The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

Making Ripples and Catching Waves: The Context of Indonesian Contemporary Art Timothy Morrell During the last fifty years the world has observed the rise to the forefront of international industry of several countries lying north of Australia. Lagging slightly behind astute global financiers, curators from Europe, the United States and Australia have begun to participate in the lively activity occurring in the contemporary art of these countries. Now is a particularly eventful time to be observing this phenomenon in Indonesia, where the momentum of economic and cultural developments are in the most intense phase of the process. Projects like the Asia-Pacific Triennial are riding the crest of a wave of exciting new art. Indonesia is a vast country, a chain of islands which extends about as far from east to west as Australia does. It is populated with more than ten times as many people as Australia and combines extremely diverse cultures. It also combines ancient traditions with relatively recent nationhood (having united to become one nation after World War II). The scale and complexity are difficult for a foreigner to comprehend. Yet despite all this, Indonesians have a much more clear-cut understanding of their historic culture, national potential, aspirations and dissensions than Australians do of theirs. It is a country currently undergoing profound and rapid changes, and the exhilaration (or shock) of these changes has galvanised people into holding strong ideas and beliefs. Contemporary art reflects this, as it does nearby in The Philippines and in Thailand. In several countries in the South-East Asian region, tight, centralised political power has been the means by which elaborately burgeoning growth is controlled. A comparable situation may be discerned in contemporary art, often accompanied by ripples of protest from artists, who either resist what they see as excessive social and artistic control, or, in some cases, deliberately work outside the main metropolitan centre. In Indonesia, traditional art forms are widely practised by artists who may also, simultaneously, create a totally different body of work in a contem– porary manner. This ability to think and work in (at least) two quite different ways corresponds with the ability of Indonesian people to operate in at least two different languages. Bahasa Indonesia, the national language, is based on Malay and was introduced after national unification.There is also a local language in each region, and it is normal for people to speak both. Being able to alternate smoothly and easily between the roles of citizen of a modern cosmopolitan nation and a member of a traditional local community is a fact of life in Indonesia today. I was fortunate enough to make two visits specifically to research contemporary Indonesian art for this exhibition, and a third visit to attend a conference of speakers from the Non-Aligned countries (the official Third World) in Jakarta. In effect, although I met over seventy artists to see and discuss their work, it was only possible to achieve a very restricted view of the great breadth of Indonesian art. In the process of meeting, and learning from, artists, dealers, critics, lecturers and students I visited Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Denpasar and Ubud. With the exception of the last two places (which are very familiar to the many Australian visitors to Bali), these are all cities on the island of Java. This focus was guided by the Indonesian advisers: Professor Soedarso in Yogyakarta and Jim Supangkat in Jakarta. Their authoritative knowledge of Indonesian and international art, both historical and contemporary, provided the cultural context within which we worked. All the Indonesian artists included in this exhibition are from Java, and in fact, they all live and work in the first three cities mentioned.The tight centralised focus on Java, which exists not only in the arts but in commerce and industry, is controversial and there is an official policy of aiming to reduce it. Contemporary art in Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta currently dominates the attention of critics and curators from Indonesia as well as from other countries. A particular benefit of the follow-on from the first to the second Triennial has been the strengthening relationship with art schools in these cities. This is helping to develop a sense of international communication among the artists of the future. Each of these three cities has a very specific identity. Jakarta, the political capital, is also the powerhouse of Indonesia's booming corporate economy. The largest and most fashionable art dealer galleries are there.They sell big, expensive, often abstract paintings to corporations for their elegant glass and marble offices.There are also rich private collectors, often expatriates or visitors from Malaysia, Singapore or Hong Kong. Modernist art in Jakarta can therefore be aligned with Indonesia's modernisation in industry. Post-modern reactions against this have frequently taken the form of stridently political art. Foreign curators, especially from countries where controversy in contemporary art is expected and even cultivated, are attracted to works of art in this category. Yet disruptive controversy is not a normal part of Indonesian culture (nor does it sit comfortably with the social customs of many Asian countries). Agus Suwage, the one artist in this exhibition currently living in Jakarta, often sets up a contrast between the systematic bleakness of a modern industrialised world and the more humane realm of ancient tradition and folk art. Jakarta is, in many ways, a city on the boil, and the opportunity to hear artists speak there provided a wealth of information, not just about contemporary 52 I CURAT o RI AL ESSAYS : SOUTH A ND sou T H- EA s T ASI A art, but its relationship to contemporary society. Last year, at an independent, collective arts studio in Jakarta, several other foreigners and I were able to listen to the fiercely articulate debate (in English out of polite deference to us) among a large gathering of artists. In such a situation it is possible to see with clarity the dilemma of whether contemporary art serves foreign or local agendas. Bandung, only 150 kilometres to the south-east, is much smaller and quieter. It is to some extent a university town, and the Department of Fine Art at the distinguished and very beautiful Bandung Institute of Technolog/ is, therefore, strongly influential on the local art. The history and theory of art (both the Indonesian and European traditions) are taught with particular emphasis. Bandung is, in fact, a major industrial centre, but the evidence of this is kept out of sight of the elegant nineteenth and twentieth-century heart, which has the atmos– phere.of a city where intellectual discussion and contemplation can develop more sedately, without the distractions of the political and business activity (as well as the tangled traffic and hectic construction) which dominate the national capital. Art in Bandung is likely to be based more on theory, as can be seen in the work of Marintan Sirait and Arahmaiani, the two Bandung artists in this exhibition, who are conspicuously familiar with developments in contemporary European and American art. Yogyakarta is the ancient centre of classical Javanese culture. An old city of narrow streets and walled compounds, Yogyakarta has either resisted or been overlooked by the dramatic industrialisation elsewhere in Indonesia. In visual art too, it contrasts with Jakarta and may perhaps be viewed as a cultural antidote to that city and everything it represents in modern Indonesia.The acknowledgment of tra– ditional sources has developed in the contemporary art of Yogyakarta and can be seen in the work of Nindityo Adipurnomo and Anusapati. The exuberant embrace of traditional popular culture by some artists there is a defiant rejection of international style, the multinational corporate image. When attending Unity in Diversity, the Contemporary Art of the Non-Aligned Countries Conference in Jakarta in April 1995, I felt that one issue seemed to unify the extremely diverse countries participating. It was the belief that regional cultural identity is threatened by international style. The irony within this situation, however, is that local contemporary art buyers often look more to a 'glamorous' international style than to the deliberately ethnic– looking work which attracts the admiration of inter– national curators. Thai curator Apinan Poshyananda described how artists are tempted to make their work look ethnic to attract the interest of foreigners organising international projects. The situation of