Indonesian Contemporary Art and the Development
of Art Infrastructure:
Influences, Appropriations, and Tensions
Rifky Effendy
1.
In the 19th-century Netherlands Indies, a native blue-blooded member of the élite
named Raden Saleh Bustaman was sent to study painting in his dynastic realm,
Amsterdam, by colonial officials. Raden Saleh (1814–1880) was a talented
painter who was highly skilled in painting and copying the Western style. He
was gloriously ‘found’ by A. A. J. Payen, a Belgian painter working
for the Dutch colonial government. For 22 years, Raden Saleh lived and traveled
to the centers of modern European culture: the Netherlands, Italy, Austria,
Germany, and France. There he gained a better and deeper knowledge of the styles
in European paintings, like those created by the romantic artists Delacroix
and Géricault. This, and his encounter with European contemporary art
discourses, brought about some inner tensions within him. Upon his return from
Europe, Raden Saleh became a widely influential artist, also respected by the
European painters living in Java at the time. Many of his paintings decorated
important colonial offices or were in the collections of high officials.
Here I wish to describe briefly — in non-academic
language — the myriad influences in the development
of modern art and its infrastructure in Indonesia. Such development
cannot be separated from its encounter with the Western world,
both through colonialism and the experiences of the pioneering
artists as an initial construction in the development of
awareness of the modern world. Raden Saleh became an early
signpost for the existence of Western-style painting in the
Netherlands Indies, a form of mimicry and an effort of appropriation
on the part of the elite native aristocracy with access to
Western education. During Raden Saleh’s lifetime, the
natives of the colonial land had known many art forms, some
inherited from earlier cultures. These art forms — wood
sculpture, metal crafting, ceramics, batik, etc. — had
undergone many influences from the cultures and religions
of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, which came to the archipelago
from India, Persia, and China. Aesthetically they were quite
sophisticated and merged with the daily lives of the natives,
especially the religious rituals or royal ceremonies of the
archipelago. The influence of the art of painting brought
in by Raden Saleh resided and grew only among the elite,
the communities of the aristocracy and high colonial officials.
Painting was in fact also used in the interests of the scientific
activity or visual documentation conducted by the Dutch of
the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnieen,
United East Asia Companies), and, in the early 17th century,
paintings had been introduced into the archipelago to be
given as presents to the native aristocracy, in an effort
to create and strengthen diplomatic and trade relationships.
As stated by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities,
nationalist consciousness outside Europe, as in Indonesia,
is a fact of universal humanism, transformed ‘naturally’ through
colonial institutions at the end of the 19th century. At
that time colonial institutions had undergone administrative
change and granted access to the modern world to the literate
and bilingual native elites. One must also consider the fact
that travels or ‘pilgrimages’ to the dynastic
realm of the Netherlands became even more frequent, thanks
to improvements in transportation. This, in turn, enabled
the absorption and adoption of modernity into the lives of
the lay public, which in turn created new internal tensions
in the life of the nation.
The ideology of nationalism became a strong impetus for
modern Indonesia in determining its artistic life. This is
especially true for pioneering artists like S. Soedjojono,
Affandi, and many of their colleagues. Such consciousness
became the platform that then produced artists’ groups
who were also involved in the fight for independence. These
artists’ groups differed from the Dutch model of the ‘Kunstkringen.’ In
organizations like PERSAGI (the Group of Indonesian Draughtsmen-Artists),
the public would encounter the publicized political statements
of the artists rather than their search for artistic or aesthetic
values. Technical meticulousness and maturity were no longer
the main focus; more important was emotional expressionism,
which sometimes came to resembled the painterly style of
European expressionists like Van Gogh. The artwork produced
by these organizations served more as a tool to promote the
views of elite nationalists, or even as tools for political
propaganda, which then drew Indonesian modern art into the
praxis of the political arena. With the paradigm of 'Politics
as Commander' promulgated by Soekarno, the leader of Revolution,
artists lived meagerly in groups under the shadow of politicians
or political parties who served as patrons who met their
daily needs. At the time of regime change toward the end
of the '60s, art was came under the stigma of party ideology,
and other artistic ideologies or beliefs were stifled, or
even exterminated.
It was only with the advent of formal art education that
the development of an artist could occur in more organized
and systematic fashion, and in greater numbers. As for scope,
artists were no longer limited to the art of painting. Graphic
art and lithography, sculpture, fiber art, and curricula in
graphic, interior, and industrial design were also introduced.
