Yusra Martunus attempts to 'soften' the 'hard'

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

The horseshoes in Yusra Martunus' work Melunakan Keras (Softening the Hard) attract attention, but not because of their symbolic association with luck.

Rather, the horseshoes draw attention because of their repetitive arrangement in seemingly redundant rows that traverse the entire canvas.

In the CP Open Biennale currently on show at the National Gallery, the work hangs among other works that rouse the viewer's interest, and the casual visitor just might pass it by, dismissing the piece as something anyone could create.

On the other hand, an attentive viewer might stop and wonder about the patience of the artist in arranging the numerous objects in monotonous rows that seem meaningless at first glance.

For Yusra Martunus, it is the act of "making the hard softer" that counts. The official English translation of the title, Bending the Hard, may thus be somewhat misleading, as "bending" can denote the use of force against a resisting object, something contrary to what the artist actually had in mind.

Martunus says that the malleability of metal can be a metaphor for anything in life. Suggesting an application of this concept, he said, for example, that acts of violence need not necessarily be countered by violence, that there is no point in countering hardness with hardness.

On a more intimate level, melunakan keras may also denote the softening of a stony heart.

Generally, metal is seen as a hard material and is thus commonly used as a metaphor for strength.

For Martunus, however, metal is his metaphorical outlet, one that allows him to comment on daily events, to express his feelings about his likes and dislikes.

Translating this concept into his creations, Martunus uses aluminum as his basic media, making use of the metal's reflective quality to create an optical effect that seems to morph the longer a viewer stands, gazing at the work.

While the horseshoes may appear repetitive, a closer look will reveal the difference, however subtle, that marks each horseshoe because "it has to do with Rasa", or the sense each viewer draws from the work, as suggested by its title. To cast the horseshoes, Martunus made a clay model, which was then cast by a professional caster under his direction.

Rasa leads the CP Biennale with 200 horseshoes arranged on the wall of the National Gallery, inviting visitors to draw an individualized perception from each of the metaphorical pieces on display.

The artist submitted a similar piece to the Indonesian ASEAN Art Awards, formerly called the Philip Morris Art Awards, organized by the Indonesian Fine Arts Foundation (YSRI) to support the development of contemporary Indonesian art.

Meanwhile, Martunus' Kerasan Mencair (Melting Down) has been selected as one of five pieces to represent Indonesia in the regional competition next year, composed of 200 pieces of a metalloidal metaphor for tears, arranged on a panel.

Martunus, 30, was born in Padang Panjang, and began his explorations into allegorical art in a manner akin to his theme -- not by direct resistance against his parents' wishes that he enter university, but by finding an alternative route.

"I wasn't up to listening to theories and even less to theoretical thinking," he explained. So he entered art school to avoid that all, and to his surprise, he found that he liked it -- although he could not avoid theories altogether.

Since graduating from the Indonesian Fine Arts Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta in 2000, Martunus' artistic interpretations of metal have been widely displayed in various joint exhibitions.

At this stage, his pieces are restricted to metal that has been shaped, or cast. It will certainly be interesting to trace the journey of his future explorations to see whether he delves into the different forms of metal -- liquid, raw ore -- and how he transforms these into his own metaphorical expression.