Indonesia - Almanac - Art Asia Pacific

Indonesia

Official Country Name

republic of indonesia Languages

bahasa indonesia Population

255,993,674 Median Age

29.9

GDP Per Capita

US $11,000

Source: CIA World Factbook

Total Value of Art Exported (UN Comtrade Database 2014)

us $9,592,392 Arts Funding

(Creative Economy)

US $76,459,504 Art Programs

The Republic of Indonesia is the largest economy in Southeast Asia.

Dispersed across an archipelago spanning 5,000 kilometers, the Muslim-majority nation has significant Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities, more than 300 ethnicities and over 700 languages. Artist communities are found mainly in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Bandung, as well as on the island of Bali, where Hinduism is the main religion. The nation has an abundance of young practitioners, although the art market remains a luxury pursuit for the elite.

The Indonesian government plays a minor but growing role in the arts. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism oversees the Galeri Nasional Indonesia (National Gallery of Indonesia). Apart from the permanent exhibition of its own collection of modernist and contemporary art, the museum hosts temporary contemporary art exhibitions such as the one for two contemporary sculptors, Entang Wiharso and Sally Smart (1/14–2/1). The National Gallery made headlines with the exhibition “17/71: Painting the Struggles of Independence” (8/2–30), which displayed for the first time to the public 28 works from the presidential collection begun by independence leader Sukarno. It also mounted a retrospective exhibition (3/31–4/10) of painter and printmaker Haryadi Suadi (1938–2016) that included work by his children, Radi Arwinda and Risa Astrini.

The National Gallery hosted two festivals: the SEA+ Triennale, “Encounter: Art From Different Lands” (10/18–11/10), which included 44 artists from 12 countries and

was curated by Rizki A. Zaelani, A. Rikrik Kusmara and Asikin Hasan; and the Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale (JCCB), titled “Ways of Clay: Perspectives Toward the Future” (12/7–1/22/17). The JCCB is an initiative by Bandung-based curators Asmudjo Jono Irianto and Rifky Effendy.

C o-funded by BEKRAF, a government agency to promote the creative industry, the Indonesian Contemporary Art and Design exhibition was established in 2009.

Its 2016 edition (10/7–12/7) was curated by Hafiz Rancajale and featured new projects by artists including collective Tromarama, in collaboration with an old furniture shop, and a mural by Eko Nugroho. Fringe events included seminars, workshops and film screenings.

R OH Projects, established in 2012, held a solo show of Syagini Ratna Wulan’s “Spectral Fiction” (4/30–5/24) curated by Agung Hujatnikajennong. The group show in collaboration with Silverlens Gallery of Manila, “Understand, Utilise, Uplift” (8/4–28), with three artists working with modes of abstaction and opacity—Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo, Patricia Perez Eustaquio and Maria Taniguchi—was curated by artist Gary-Ross Pastrana. Across the street, in Pacific Place mall, ROH staged a takeover of the Galeries Lafayette department store (8/1–31) and organized a pop-up show titled “Alhamdulillah, We Made It” (8/4–28) for Yogyakarta-based contemporary art photography collective Ruang MES56. ROH Projects also hosts noncommercial shows, such as “Unsung Museum” (9/17–10/8), curated by Grace Samboh, which dissected censorship in contemporary art after the presidency of Suharto.

O ther galleries in the city include the budding Ruci Art Space, which focused mostly on solo exhibitions, such as

(University Level)

5

Student Enrollment

N/A

Source: AAP (non-official)

Museums Exhibiting Contemporary Art

7

Contemporary Art Galleries (Commercial)

59

Contemporary Art Spaces (Nonprofit)

66

Art Foundations (NGO + Private)

18

Source: AAP (non-official)

Acknowledgment: Mella Jaarsma

126

TIMOTEUS ANGGAWAN KUSNO, The Old Man Who Exchange Memory, 2016, performance by Rendra Bagus Pamungkas, part of the work Memory Exchange Service, 2016, mixed-media installation, dimensions variable. Courtesy Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta. | ALMANAC 2017 | vol. XII

contemporary art photographer Anton Ismael’s “Rumah” (4/1–5/15), curated by Ade Darmawan. DiaLoGue Art Space—its name a portmanteau of the Indonesian words for he or she, you and I—hosts regular workshops, seminars and exhibitions, including “Out of Joint” (3/16–4/10) by Yogyakarta-based printmaking collective Krack Studio, which was founded by Prihatmoko Moki, Rudi Hermawan and Malcolm Smith. The art space also hosted the fifth edition of “Exi(s)t,” initiated by FX Harsono to support young Jakarta-based artists. Its resultant exhibition was titled “Bodies of Land Surrounded by Water” (12/11–12), and was curated by Mitha Budhyarto and Athina Dinda Ibrahim.

