INDONESIA: Journalist exhibits paintings of leaves

The Jakarta Post
By Indra Harsaputra


Surabaya--- A journalist can express his life experiences not only through writing but also painting and that is exactly what senior journalist Mochammad Anis is doing, using leaves as the main theme.

Anis, who is now serving as the executive editor of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Web site www.presidentsby.info, will hold a solo exhibition at the Red and White Room of Balai Pemuda on Jl. Gubernur Suryo, Surabaya, featuring 35 paintings.

"I have tried to express many of my experiences in life in my paintings, but I don't want to philosophize too much about these works," Anis told The Jakarta Post.

The exhibition will run from Aug. 3 to 9 and is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

A number of high-ranking officials, including East Java Governor Imam Utomo, House Speaker Agung Laksono, Social Affairs Minister Bachtiar Chamzah, Communications and Information Minister Mochammad Nuh and presidential spokesperson Andi Mallarangeng, are expected to attend the exhibition's opening ceremony.

Anis, who once worked as a driver in Saudi Arabia, recalled how he finished one of the paintings to be exhibited in the event.

It was It was 10 p.m. on March 25 at a coffee stall somewhere in Tanah Abang, Jakarta. Anis was enjoying a cup of coffee when out of nowhere a member of the Indonesian military came up drunk and hurled abusive words at the stall owner. Anis asked them man to behave. Instead of calming down, he began abusing Anis as well and then attacked him.

"On that very night, after this incident I tried my hands on a painting and after some time the painting was finished," he said.

"I tried not to include my emotion into this particular painting. Instead, I painted a calm, beautiful and gentle leaf. At that moment I enjoyed the comfort that life offers me," he said.

Leaves, Anis said, symbolize a life that calls for never-ending admiration. Without leaves, there are no flowers.

Not all leaves are green. For Anis, leaves can be in any color -- red, yellow, blue, violet, orange, black and so forth. Neither must leaves always have fronds or stems or be like fingers in shape.

"What matters is the leaves that I have painted must be nice to look at. Anybody looking at the paintings is free to make their own interpretation and capture the philosophical message of these leaves," he said.

Anis is not an artist by profession. In fact, he is better known as an investigative journalist. While still working for The Surabaya Post, for example, he was awarded with a Prapanca -- a citation from the Indonesian Association of Journalists for the best journalistic work in East Java -- three times.

"I'm self-taught in painting. I just wanted to express my imagination while exchanging ideas after devoting many years to the journalistic world," he said.

Born in Solo, Central Java in 1954, Anis has moved from one media publication to another. After the banning of the DeTIK tabloid by the New Order government in 1993, Anis worked for Target, Adil and Detak Jakarta. Once he also made a six-month journalistic journey while making the haj overland in 1991. He also covered the Gulf War in 1991 following Iraq's annexation of Kuwait.

For over a year now, he has had an office at Bina Graha, Jakarta where he edits stories for www.presidentsby.com.

Aside from painting pictures, Anis also writes poetry. After dropping out of Padjadjaran University in Bandung and the Teachers' Training Institute in Surabaya, he wrote poems, some of which have been published in Horison literary magazine. He has also published two collections of poems, Sekarang Ada Senggang Panjang Bersatu dalam Petualanganku in 1976 and Surabaya dalam Darahku in 1981.

In 2003 he held an exhibition of his paintings titled Daun-Daun (Leaves) and two years later he held another show, this time titled Daun dan Daun-Daun (Leaf and Leaves).

"As long as I live I will continue painting leaves, whether or not I will jump up doing it," he said.

A Renaissance of Indonesian Art

With Censorship Lifted, an Explosion of Expression
by Rick Karr


Over the past five years, Indonesia has weathered terrorism, political upheaval and economic crisis. At the same time, the world’s largest Muslim nation has gone through a kind of artistic Renaissance.

NPR's Rick Karr recently traveled to the island nation, and found a burgeoning art scene, gaining depth and international respect after decades of official censorship under the regime of President Suharto. His 32-year iron grip on the island ended with a popular uprising in 1998.