In formal art institutions, emerging artists could find much
needed information on international developments in art,
especially those originating in the Western world. In the
academic realm students were encouraged to analyze the workings
of art, its stages; they learned how to work with material
and process, with matters of forms and composition. There,
students were also encouraged to explore and experiment,
to develop a critical attitude. Abstraction of form became
the dominant tendency in the works, and they even produced
radical formal abstractions of their own.
A major milestone was the emergence of an art-education
institution in Bandung, a brainchild of the colonial academia
of the 1930s. Its Eurocentric model was different from the
art-education institution in Yogyakarta, where local content
was much more significant, and whose teachers were taken
from the myriad art studios in the town. This difference
became even more pronounced when the seat of government of
the young republic was moved to Yogyakarta. Bandung, as a
colonial town, was relatively free from the pull of the Revolution,
and had an atmosphere of modernity that could accept and
absorb calmly the teachings of the European masters. In 1954,
several painters from the art academy held an exhibition
in Jakarta. There were artists like Ahmad Sadali, But Mochtar,
A. D. Pirous, Mochtar Apin, and Kaboel Suadi. The exhibition
generated strong reaction and criticism from the artists
and art critics of the time. Trisno Soemardjo, a nationalist
artist, reacted even more strongly, declaring that the artists
of the exhibitions had no national identity and were mere
servants of the 'Western Laboratory.'
Debates about this 'National Identity' invariably took place
at every stage of national development. Another typical case
was Soedjojono's strong criticism the painters of the Mooi
Indie style in the 1930s, denouncing them as leaning toward
the West. Such a representation of the 'East'--'West' dichotomy
was vividly demonstrated during the Japanese occupation,
when the Japanese colonial government developed the cultural
institution of Keimin Bunka Shidoso, giving full support
to artists for exploring Eastern identity in their work.
But this attitude on the part of the Nationalists, with its
reluctance to look to the cultures of the past, could obviously
not be restrained as the drums of revolution grew louder
and louder. It was quite different for artists on the island
of Bali, who decided to give ample room to cultural dialogue
in their work. Cross-influence between the cultures of European
visitors and local artists produced imaginative artistic
forms full of surprises. The nurturing of the art world in
Bali, in a more prosperous and comfortable environment, owed
much to the development of its fabled tourism. There the
drums of the Revolution were barely audible.
2.
However, the most recent development in Indonesian contemporary art practice
in has been dominated by artists trained at institutions in Bandung and Yogyakarta.
These institutions were created in the shadow of nationalism, which created
ideological platforms. But the isolation of Indonesian modern art from the
international art circuit is something that must be addressed on a higher
and broader level of discourse. This isolation is mainly due to the slowness
of government art institutions during that time in adapting to change. Those
art institutions have been more focused on protecting the fine arts, especially
ancient art. Other factors are an absence of museums of modern art, an absence
of courses of study that produce art historians or critics and a lack of
art journals that publish historical and critical analyses and essays. Taken
together, all this in turn creates a situation of impotency, where art is
incapable of defining its modernity to a wider public.
The revolt of younger artists, as with the New Art Movement
(Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru, the GSRB) of the early ’70s,
was a clear example of the restlessness of part of these
artists with respect to the status quo in the art sponsored
by governmental and educational institutions. This status
quo was a product of the cultural politics of the Suharto’s
New Order, where the trauma of left-wing art like that espoused
by LEKRA (the People’s Cultural Institution, a cultural
institution of the Indonesian Communist Party) has been kept
alive. LEKRA artists, who dominated the scene from the 1950s
until the ’60s, were then faced with the fact that
the political atmosphere during the Cold War had turned in
the other direction, which tended to stifle artistic creativity.
Much of the work by these artists was destroyed; some was
saved and hidden by supporters. Many of the artists were
marginalized, incarcerated, or even killed; some fled to
other countries. At the same time, many parties (as always)
took advantage of such conditions. One of these was the artists
of the Bandung school, who mostly created artwork tending
to formal and abstracte artistic forms that were considered
neutral.