O ther Jakarta galleries hold intermittent temporary exhibitions; these include Edwin’s Gallery, D’Gallery, Galeri Canna, Vivi Yip Art Room, Rachel Gallery, North Art Space and Nadi Gallery, which is operated out of the home of its owner, the architect Biantoro Santoso.

August was the month for art fairs in Jakarta, with the inaugural Art Stage Jakarta (8/5–7) and eighth Bazaar Art Jakarta (8/25–28). Both fairs were organized in ballrooms of five-star hotels in South Jakarta. With plenty of art collectors and a healthy art market in Indonesia, the proximate timing created good momentum for sales at both fairs.

Jakarta maintains high commercial rent, so the city has few alternative art spaces, though some manage to thrive. The Ade Darmawan-directed art organization Ruangrupa operates Ruru Gallery, which organized “Gl/tch Project” (4/7–8) to discuss artists’ distortion of digital data. Arcolabs staged the pop-up show “Visualizing the Invisible” (8/31–9/6) in the Pacific Place shopping mall, curated by Jeong-Ok Jeon. On its own premises, Sally Texania curated a show of Arcolabs resident and Bandung-based performance artist and painter Aliansyah Caniago, titled “The Sky Is Portable” (12/8–1/15/17). Suar Art Space offered its venue to young painter Galih Sakti for his first solo show, “Dimulai Dari Akhir (Beginning of the End)” (11/19–26).

With an energetic community of artists, artist collectives, artist-run spaces and commercial galleries, Yogyakarta is the cultural heartland of Indonesia. Home to the prestigious Indonesian Institute of the Arts, the city lures budding talent who often stay on after graduation because studio rent is far cheaper than in Jakarta.

The Jogja National Museum hosts artist residencies and a range of film and visual art events, and is one of the main venues of the Jogja Biennale Equator. In 2016, for the first time, the museum hosted the popular ArtJog art fair, which in previous years was held at the Taman Budaya Yogyakarta gallery. Yogyakarta welcomed the ninth

SOSOK TEDDY DARMAWAN, Midnight Act #2, 2010, mixed media, 80 × 100 × 20 cm. Courtesy Sin Sin Fine Art, Hong Kong.

edition of this popular boutique art fair, titled “Universal Influence” (5/27–6/27); there were no booths, and the new venue’s open format facilitated selfies with the artworks on display. At the opening, a moment of silence was observed for the death of S. Teddy Darmawan, who passed away on May 27. Sin Sin Fine Art, in Hong Kong, later organized a tribute show (7/7–18) for the upbeat experimental artist.

Yogyakarta’s perennial center of activity is Cemeti Art House, founded in 1988 by artists Mella Jaarsma and Nindityo Adipurnomo. It appointed Sanne Oorthuizen as its new co-chief curator in October, and will continue to host residencies, talks and exhibitions. Cemeti’s offshoot, the Indonesian Visual Art Archive is a research center directed by Christy Mahanani. Prolific young artist Timoteus

SYAGINI RATNA WULAN, 64 inch 16 - 9 (detail), 2016, epoxy resin and lacquer, 120 x 65 x 1.5 cm. Courtesy ROH Projects, Jakarta.

Countries

Anggawan Kusno and Australia-born Tony Albert were Cemeti’s artists-in-residence in 2016, under a program called “Kerjasama #3,” which placed the duo in Alice Springs, Australia, then Yogyakarta.

With support from Yogyakarta’s Langgeng Art Foundation and Singapore’s National Arts Council, Cemeti and Kedai Kebun Forum collaborated with photography collective Ruang MES56 on the exhibition “Concept Context Contestation: Art and the Collective in Southeast Asia” (8/21–9/21), curated by Iola Lenzi (Singapore), Agung Hujatnikajennong (Indonesia) and Vipash Purichanont (Thailand).

O pened in 1996, the artist-run alternative space Kedai Kebun Forum’s café is where Yogyakarta’s artists, curators, critics and collectors gather and deliberate.

Another notable alternative art space in Yogyakarta is Lir Space, co-founded by Mira Asriningtyas and Dito Yuwono, who is a member of the artist collective Ruang MES56. In May, Lir Space organized the critical yet playfully performative exhibition on food and art, “The Observant Club’s Fine (Art) Dining” (5/24–6/7), by Mella Jaarsma, Agung Kurniawan and Alfin Agnuba.

