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Indonesia by Roy Voragen
Between the second and third week of November the Jakarta Biennale, the SEA+ Triennale and Jogja Biennale opened, which was only a couple of weeks apart from the opening of the Singapore Biennale which quite a few Indonesian artists participated in. The first two were both held in Central Jakarta and the last in Yogyakarta. Discussions on organising a biennale in Bandung are ongoing, however, the question needs to be raised whether the state of Indonesia’s current arts infrastructure can accommodate so many large-scale events. The development of Indonesia’s arts infrastructure has very much been an incremental bottom-up process. Artists’ initiatives such as Cemeti in Yogyakarta, Selasar Sunaryo Art Space in Bandung (which recently celebrated its fifteenth birthday) and ruangrupa in Jakarta have played and still play important roles. For example, ruangrupa organises the biannual OK. Video festival, and some of its members were involved in the organisation of the 2009 and 2013 Jakarta Biennale. Similarly the Selasar Sunaryo Art Space organises the biannual Bandung New Emergence to support young and upcoming artists. Commercial galleries also continue to play pivotal roles in the Indonesian art scene. While commercial interests might not always align with those of nonprofit and independent artists’ initiatives, commercial galleries have been able to support artists from Indonesia to exhibit abroad, and invite foreign artists for projects in Indonesia (sometimes in collaboration with a local artists’ initiative). Collectors too, do more than just purchase artworks. They fund and cofund art projects and events and have also established private museums and foundations, such as Art:1, and Yuz Museum.
Last year was a year of proudly looking back, celebrating the present, and also confidently looking forward towards the future. It was a year marked by the centennial celebration of Sudjojono’s birthday, where symposia and exhibitions were held on the work and life of this master of modernism in Indonesia. It was the year of the Indonesian Pavilion at the last Venice Biennale, organised by Bumi Purnati Indonesia. The pavilion showcased works by Titarubi (b. 1968), Entang Wiharso (b. 1967), Sri Astari (b. 1953), Albert Yonathan Setiawan (b. 1983), and Eko Nugroho (b. 1977). It was the year that Art Stage Singapore featured, for the very first time, a pavilion dedicated to artists from Indonesia. The pavilion represented works by 36 Indonesian artists. Reportedly the largest single showcase of contemporary Indonesian art at an international art fair, to date. And at the same time it was a year that provided the country with the space to look back on the developments of the contemporary arts in Indonesia as
a whole, with numerous archival exhibitions held in Yogyakarta, Bandung and Jakarta. A follow-up archival exhibition in Bandung was postponed to 2014. Cemeti Art House, located in Indonesia’s art capital Yogyakarta and founded by artists Nindityo Adipurnomo (b. 1961) and Dutch-born Mella Jaarsma (b. 1960), celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday by organising, among many other events, an archival exhibition in collaboration with Indonesian Visual Art Archive. While November was the month of biennales in Indonesia, July was the month for art fairs, Indonesia’s most well known art fair, ArtJog held in Yogyakarta, was curated by Bambang Toko Witjaksono and organised by Heri Pemad Art Management. ArtJog offered a broad survey of artists – mainly from Yogyakarta but also from elsewhere in Indonesia – loosely working on the theme of maritime culture.
With the primary art market in Indonesia showing signs of a slow down, the programming of many commercial galleries has slowed down as well over the past year. Ark Gallery, however, decided boldly to make a move from Jakarta to Yogyakarta in a new and larger space. Ark Gallery represents Agustinus ‘Jompet’ Kuswidananto (b. 1976), Dewa Gede Ratayoga (b. 1979), Eko Nugroho, performance artist Melati Suryodarmo (b. 1969) (who founded the performance art festival Undisclosed Territory, which has been running annually in Solo), video art collective Tromarama (founded 2004), Wedhar Riyadi (b. 1980) and Wimo Ambala Bayang (b. 1976), who is also a founding member of contemporary art photography collective Mes56 in Yogyakarta. The Indonesian government has started to acknowledge the significance of the arts by making funding opportunities more broadly available, but much still needs to be done. Indonesia lacks a public art museum dedicated to the collection and exhibition of contemporary art, and also does not have a space adequate for large-scale exhibitions. The 2013 Jakarta Biennale, for example, was organised in an underground parking garage. In the areas of tax compliance and legal certainty, there also remains room for
far left FX Harsono, Writing in the Rain, 2011, Wooden chair and desk, 24" television, Single channel video, 6'11". Courtesy of the artist. above
Tisna Sanjaya, I Like Kapital – Kapital Like Me, 2012, Zinc and copper plates, mud, ash, asphalt, 320 x 320 x 320 cm.
