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art stage singapore 2014
market reports
indonesia
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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.