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."

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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