The battles of Indonesia's struggling artists

By Sarah Murray

JAKARTA (JP): "Can you explain the Indonesian art market to me? The price structure seems so crazy!" an art lover, collector, and American Fulbright scholar asked the other day when he learned I was in the process of studying the contemporary Indonesian fine arts world. So ask many foreign and local collectors, art dealers, artists, and I'm sure the staff at Christie's Auction House, soon to open their first branch office in Jakarta.

"How much are you asking for your works?" a friend of mine asked artist Hafid Alibasyah, whose joint show with sculptor Yana W.S. opened on June 8, and will run until July 30, at the Koi Gallery and Restaurant in South Jakarta. The prices he gave were extremely low, and my friend berated him for asking so little.

"You ask for that, and when people want to bargain, where do you go?" she asked. "You're good, Hafid, don't underestimate your value."

These two encounters, at opposite ends of the art world social spectrum -- the collector and the creator -- reflect the missing link in the Indonesian modern art world: a well-developed gallery world, with owners who are not only knowledgeable about the art market, but help create a stable and rational market. One result is that struggling but talented artists like Hafid find it difficult to enter the art world, build relationships with collectors, and earn a reasonable income from their art. Another is that collectors become frustrated, and some may be reluctant to buy because the prices make no sense to them.

Galleries have sprung up like mushrooms in Jakarta and the Ubud area of Bali since the worldwide "boom" in the art market began in the mid-1980s. The Ubud area boasts over 100 galleries, while the Jakarta Yellow Pages lists 50, which is only likely to include the largest, most successful, and/or most serious. However, even though the boom is over and, in general, prices in the Southeast Asian region have stabilized, the Indonesian market remains unpredictable and volatile.

One reason for this is that many artists witnessed the crazily high prices that some works commanded in the 1980s -- prices as high as Rp 45 million or Rp 50 million (US$20,000 to $22,500 ) -- and said to themselves, "Why not? I'm a great artist too. Okay, so I'm only 24 and have never had a major show. But I'll ask Rp 45 million."

Another reason is that there are a few extremely wealthy collectors, who will chase the works they want, regardless of price, and distort the market upwards. This happened, for example, at a recent auction of Indonesian art at Christie's in Singapore, where a few wealthy bidders drove the prices for such works as a rare Raden Saleh far higher than Christie's expected, bidding Jakarta gallery owners and more modest collectors out of the running.

The reverse is also true -- many collectors, though wealthy, always push for a bargain and pressure artists to lower their prices. Artists, who often need money for basic necessities and materials to create more works, and may not be inclined toward business, accept lower prices out of desperation.

However, a fourth, and key, reason why prices are so unstable is that many gallery owners act more as commodity brokers, rather than retail service providers, who help build the market they service. One serious gallery owner, striving to change this, speaks with impatience and some scorn about gallery owners he describes as "frame-makers and shop owners", who sell art just as they would shoes or rice cookers.

Serious galleries

This man is not the only gallery owner working to improve the conditions of the market. A small number of serious galleries exist in Jakarta and Bali, which include the Koi Gallery, where Hafid will exhibit. Andi's Gallery, Edwin's Gallery and Oet's Gallery in Jakarta, along with artist Teguh Ostenrik's gallery, and the Bamboo Gallery in Ubud are also in this class.

Cemeti Gallery in Yogyakarta, run by artists Nindityo Aripurnama and Mella Jaarsma, is also an important venue for contemporary art. However, even these dealers find it difficult to maintain consistent standards, as they too depend on the vagaries of a confusing and chaotic art market and art world, with artists often unwilling to enter into exclusive contracts with dealers because they are suspicious of dealers' motives.

A gallery showing is the intersection between the worlds of the commercial dealer, the artist, the collector, and others -- friends of the artist, critics, art students and fellow artists. It is also the point where idealism meets the market, and the quest for aesthetic form and visual expression end in a price tag that sums up, in a crude way, the "meaning" of the work.