The Suharto government created many new cultural institutions,
like the Cultural Parks that sprung up in the capital cities
of the 27 provinces, with their headquarters in the office
of the Ministry of Education and Culture in the capital city
of Jakarta. In 1972, Taman Ismail Marzuki or Ismail Marzuki
Cultural Park was built in Jakarta, on land owned previously
by the painter Raden Saleh. The cultural park was intended
as a meeting place for artists from various fields, and also
as a place where these artists could conduct their activities.
There was a performance center, a gallery, and a cinema,
managed by the Jakarta Board of Art under the local government
of Jakarta. This board also funded the activities and the
programs of the cultural park. Nearby, the Jakarta Art Institute
(IKJ) was built to counter-balance the established institutions
of Bandung and Yogyakarta. The Suharto government also created
art-educational institutions more focused on teaching, in
almost all the major cities of Indonesia. North of Jakarta,
in the tourist area of Ancol, the government, in order to
provide a place for studio-based artists, worked together
with business people to develop an art market. All these
cultural institutions were developed in an effort to produce
and nurture certain patterns of art under ‘guided democracy’ Suharto-style,
which then strove to promote official practices of art and
culture. Art forms that were strongly critical or sensationalistic,
portraying the ugliness of the nation or desecrating the
state, or which displayed the social-realist tendencies of
LEKRA or had the ‘potential to divide the unity of
the nation,’ were ignored by the government and tended
to be viewed as marginal by the public.
The members of New Art Movement (GSRB) were of the generation
who first experienced contacts — directly or indirectly — with
contemporary international art movements, especially those
from the United States and Western Europe Pop Art, conceptual
art à la Joseph Beuys, or Fluxus. The members
of this movement had read about the movements in magazines
and books from aboard, whether in libraries or from their
colleagues who had made the 'pilgrimage' or were studying
on scholarships in the art centers of the world. The first
exhibition of the New Art Movement was held in the Ismail
Marzuki Cultural Park in Jakarta in 1974, and was a clear
sign of the societal tensions inherent in the fact that the
culture of the people was in direct opposition to art as
it was regarded in the cold schoolrooms of the elite. The
seepage of mass culture and of cultural and political facts
into the spaces of the elite was represented in installation
works, performance and happening art, and in art using assemblage,
found objects, and mixed media. The subjects of the work
were political power, militarism, the environment, or the
people's woes. The symbols were taken from the ordinary lives
of the people, using photographic realism or borrowing forms
from past cultures or popular local icons. The exhibitions
of the New Art Movement invariably created debate among critics
and art observers, focusing mainly on the attitudes displayed
their work: coarse, vulgar, reckless, not contemplative,
with no cultural roots. The main concern among academics,
on the other hand, was that the atmosphere of the sixties
might come back.
Like many art movements before it, the New Art Movement
disbanded after its last exhibition in 1979. But the discourse
espoused by the Movement created the seeds of change for
later art practice, and for the birth of a new generation,
especially after its members published their manifesto, along
with a collection of their writings in the form of a book.
The movement was born of a cultural elite, but it had at
least made people realize that the highly pluralistic lives
of Indonesians had also created a wide diversity in their
understanding of art. Here was where cultures past and modern,
West and East, were juxtaposed and influenced each other.
The great paradox of the Suharto era was that cultural life
was forced to certify the existence of 'cultural peaks',
while the capitalist economic model had given rise to a myriad
of popular cultures from America, which undermined local
cultures and the Indonesian-ness of people’s lives.
3.
The Indonesian economy sky-rocketed through the '80s until the mid-'90s, and
raised the lives of some to a high social and economic level. Skyscrapers
went up, and the number of luxury urban residential complexes and high-class
shopping malls steadily increased. Along with such growth, the need for luxury
objects like cars and artworks arose, as, on the other hand, poverty became
widespread. There was also a sharp increase in the demand for paintings,
and as a consequence many commercial art galleries sprung up. There was a ‘boom’ in
painting, and the many exhibitions held in commercial galleries in Jakarta
or in high-class hotels seemed to confirm the view that owning an artwork
or painting was now considered a mark of prestige enabling someone to move
up to a higher social level. Many businesspeople started to become interested
in art, especially in painting, to achieve a well-rounded social standing.
Naturally, the kind of painting that grew out of this situation was very
specific, dominated by a formalistic and decorative style. Automatically,
more ‘experimental’ art forms did not receive sufficient appreciation,
and (once again) only lived within academic circles. This atmosphere was
strongly criticized by many, especially by the art critics and academics
who tended to view the market for painting as something negative.