Yogyakarta’s primary commercial space is Ark Galerie, which is directed by curator Alia Swastika. The gallery hosted Melati Suryodarmo’s durational performance and installation exhibition, “Amnesia” (5/25–6/18). Jogja Contemporary, located at the Jogja National Museum Complex, was founded by Malaysian Valentine Willie but is now operated by Rismilliana Wijayanti. Utilizing the art shop concept, Jogja Contemporary organized “@jogjacontemporary” (5/24–7/30), a show with mini-exhibitions staged by Lir Space and Solo’s Ruang Atas Alternatif Space.

In Solo is the international performance art festival Undisclosed Territory (11/29–12/4), which is run by performance 127

Installation view of ADE DARMAWAN’s “Magic Centre” at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2016. Photo by Peter Cox. Courtesy Van Abbemuseum.

artist Melati Suryodarmo and had its tenth edition. Neighboring Semarang Gallery participated in Art Stage Jakarta with the creations of six artists, including Bestrizal Besta and M Irfan.

Like Yogyakarta, Bandung has many nonprofit spaces. The city is home to the Faculty of Fine Art and Design at the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB), popular among young artists and curators pursuing conceptual and theoretical practices. Soemardja Gallery on ITB’s campus gallery was dormant for most of the year due to renovations.

Established in 1998 by an ITB graduate, the eponymous Selasar Sunaryo Art Space organizes biannual exhibitions under its Bandung New Emergence program to showcase and support young artists; its sixth edition was titled “Listen!” (11/18–12/9), curated by the musician and graphic designer Bob Edrian, who did extensive research on sound art. Across the street from Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, its founder created a permanent sculpture garden called Wot Batu (“stone bridge”).

N uArt Sculpture Park was founded by another ITB graduate, Nyoman Nuarta.

Apart from the permanent exhibition of Nuarta’s works, NuArt hosts temporary art exhibitions, dance performances and movie screenings. Lawangwangi Creative Space hosted Irwan Bagja Dermawan’s exhibition “Aerial View of a Playful Mind” (10/7–11/6), curated by Heru Hikayat. The Bandung art scene also includes artist- and curator-run initiatives Platform3, Ruang Gerilya, Ruang Depan S.14 and Omni Space.

Three hours’ drive from Bandung is the village Jatiwangi, home to Jatiwangi 128

Art Factory, which hosts exhibitions and residencies, including those for the Jakarta Contemporary Ceramics Biennale.

Bali’s contemporary art galleries were quiet in 2016. Art collective Ketemu Project Space organized an exhibition at Sudakara Art Space titled “Celebrating Murni” (7/16–9/18) to commemorate the influential late artist I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih (1966–2006), also known as Murni. The exhibition showed her body of work about sexuality and gender issues alongside creations by international contemporary artists.

I ndonesian artists were present at many exhibitions and biennials in Asia.

Mella Jaarsma and FX Harsono showed installations in the 20th Biennale of Sydney (3/18–6/5). Ade Darmawan participated in the Gwangju Biennale (9/2–11/6) and he joined his contemporaries Agan Harahap, Made Djirna, Made Wianta, Melati Suryodarmo and Titarubi in showing at the Singapore Biennale (10/27–2/26/17). Also in Singapore, Yogyakarta-based Jompet Kuswidananto exhibited installations about Indonesian postcolonial political and performance history at the art space Jendela (10/14–1/2/17). Earlier, Sydney’s Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation had displayed a newly commissioned multimedia piece by Jompet about mass hysteria, “After Voices” (6/24–9/10), with Alia Swastika as the curator.

F urther afield, Christine Ay Tjoe showed new abstract paintings at White Cube gallery in London (7/13–9/11). The quadrennial outdoor art event Sonsbeek, held in the eastern Dutch city of Arnhem, was curated by Ruangrupa and titled “Transaction” (6/4–9/18). Indonesian artists | ALMANAC 2017 | vol. XII

who showed work around Sonsbeek were Eko Prawoto, Jatiwangi Art Factory, Agung Kurniawan, Cut and Rescue, Marishka Soekarna and Iswanto Hartono. Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Tromarama made their European institution debut with a solo show at Stedelijk Museum (6/12–9/6). Later Bandung-based Agung Hujatnikajennong co-curated an exhibition for the KoneksiConnectie initiative, which looks at Indonesian-Dutch relations, at the Nieuw Dakota art space. Titled “Rethinking Home” (9/11–10/10) it included works by artists Ade Darmawan, Agung Kurniawan, FX Harsono, Prilla Tania and Tintin Wulia. Darmawan’s project about an Indonesian publishing house in the 1960s named “Magic Center” was displayed in Eindhoven at the Van Abbemuseum where it is now part of the collection (9/17–1/22/17).

