Yogyakarta a hotbed for artistic talent

By R. Fadjri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The passage of time can soften the most rigid of opinions.

A magazine recently published a photograph of painter Hardi in front of his work, Jendralnya Jendral (The General of Generals), clearly an admiring portrait of President Soeharto, the nation's ruler for 30 years.

What a contrast to October 1979, when Hardi showed his impatience for a new leader in Kandidat President Tahun 2001 (Presidential Candidate for 2001).

This was a montage of 21 photographs of himself dressed in a general's uniform bedecked with medals, the same attire of Soeharto in Jendralnya Jendral.

Both works have political slants, but the ways in which they are conveyed make a world of difference.

The graduate of the Indonesian Fine Arts Academy (ASRI) in this city may get money for Jendralnya Jendral, but Kandidat President Tahun 2001 merely led to police questioning.

Hardi's generation of artists is defined by its political awareness, and many of their works are vehicles of social protest.

In perhaps their most notorious act of rebellion, they bucked the modern fine arts establishment during the biennial art show at Taman Ismail Marzuki in 1974, a politically charged year.

In a statement called Black December, Unlimited Discourse, 13 signatories derided the artworks in the exhibition as decorative, consumerist pieces. They urged a relaxing of the boundaries of modernism in art to embrace experimental works.

Several ASRI Yogyakarta students, including F.X. Harsono, Bonyong Munie Ardhie, Ris Purwana and Sity Adiyati, were actively involved, both in creating the concept and organizing exhibitions, in what became known as the New Fine Arts Movement.

Acceptance of their aims was not always forthcoming. ASRI director Abas Alibasyah expelled four students who signed the statement and dismissed a lecturer who defended them.

In Yogyakarta, many students supported the movement. Exhibitions were organized despite threats of sanctions. Agus T. Goenawan, one exhibition participant, was expelled from ASRI.

These repressive measures did not stop students from arranging exhibitions and discussions on their belief that rigid compartmentalization of the arts was outdated.

Efforts to block them were not limited to the campus administration. Police closed the exhibition Seni Kepribadian Apa (What is Art's Identity?) at Galeri Seni Sono in Yogyakarta on Sept. 1, 1977 after it had been open for two days.

ASRI students -- including such famous names today as realist painter Dedi Eri Supriya, art critic Gendut Riyanto and Sawung Jabo -- composed the most participants in the show, a daring collaboration of fine arts, music, literature and "happening" art.

Even the exhibition's title was a parody of the concept of Kepribadian Nasional, or national identity, which was a compulsory component in cultural expression at the time.

But the movement's thesis of antiuniversalism and its championing of the validity of experimental art as a medium of expression gave birth to an antithesis -- commercial art -- which peaked in the 1980s with a boom in painting.

Of course, not all ASRI students were swept away by the current of commercialization. Commercial art itself resulted in an antithesis which was experimental in nature.

ASRI students of the 1980s inherited the ideas of the New Fine Arts Movement, including the openness to contemporary fine arts. Heri Dono, Dadang Christanto, Eddy Hara and Nindityo Adipurnomo emerged in the mid 1980s. Contact with European and American artists brought them to an international arena.

Their enthusiasm was supported by the establishment of a small gallery, Galeri Cemeti, in 1986 as an exhibition venue for young artists, who ordinarily would not have the funding to show their works. They emphatically rejected the modernist fine arts of Widayat, Fadjar Sidik, Nyoman Gunarsa and other ASRI teachers.

But experimental works had no place at official arts events like the Yogyakarta Painting Biennial and the Yogyakarta Arts Festival. Frustration at this alienation reached its peak during the third painting biennial in Yogyakarta in 1992.

Dadang Christanto invited many young professional artists from the fine arts, music and theater to arrange a rival exhibition. They gave it the sarcastic title Binal Experimental Arts, binal being Indonesian for rebellious or wild.

"The binal exhibition was not a form of expression of people with a grudge, but instead it indicated an awareness of pluralism in arts and celebrated differences," Dadang said.

The exhibition lived up to its name. Students hung their paintings on the ceiling of a railway station, or performed in train cars. Heri Dono showed his Kuda Binal (Wild Horse) in the northern square of the Yogyakarta palace.

Sculptor Hedy Haryanto displayed Teror Produk (Product of Terror) -- the facade of a house covered in product wrapping paper -- in a densely populated area. Eddy Hara changed his home into an exhibition hall.

Dadang and Harry Wahyu displayed their installation work in the Seni Sono building which was about to be demolished, in conjunction with an experimental music show by Joseph Purba.

Perhaps due to the slight political content of the exhibition, no artists were called in by the police. Even the organizers of the biennial exhibition appreciated the show. Not surprisingly, mixed media and installation arts were accommodated along with the painting biennial two years later.

The binal activists have gone international today.

Heri Dono holds exhibitions abroad at least four or five times a year, as do Dadang Christanto and Eddy Hara. All three are often invited abroad and they spend most of their time preparing works.

This has been to the detriment of the art discourse.

What developed on the arts front was conventional and tended to be decorative in a naive or expressive style. Young artists like Faizal, Erica and Bunga Jeruk, inspired by the naive themes of Eddy Hara, emerged.

The expressive style is characteristic of paintings by Entang Wiharso and Nasirun. Before their 30th birthdays, they obtained extraordinary material success -- cars, a house, cellular phones -- which was at odds with the usual modest lifestyles of Yogyakarta artists.

Although Yogyakarta was not a traditional art market, painting sales in Jakarta and Bali encouraged local artists.

Despite the sweet rewards of business, there has emerged a new crop of young artists. Turning their backs on what "sells", they are involved in exploring caricatures, murals and drawing.

It is clear these three have no market, and could even be termed "antimarket".

While the 1980s' generation was apolitical, works of contemporary artists contain heavier political content. They describe real situations in the community through a potent pop art style. Idioms of mass culture become their mode of expression although they dismiss the importance of materialism in their artistic lives.

Once again, the art dialectic has surfaced in Yogyakarta. Many would argue that it is this distinction which continues the city's reputation as a hotbed of artistic expression.