The future is present - Tempo Magazine - review of exhibits at SSAS and PLATFORM3

ARTS THE 90AN EXHIBIT

The future is present The future is yours, the young are told. But what if the future has already begun? What if the future arrived last June 20?

maturity, spirit, frivolity, being carefree and careless, anxiety, cockiness, the list goes on. However, what we can take from this is a degree of openness toward yet-tobe fulfilled dreams and potentials.

It’s oftentimes claimed that the market favors the young. We romantics hope there is more to art than quantification, profit-seeking, speculative flipping, backroom deals and commodification. And the young get plenty of chances to show both: to stand on their own in the market and with interesting artworks. (For sure, young artists sometimes make one another nuts by their conversations on the most prudent career strategy.)

Two recent events offered such a platform, the Bandung Contemporary and Manifesto. The former was organized in late 2013 and curated by a young trio— Chabib Duta Hapsoro, Rifandy Priatna

Patriot Mukmin’s work (above), Mochammad Fatchi Baradja’s display (right), Ziqo Albaiquni’s art work (below).

and Sally Texania—across eight different venues (including Selasar Sunaryo Art Space and PLATFORM3). The latter was organized in mid-2014 and curated by a group of curators—Rizki A. Zaelani, Jim Supangkat, Asikin Hasan, A. Rikrik Kusmara, Bayu Gena Krishbie and Zamrud Setya Negara—at the National Gallery in Jakarta. And while there were plenty of interesting artworks on display, these two events were rather softly curated, to put it mildly. A strong and well-executed curatorial concept can bring something extra to an art event. (I have nothing against showcases—ArtJog is a case in point—but don’t call it something it isn’t.)

It can take years of consistent hard work to build up one’s name in the arts and yet it can be destroyed overnight. So we should be careful with praise as well as blame.

Young artists have the right to make grand mistakes, to fail miserably, to fail again and then try again. However, we need to show appropriate appreciation when called for.

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| JULY 13, 2014

PHOTO COURTESY: SELASAR SUNARYO ART SPACE, PLATFORM3 AND ARTISTS

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JUST returned from a short, rejuvenating trip to Yogyakarta, where I visited ArtJog—by far the most professionally-run art event in this country—and a bunch of other exhibitions.

As always, Yogyakarta’s art scene was inspiring and breathtaking in scope and energy. Returning to Bandung, I didn’t know what to expect from the openings at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space and PLATFORM3.

Upon arriving at the two venues in northern Bandung, I treated these openings as I would any other. But honestly speaking, I was blown away by these two very different exhibitions, both by young Bandung-based artists.

When we look at stories, poetry and movies on how the young are portrayed, we discover a rather contradictory amalgam of typologies: hope, energy, angst, confidence, Sturm und Drang, vigor, im-

And this is the time to do so.

In collaboration with Bandung-based Galeri Gerilya (founded in 2011), Selasar Sunaryo Art Space is showing an exhibition by nine artists—Angga Atmadilaga, Michael Binuko a.k.a. Koxis Verserken, M.D. Natsir, Mochammad Fatchi Baradja, Muhammad Zico Albaiquni, Patriot Mukmin, Siddhartha Kandahdjaja, Wibi R. Triadi (who studied in Australia and is the frontman of Galeri Gerilya) and Zusfa Roihan (with the exception of Wibi, all are from ITB and most are MFA students or just graduated with a MFA)—which is curated

by Bob Edrian Triadi, Danuh Tjas and D. Ahmad.

Young curators might be tempted to try to prove themselves by pulling out all discursive tricks from their short sleeves and in the process putting the artists in straightjackets. None of that at 90-an (the exhibition title can be read as a pun to the generation who started their careers in the tumultuous nineties). The exhibition was given visual coherence by applying grids, which gives each component a spatial element and offers connection between the works of different artists (one downside of the grid system: if an element is even slightly lopsided then the complete grid is out of balance). There is also a research

element to the curatorial approach, which was nicely visualized in diagrams, but I’m not sure how serious we have to take these research findings.

These artists have been active for a number of years now; for example, graphic artist Michael Binuko’s intaglio dry point prints were recently on display at ArtJog. In the 90-an exhibition, however, he shows drawings (drawing, obviously, is the basic technique of printmaking). Another interesting printmaker in this show is M.D. Natsir, he usually works with silkscreen print but in this exhibition he shows ‘smudgy’ digital prints on paper.

Muhammad Zico Albaiquni, with his flair and confidence, is everywhere these days. Recently he had a solo exhibition at PLATFORM3 and showed an immense installation at Manifesto. He is trained as a painter—and he has acquired an amazing brushstroke technique—but of recent he is morphing his paintings into organic installations. It seems that ITB’s painting studio has an uneasy affair with the painting medium, many of its graduates end up doing anything but purely painting (too commercial? too Yogya? not contemporary enough? conceptually a zombie medium?).

Another artist in the show trained as a

painter, who also doesn’t paint in a traditional way, is Patriot Mukmin; expanding the perceptual field is his intention by reframing how we view paintings. At Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, he shows his work as wall pieces, which play tricks on how we perceive objects but as such they have the danger of becoming merely tricks. For his final MFA work, he created an installation, shown at Galeri Gerilya, which is thus far his best work (later shown at Bandung Contempory in an entirely different setting and as a consequence it fell flat).

And PLATFORM3 shows an exhibition by the collective Pemuda Setempat (founded in 2012; its members are all BFA students at or just graduated with a BFA from ITB).

This exhibition has a raw energy resulting in a very un-ITB-like aesthetics; the exhibition title can be roughly translated as Saturday Night Loosers, in other words: adolescent Angst. On a critical note: in displaying the exhibition, Pemuda Setempat should have attempted to connect the different parts to show that this is a collective endeavor.

The future looks brighter when tangible.

The future is present among us. ● ROY VORAGEN, FROM THE NETHERLANDS, IS A BANDUNG-BASED ART WRITER AND HE CAN BE CONTACTED AT HTTP://FATUMBRUTUM.BLOGSPOT.COM

JULY 13, 2014 |

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