Taring Padi: Yogyakarta artists steal attention in Germany
Taring Padi: Yogyakarta artists steal attention in Germany
Christina Schott, Contributor, Dresden, Germany
Sometimes reaching 10 degrees below, the city of Dresden is not
really comfortable on winter days.
But at Kunsthaus, an urban museum for modern art in the
historical heart of the city, visitors will find the Unbekannte
Schwester, unbekannter Bruder (Unknown Sister, Unknown Brother)
exhibition in an open-air courtyard slightly covered with snow.
The works by artists' group Taring Padi from Yogyakarta were
simply too big to be displayed inside the small rooms of the
historical building: A huge 4 x 7 meter banner with the title
Pengungsi (Refugees) covers one outside wall, guarded by six
oversize modern wayang (puppets) made out of carton and wooden
sticks.
"Absolutely no problem," Taring Padi member Dodi Irwandi, who
represented the group at the opening, said of the exhibiting
arrangement.
"Our works are prepared to be shown in an open space, since we
always try to bring our art to the people on the street."
Kunsthaus Dresden looked for contemporary artists all over the
world whose work deals with visuals and traditions of a socialist
past in their countries.
The original plan of the exhibition was to provide a reminder
of the socialist realist path that many Germans prefer to shut
out of their minds. Yet Germany is not the only country with a
socialist history, and Dresden also invited artists from the
former Eastern bloc countries, Latin America and Asia.
"Our focus lies not on a historical or politically correct
assignment in dealing with the past, but much more on a lively
and critical confrontation with those decades from the perception
of our present," museum director Christiane Mennicke wrote in her
introduction to the exhibition.
The curator from western Germany first thought of getting
artists from China, Cambodia or Vietnam, for few Europeans know
that Indonesia had the second largest communist party prior to
1965, or what happened to its members after the abortive coup
blamed on the party.
Mennicke also was surprised that the best Asian match for her
concept was Indonesia.
"I was fascinated by the mirror effect of the same problem:
While in the former East Germany, socialist symbolism in arts was
ordered from above, it was a taboo in Indonesia. So Indonesian
artists nowadays use those symbols to express freedom, while many
Germans feel the same as oppression," the curator said.
Taring Padi, an independent organization of young artists from
the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta, expresses
opposition to art as art doctrine through state and private
institutions, the common practice during the New Order regime.
The group instead seeks to rebuild a people's culture, and
therefore emphasizes its social commitment and the importance of
siding with the people.
To express its ideas, Taring Padi's works often deal with
socialist items and symbols that were forbidden for decades under
authoritarian rule.
"Nevertheless, we don't see this as socialist symbolism,
although a lot of people might interpret it that way," Dodi said.
"We understand ourselves to be strong supporters of a people-
oriented democracy and just look for a way to create
consciousness by art as a media born out of the society itself."
In Dresden, their posters, banners and wayang shadow puppets
-- often used during demonstrations at the height of the reform
movement in the late 1990s -- line up among other works from
international artists, all very different in their realization
but still with a similar background or motivation.
Berlin-based Florian Zeyfang, for example, worked out a study
of the gigantic fresco Portrait of America by Mexican star artist
Diego Rivera. The 97 repro-photos prove the tension between the
individual and the historical movement, as well as the class,
race and ethnic conflicts on the American continent that Rivera
expressed in its original 21 panels.
Literally in the opposite room, Margit Czenki from Hamburg
presents her extensive research on another Mexican artist
Siqueiro, who might be called Rivera's antagonist.
Beside some other works on murals, such as ones by Goranka
Matic from Belgrade and Stefan Klotz who worked for a long time
in Nicaragua, the exhibition shows several experimental mixed
media projects. American Janet Grau interviewed people while
showing them artworks from the former German Democratic Republic
that are now stored in archives and almost forgotten.
The visitor only hears and sees the reactions and expressions
of the interviewed people, while the paintings stay hidden behind
the camera.
Another ambitious project is the STAFETA pilot: Students from
the Dresden Academy of Arts started exploring the consciousness
of East and West Germans from their different pasts, and the
consequences of being a reunited people, from the perspectives of
cultural life and arts. The idea is a work constantly in
progress, so that the "Stafeta", or baton in a relay race, can be
given to other students from other art academies and continued.
Although there might be parallels between the single works at
the Dresden exhibition, Taring Padi is by far the most exotic.
All the visitors stumble over the protest puppets as they cross
the courtyard to enter the museum.
"We chose wayang (shadow puppet play) as a media, because they
easily motivate Indonesian people to interact. Those huge puppets
reflect our traditional culture, but since we painted them with
realistic motives we still could express contemporary problems,"
Dodi explained.
Also in Germany the wayang puppets found big interest. During
a workshop with Taring Padi, German artists tried to use the
media to transfer actual problems of the German society.
"They are really fascinating," Florian Zeyfang said. "What I
learned here about Indonesia makes me curious to go there."
i-BOX:
Unbekannte Schwester, Unbekannter Bruder exhibition
From Jan. 22 to Feb. 28, 2004
Kunsthaus Dresden
Raehnitzgasse 8
01097 Dresden
Germany
Tel. +49-351-8041-456
www.kunsthausdresden.de