The emergence of 'alternative' spaces began in the nineties.
The existence of art spaces the Cemara 6 Galeri and Galeri
Lontar in Jakarta, Galeri Padi in Bandung, and especially
Galeri Cemeti (currently named Cemeti Art House), born in
1988 in Yogyakarta, have created much-needed space for artists
of various styles and tendencies, and working with painting,
sculpture, mixed-media art, installation work, found objects,
and performance art. Galeri Cemeti functioned as a mediator
between artists and the broader public, whether in Indonesia
or abroad. Cemeti was considered an answer to, or resistance
against, the situation of the boom era that had almost created
stagnation in the development of art, a condition that almost
even spread to the academic sphere. Cemeti has played a significant
role in creating a strong foundation for Indonesian contemporary
art, especially its political art. Criticism, conveyed through
art, of the hegemony of the Suharto regime in power at the
time had been started by young artists like Heri Dono, Marintan
Sirait, Agus Suwage, F. X. Harsono, Arahmaiani, and Tisna
Sanjaya. Furthermore, Cemeti also made a significant contribution
by empowering an art infrastructure, thus enabling serious
discussion about the form of art institutions in Indonesia.
This was done through the creation of the Cemeti Art Foundation
in 1995, an institution active in documenting developments
in Indonesian art; providing information in the form of books
and research; creating artist exchanges (in the form of residency
programs) and workshops; organizing exhibitions of Indonesian
artists abroad; and publishing journals and books. Cemeti
Art House is the brainchild of the artist couple Nindityo
Adipurnomo and Dutch-born Mella Jaarsma, the couple who has
been the motor and brain behind the activities at Cemeti.
After more than 15 years of its existence, Cemeti Art House
has proven that artist-run spaces — which in the beginning
served only a certain community — could influence the
wider art community in its artistic practices. Its influence
could be felt not only in Yogyakarta, but also nationally.
Activities in the Cemeti Art House continuously create dynamic
motion by displaying the latest tendency in art. Cemeti has
even spread an awareness of the need to develop communal
spaces with specific interests to younger artists. All this
was done despite the constant difficulty of finding adequate
financial resources.
The period of the 1980s and '90s was also marked by the
emergence of various foreign cultural institutions, especially
from countries with political and economic interests in Indonesia,
among them the Netherlands (with Erasmus Huis), Germany (with
the Goethe Institut), France (with the Centre Culturel Français),
and Japan (with the Japan Foundation). These cultural institutions
became actively involved in the cultural activities of the
major cities on Java by holding theatrical performances,
exhibitions, or artist exchanges. Their influence was often
obvious, especially among younger artists or art student.
Japan is one of the countries that has paid the most attention
to artistic and cultural life in Indonesia (and even before
independence, through the Keimin Bunka Shidoso). The Japan
Foundation has been actively bringing in traveling exhibitions,
inviting curators from museums or independent curators to
do research or surveys, give talks, or hold workshops. The
Foundation has also been inviting local curators to participate
in their exhibition projects. As an 'agent' of art development
in Southeast Asia, the Japan Foundation plays an important
role in introducing modern Asian art into the international
circuit, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile,
Australia under the leadership of Paul Keating, who brought
in a cultural policy that tended to lean toward Asia, began
to exhibit and collect modern Indonesian and other Asian
art through the Asia-Pacific Art Triennials in 1996, 1999,
and 2001 in the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. Meanwhile,
in the social realm of the art world in Indonesia itself,
this relationship brought forward various opinions, some
of which viewed the Indonesian art exhibitions in Australia
as representing an ‘orientalistic’ point of view.
The discourse developed during these exhibitions focused
more on the post-colonial social and political narratives
of Indonesia, which occurred almost without resistance, rather
than giving birth to a discourse on the development of art
through more constructive platforms. This was especially
true when the political upheavals in Indonesia became the
focus of media attention in Australia.