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ArtJog 2013 commissioned the young Yogyakarta-based artist Iwan Effendi (b. 1979) to make an installation titled Finding Lunang (featuring Papermoon Puppet Theatre, which he founded together with his wife Maria Tri Sulistyani). They had a show at Jogja Contemporary in 2013, and he will have a solo exhibition at Yavuz Fine Art in Singapore this year. Albert Yonathan Setiawan is another young notable artist. He works mainly with ceramics, which he uses for his installations, of which the Singapore Art Museum has one in its collection. Currently he resides in Kyoto, Japan, where he will be reading for his MFA.
improvement, as inconsistent implementation and enforcement are often raised as issues that need to be addressed.
The ambitious multi-media artist Erik Pauhrizi (b. 1981) – educated in Bandung and Braunschweig – should be noted among the young artists from Indonesia. Recently, he returned from Germany and in 2013 he participated at Art Stage Singapore and ArtJog (both together with his wife Erika Ernawan (b. 1986), an awardee of the Bandung Contemporary Art Awards), and he exhibited in Manila with Lyra Garcellano, whom he met in New York as both were Asian Cultural Council grantees. This exhibition was a project by Richard Koh Fine Art, who runs galleries in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, in the latter gallery a solo show was organised with works by Yogyakartabased senior artist Agung Kurniawan (b. 1968) in 2013.
The jury of the third Bandung Contemporary Art Awards, which is organised by Lawangwangi Creative Space, noted in their 2013 report a significantly lower number of applications. They suspect that mid-career artists – who are eligible to apply (and despite the award’s name, artists from all over Indonesia can apply) – are laying low because they have apparently more to loose. The winner of the third Bandung Contemporary Art Awards was Leonardiansyah Allenda (b. 1984), who also participated in the 2013 Jogja Biennale.
For some time, ruangrupa was only one of the few organisations in Jakarta to support the development of young artists. However, their aesthetic is very particular: looking out for process and community based works with a critical bite, focusing on urban issues, and flavoured with a good sense of humor. Senior artist FX Harsono (b. 1949), therefore, decided to initiate Exi(s)t in collaboration with Dia.Lo.Gue. art space to support other young artists.
Bandung-based Muhammad Akbar (b. 1984) is a young artist who was awarded at the third Bandung Contemporary Art Awards. Only a few months earlier, he had a solo exhibition at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space titled Gaze (The Unseen); this exhibition of consistent high-quality single channel videos and video installations received upbeat reviews.
FX Harsono was one of the co-founders of the New Art Movement in the seventies and over the past decades he has created, and he continues to create, works that are visually and conceptually of consistently high quality. In 2010, he had a solo exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum, and in 2013, running parallel to ArtJog, he had a solo exhibition at the Jogja
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National Museum, curated by Hendro Wiyanto and organised by Canna Gallery (North Jakarta). Singapore is becoming more of a hub into Southeast Asia, including for Berlin-based galleries ARNDT and Galerie Michael Janssen. It is very interesting for senior Indonesian artists who work with these two galleries, as they now have spaces close to home as well as in Berlin, giving them access to new audiences. In 2013, for example, Michael Janssen organised Titarubi’s solo exhibition Burning Boundaries in Berlin. Agus Suwage (b. 1959), like Titarubi based in Yogyakarta, had a solo exhibition at ARNDT in Berlin titled Cycle no.3 in 2013 (Cycle no.1 was shown at Nadi Gallery in West Jakarta in 2012, and Cycle no.2 was shown at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in New York in 2013). The three Cycle exhibitions were curated by Enin Supriyanto, who also curated the group exhibition
“ The Indonesian government has started to acknowledge the significance of the arts by making funding opportunities more broadly available, but much still needs to be done.” Sip! Indonesian Art Today at ARNDT in Berlin in 2013, which was an exhibition that mixed works by young, mid-career and established artists: Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo (b. 1978), FX Harsono, Indieguerillas (founded in 1990), Mella Jaarsma, Agung Kurniawan (b. 1968), Rudi Mantofani (b. 1973), Eko Nugroho, J. Ariadhitya Pramuhendra (b. 1984), Syagini Ratna Wulan (b. 1979), Wedhar Riyadi (b. 1980) Handiwirman Saputra (b. 1975), Agus Suwage, Tromarama, and Entang Wiharso. Most globetrotting Yogyakarta-based artists who do well in the market and show on the international circuit are still firmly present at home. Agus Suwage showed an installation at ArtJog in 2013, and Eko Nugroho made a mural for the 2013 Jakarta Biennale, he was also involved in the 2013 Jogja Biennale. In 2013, Eko Nugroho designed a scarf for Louis Vutton and created the solo exhibition We Are What We Mask at Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI) in Singapore. While sales at the auctions are still fairly robust, the primary art market has been slowing down somewhat. All in all, 2013 was a vibrant year for the arts in Indonesia, and there is clearly so much more to come! far left Agus Suwage, Tembok Toleransi #2 (Tolerance Wall #2), 2013, Screen print and paint on recycled tin cans, car audio system, and sound, 358 x 457 x 16 cm. Courtesy of Tyler Rollins Fine Art. above
Melati Suryodarmo, sweet dreams sweet, 2013, solo performance. Courtesy of the artist.