L ooking ahead, 2017 promises to be another good year for Indonesia. The Lawangwangi Creative Space will organize the fifth edition of the Bandung Contemporary Art Awards for emerging Indonesian artists. After taking over the Jakarta Biennale from the Jakarta Arts Council, Ruangrupa created the Jakarta Biennale Foundation and successfully organized the 2015 edition; preparations for 2017 are underway. The Jogja Biennale is also on course. Jakarta will again host two art fairs, with one more in Yogyakarta.

The Southeast Asian art world anticipates the opening of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, with Aaron Seeto as the newly named director.

Tintin Wulia has been commissioned to create work for the 57th Venice Biennale, which opens in May. Roy Voragen

The July 2015 agreement between six nations and Iran over its nuclear

Iran

Official Country Name

islamic republic of iran Languages

persian

Population

82,801,633 Median Age

29.4

GDP Per Capita

US $17,300

Source: CIA World Factbook

Total Value of Art Exported (UN Comtrade Database 2011)

N/A

Arts Funding

N/A

Art Programs

(University Level)

program and the lifting of many international sanctions were supposed to empower President Hassan Rouhani and more moderate factions within the Islamic Republic of Iran. Instead, revanchists in the security forces and judiciary have resisted liberalizing reforms. While the government discusses deals with megacorporations such as Boeing and Airbus, numerous Iranian businesspeople with dual citizenship have been arrested in 2016 on vague charges. One prisoner for the duration of the nuclear accord’s negotiation was the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian, who was released in January after spending 544 days in the infamous Evin Prison, where political prisoners and intellectuals are incarcerated. Four months later, young artist Atena Farghadani was released from the same facility after serving 18 months of a nearly 13-year sentence. But then in July, airport officials barred famed sculptor Parviz Tanavoli from leaving the country to attend a talk at the British Museum in London—supposedly because of a personal dispute.

With many of the sanctions lifted, 2016 had looked like a promising year to build cultural relations. In May, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which manages Berlin’s state museums, announced it had secured a deal to bring approximately 60 rarely displayed Western artworks and their Iranian counterparts from the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) to Berlin’s

Gemäldegalerie in December and then to the MAXXI in Rome in early 2017. However, the deal fell apart later in the year, following the resignation of the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ali Jannati, in October.

Several prominent figures in the Iranian art scene and even TMoCA staff members reportedly circulated their convictions that secret deals had been signed to keep the works in European collections after their display. On November 21, the current Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Reza Salehi-Amiri said that the loans had been halted, even though German officials claimed the display has been rescheduled for January 2017. Suspicion over the fate of the TMoCA collection follows a recommendation in April from Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance that TMoCA itself be privatized, by handing it over to the Roudaki Foundation, which runs the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. A campaign by the museum’s supporters had similarly stalled that effort.

Under director Majid Mollanoroozi, TMoCA organized on several bold initiatives in its galleries. Belgian sculptor Wim Delvoye held a monographic exhibition at TMoCA of his provocative works mixing traditional motifs and contemporary materials (3/7–5/13). Later in the year, Tehran’s Mohsen Gallery and the Sharjahbased Barjeel Foundation collaborated on an exhibition of Iranian modern artists alongside their Arab counterparts in “The Sea Suspended” (11/8–12/23) hosted at TMoCA, which was the first of its kind in Iran. The exchange went both ways across the Gulf, as the Sharjah Art Foundation hosted a retrospective of the late Farideh Lashai (1944–2013) (3/12–5/14) following TMoCA’s own retrospective of her work, “Towards the Ineffable” (11/21/15–2/26).

9

Student Enrollment

N/A

Source: AAP (non-official)

Museums Exhibiting Contemporary Art

4

Contemporary Art Galleries (Commercial)

175

Contemporary Art Spaces (Nonprofit)

N/A

Art Foundations (NGO + Private)

N/A

Source: AAP (non-official)

I GAK MURNIASIH, Nyut Nyut, 2001, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 100 cm. Courtesy Ketemu Project Space, Bali.

Acknowledgment: Joobin Bekhrad

SHAHPOUR POUYAN, Still Life, 2014, glazed ceramic and acrylic, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai.

Countries

129