At the turn of the century, the penetration of information
technology in the lives of the people in major Indonesian
cities has created access to a global network. The cultural
network is accordingly no longer limited to 'official agents'
like the government-run cultural or educational institutions
both of which had dominated cultural promotion during the
'70s and '80s. The global network started by 'marginal' groups
immediately took over as the motor of international art developments,
which now no longer believed in the idea of ‘peaks
of culture,’ as evidenced by the KIAS exhibition in
the United States in 1990–1. Such marginal groups concentrate
more on the contemporary problems of their immediate public,
and are aware of current discourses. Taking advantage of
the Internet, these groups establish contacts with diverse
organizations and individuals, artists or curators, in many
countries. Groups like the Ruangrupa in Jakarta; Mess 56,
Apotik Komik, and Taring Padi in Yogyakarta; the Bandung
Center for New Media Art, Jejaring, and Rumah Proses in Bandung;
and Klinik Seni Taksu in Bali, develop and grow from a network
with more specific and contextual discipline and attitude.
The Ruangrupa group, for instance, has successfully entered
the international network and provides space for artists
in Jakarta who are interested in new-media art. The group
has tried to develop a new platform for supporting the growth
of new-media art on the Indonesian art scene; however, there
are still many doubts as to how they can survive, given their
limited infrastructure and support. So far they live only
on funds from donor countries. There are not many galleries
or art spaces that can provide the necessary infrastructure
or give financial support to such activities. This new generation
of artists are urbanites that have grown up in a time of
major political changes (and economic ruin) in their country.
The air of freedom that they inhale cannot guarantee that
there will be change on the part of government-run art institutions
and their related departments, and in the museum and educational
system. Meanwhile, private museums constructed by senior
artists sprang up in various places, for example the museums
of Nyoman Gunarsa and Neka in Bali; the museums of Widayat
and Affandi in Yogyakarta; or the Barli and Jeihan museums
in Bandung. They often seem not so professionally run and
to have no long-term program, and the public seldom visits
them. This is probably why the latest breed of artist-owned
spaces use young curators and managers to plan and run their
programs. Sometimes even the naming of such places reflects
the progressive stance of the institutions, as with the Selasar
Sunaryo Artspace, owned by the artist Sunaryo, in Bandung,
which has added much color to the Indonesian art scene by
holding curated exhibitions of young artists.
However, there has also been a spread of the symptoms of
neo-liberalism among Indonesian urbanites, as the market
and capitalism become more important pillars. This is more
profoundly felt during today’s enduring economic crisis,
when there has ironically been a second painting boom. It
is probable that economic tycoons will take over and become
the patrons of art. This is apparent in the case of the tobacco
merchant in Magelang, Central Java, who became a major art
collector with a certain power to affect the value of a work
of art and direct the artistic career or development of an
artist. There are other groups that are ‘advantaged’ by
the economic crisis. ‘Connoisseurs,’ which consist
mostly of dealers, often openly use the National Gallery
and the curators as a space of legitimation. There are also
the Pelita Harapan Museum and the Circle Point (CP) Foundation,
founded by Indonesian entrepreneurs with American educations.
These two institutions try to adapt events on the North American
art scene to Indonesia. This is especially true of the institution
founded by Djie Tjian An, who has operated an ‘outlet’ for
Indonesian art through the CP Artspace in Washington, D.
C. since the year 2000. In collaboration with the senior
curator of Indonesia, Jim Supangkat, they held the CP Open
Biennale in the National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, in
2003. The exhibition had an international scope and proved
that such an ambitious contemporary art celebration could
not take place without the involvement of a huge sum of money,
especially when it is organized with the intention to ‘promote’ the
Indonesian art scene abroad, and with the ambition to create
a new platform with a more pluralistic discourse for the
international art scene. The question remains as to whether
the CP Open Biennale can be consistently held and be able
to provide a response to the challenges ahead, as is happening
in Gwangju, South Korea, and Shanghai, China. The problem
is that biennales like these have not been sufficiently appreciated
by the public, in part because of the insufficiency of the
infrastructures, the lack of art management, and insufficient
public education. Such problem have often been encountered
in the organizing of various Indonesian biennales.
4.
Lastly, it is important to stress that Indonesian contemporary art, as a part
of the dynamics of the development of world art, has its own characteristic
way of handling the problems encountered along the journey, as is common
in the different art scenes of developing post-colonial countries. Modern
or contemporary art grows from the social and political construction of the
public and the economy created by people, projected by communities of artists
or the various groups that continually develop their institutions. Although
they no longer invariably copy the development of art infrastructures in
the developed countries, appropriation is continually occurring to find the
best solution for the development of art within the country, and to support
the country’s participation in the broader artistic circuit. |