Ciputat.

Today, TIM is not as prestigious as it used to be. There is nothing remarkable about the festival actually. Things were different back in the 1970s when Jakarta was still under the governorship of Ali Sadikin. At that time, arts and cultural events at TIM had wide repercussions for arts and cultural circles across the country. Bright ideas about arts and culture debated at TIM became part of a national discourse, and the echo is still being heard today.

A few examples may serve to illustrate this point. When Yogyakarta-based Rendra's Bengkel Teater performed Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Waiting for Godot at TIM, the performance became the talk of modern drama buffs across the country.

TIM's closed theater also hosted a great discussion on the '66 Generation' in Indonesian literature.

The open theater, located behind the closed theater, large enough to accommodate 3,000 people, was once the venue for the revival of the folk art of Betawi, the indigenous people of Jakarta, including Betawi folk instrumental music gambang kromong and lenong folk theater. Thanks to such performances, these folk art items, then on the brink of extinction, have been able to survive to the present day.

A contemporary dance piece by Sardono W. Kusumo, called Samgita Pancasona, was once performed at TIM's arena theater. It was also in this theater that great names in Indonesian literature, culture and politics, such as Rustam Effendi, Armijn Pane, Hamka, Fuad Hassan, Mohammad Roem and Harry Aveling (then domiciled in Malaysia) gave their lectures. Noted poets like Taufiq Ismail, Sutardji Calzoum Bachri and even German poet Hilda Domein read their verse here too.

The exhibition gallery next to the closed theater once hosted a display of original graphic works by master artist Pablo Picasso. The venue also witnessed scores of exhibitions by famous Indonesian artists such as Affandi, Rusli, Soedjojono, Oesman Effendi, Popo Iskandar, Zaini, Nashar, Sadali and Srihadi Sudharsono.

In short, TIM could then be likened to a mother giving birth to her best children, as well as being considered the home of Indonesian artists.

Unfortunately, some of these "children" have had to leave their home as the arena theater, closed theater, open theater, the Huriah Adam Building, the old exhibition gallery and the art house were all demolished around five years ago and similar buildings have yet to be constructed to take their place. Like it or not, these artists have now made hotels, galleries and cafes their new homes.

The demolition of these historical arts buildings, carried out by none other than the Jakarta administration's cultural agency (then under Azahari Baedlawi) -- obviously with the approval of the director of TIM's management, members of the Jakarta Arts Council (DKJ) executive board, the Jakarta Arts Foundation (YKJ), the Jakarta Academy and Jakarta governor -- has effectively destroyed TIM's prestige. It was widely feared that this demolition was actually closely linked with a plan to convert TIM into a shopping center with the movie theater Studio 21 as the embryo. Thank God that this fear has proven groundless.

The presence of various institutions within TIM should make it stronger. But in reality, the existence of these institutions has led to clashes of interests due to an absence of trust. DKJ accused YKJ of being incapable of raising funds to finance the events at TIM and some DKJ members went so far as to ask for YKJ to be disbanded. Meanwhile, YKJ complained that the programs drawn up by DKJ had few selling points.

Now that TIM is operating under a new management team, assigned to carry out the program drawn up by DKJ, TIM employees unfortunately spend a lot of their time gossiping about new inexperienced people winning strategic positions. Older but experienced employees have been moved to new posts that require them to learn again from scratch.

TIM's anniversary is the right time for related institutions in the arts center to reflect on and reformulate their tasks, in a way that will promote fresh trust and enable them to work together in harmony. The Jakarta administration's cultural agency, which has demolished some of the buildings within TIM, must establish new relations with TIM's recently-appointed management team.

Slamet Sukirnanto, a poet and one-time member of DKJ's executive board who has enjoyed great benefits from TIM, once encouraged DKJ's secretary of the executive board Syahnagra Ismail to "make TIM the mother of artists again and make TIM the house of artists again." Unless efforts towards this goal are implemented immediately, TIM will truly be abandoned for good.

While accepting this suggestion, Syahnagra said that, in future, TIM was intent upon bringing together young artists who displayed potential, while continuing its efforts to develop art appreciation among school students.

Meanwhile, chairwoman of DKJ's executive board, Ratna Riantiarno, said it was necessary for TIM to host international events in drama, literature, dance, music and the fine arts. In recent years, there have not been any great art or cultural events held at TIM, partly because of the demolition of some of its buildings. She added that DKJ was thinking of turning the November Festival into an annual international festival in the future.