Hafid, like many artists, is anxious when he has to confront this world, where art meets money. He doesn't have a contract with Koi, so this exhibition is a one-time opportunity he must grab. He is already 40 years old and has worked in the shadows for twenty years, developing his art while waiting for an opportunity to break into the higher ranks.

He is more concerned with finding people who appreciate his work, rather than thinking about financial details. He is unsure how to price his works, a task that in most European and North American galleries is the responsibility of the gallery owner. Part of what a gallery owner gets paid for, in the 40 percent cut she or he receives, is to know the local and national markets and establish prices for an artist's work that reasonably compensate the artist, help the work find the right buyers, and slowly establishes the artist's reputation and career.

However, here in Indonesia it is more common for artists to be asked to price their own works. In such cases, the gallery owner provides the space, the printing and mailing of invitations, food and drink for the opening, staff, and other services connected with selling the work. However, as any marketing executive knows, pricing is a key part of selling anything.

Why? Because pricing (even for what we think of as basic commodities such as water or food) is not an "objective" phenomenon. It is a complex symbolic statement, that carries a lot of information about the piece it is attached to. In the case of artworks, this symbolic dimension of pricing is perhaps easier to see than in the case of other material goods, since the artwork itself is a symbolic object without direct use value.

What kind of information is contained in the price?

In a stable, well-developed art market, the price of a contemporary artist's work reflects the artist's age and stature in the art world; the number of solo shows the artist has had; the strength of collector interest; the type and cost of materials the artist uses; critical evaluations of the artist's work; and the target audience of the work, at least as perceived by the artist and/or the gallery owner. If it is work is seen as appealing to a more wealthy clientele, the price will likely be higher.

It also reflects the prices the artist's earlier works have received, as well as the prices of works by other artists of comparable age and stature, who work in similar styles and media. There is also an hierarchy of media in the painting world, with oil paintings commanding the highest prices, acrylics slightly less, pastels and drawings least of all. There isn't an exact formula for pricing, but the factors involved are well established in European and North American galleries.

However, in Indonesia, like in most Asian countries, the institutions that support the pricing strategies of European and North American galleries are either poorly developed or non- existent. Prices of works are often prominently displayed or available in price lists, but finding out the actual price a work commands is more difficult.

Criticism is still in its infancy, as is the history of contemporary art, so there are not many critical evaluations of an artist's work to help build an audience and create an artist's reputation. Solo shows share the general tendency for gallery shows here to be very short, which means they don't allow enough time for collectors' interest to grow. With post and delivery services often being unreliable, invitations may not arrive until after an exhibition is over.

Collectors are often uneducated about how to appreciate and interpret works. This can all be summed up by saying that, while the history of modern art in Indonesia is already quite long, the roots of modern art are still shallow in the soil of Indonesian society. As in so many other areas of business and social life here, the art world relies not on formal institutions, formal education, and written evaluations, but informal family and friendship connections, self-education, and word-of-mouth. This means that art has not yet emerged as a truly public phenomenon.

For an artist like Hafid, who does not have well-placed connections, and lacks a powerful sponsor or patron, it means he must struggle to make a place for himself as an artist. He supports himself by running a graphic design business from a small room he rents in a house on the edge of Jakarta, teaching at the Jakarta Institute of the Arts (receiving the notoriously small salary of a teacher), and taking whatever other commercial work comes along.

For example, he joined the team of artists that painted the extensive murals decorating the Hard Rock Cafe in Jakarta, a very big job indeed. He also accepted a commission to produce, to specification, a large number of paintings to decorate a large new hotel. The painting is piecework and must be done quickly to meet the tight schedule of the investors.

His show at the Koi Gallery is his first major opportunity to establish himself a a serious artist, an opportunity he has awaited for years. Will he succeed? Only time will tell. What is certain is that Hafid's position is not unique. While many artists and collectors may lament the commercialization of art, and hate the intertwining of art and money, the reality of modern art is that without a stable market and regular routes of entry for new artists, the life of the artist will remain difficult.