"The censorship came from of course the regime," says Nindityo Adipurnomo, an artist and art gallery owner in Yogyakarta -- a city on the island of Java considered the traditional center of Javanese culture. "And also from ourself, from our own fear."

Now that artists are more free to express themselves in Indonesia, there is a new focus on Indonesian society. "Artists are asking what it means to be a citizen in a still-struggling Muslim democracy that’s being buffeted by fundamentalism, globalization, and the growth of mass media," Karr reports.

Indonesian Art: The Undercutting Edge

The soaring value of contemporary Chinese and Vietnamese art has been one of the art world's most widely documented phenomena of recent years. But if you're a would-be collector who feels priced out of the market, is there anywhere else to look? Try Indonesia. The archipelago's artists represent extraordinary value in comparison to the record-breaking sums trading hands at Asian art auctions these days. And they're talented too. "Contemporary Indonesian art is now on the map," says Deborah Iskandar, Christie's representative in Indonesia


Pricing aside, why has the country's art output suddenly become so attractive? There hasn't been an explosion of art colleges; nor has the country been seized with the kind of sweeping social movement that inspires fresh outbursts of radical art. Instead, experts cite external influences. "Artists are better because they are more exposed to international art," explains Amir Sidharta of Sidharta Auctioneer. "Traveling abroad has helped many Indonesian artists develop their identities and own way of painting." The resulting work appeals to both domestic collectors in search of something new, and overseas buyers seeking work with reference points they understand. Some collectors are even paying for artists to go on European museum trips because it allows the artists to experience art more viscerally than they would through books or the Internet.


One of the scene's rising stars is Balinese artist Dewa Gede Ratayoga. At the 27-year-old's first show, held in Jakarta's Ark Galerie last April, all of the giant hyper-realist canvases were sold by the end of the opening night, some for as much as $5,000. By international reckoning this was a small sum, but by Indonesian standards it was an extraordinary haul by a young unknown. "This is the beginning of a new trend," says Bruce Wallace, chief representative in Indonesia of UBS, the bank that helped sponsor the show. "When quality comes on the market people don't waste time."


Even more in demand is the Kelompok Jendela, or Window Group, from Yogyakarta. It has taken the auction world by storm, with works by Rudi Mantofani, Yunizar and Handiwirman Sahputra leading the way (Yunizar and Handiwirman's paintings have sold for over $50,000). According to Deddy Kusuma, owner of one of Indonesia's largest collections, some works by the group have appreciated by 10 times in the past year alone. Established painters are also benefiting from the surging interest. Nasirun, a well-known but reclusive 42-year-old painter in Bantul, Central Java, is currently selling paintings to overseas collectors sight unseen—such is the demand for his work.


The only thing missing from this vision of promise for Indonesian artists is official backing. "We don't get any support," complains sculptor Iriantine Karnaya. "There is no shortage of creativity in this country but we need the means and resources to develop it." One of those resources would be a national museum of contemporary art, which Indonesia currently lacks, forcing private collectors to fill the void. Travel-industry magnate Rudy Akili recently built the three-story Akili Museum in West Jakarta to house his own vast collection of Indonesian masters. "I wanted to make my collection visible to the public," says Akili. "But there are no appropriate places to make donations so I decided to build my own museum." (It's open by appointment.) Jim Supangkat, a Jakarta-based curator, adds that the shortage of academic opportunities for art-minded Indonesians is responsible for a lack of cohesion in the art scene. "One of the reasons Indonesian painters do not command the same prices as their Chinese counterparts is due to the absence of art criticism and proper discourse," he says.


For now, though, there's certainly no shortage of buyer interest. Indonesian artists may not yet be selling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars—but that, say experts, is the point. "Now is the time to jump in," suggests Iskandar from Christie's. "Indonesian art is so cheap you can't lose on it." It's the kind of advice any collector loves to hear.

By JASON TEDJASUKMANA/JAKARTA

Painting in Indonesia

Indonesian arts and crafts are expression of life, born out of an extraordinary rich cultural heritage. Many Indonesia traditional works of art were developed n the courts of former kingdoms such as those centered in Java and Bali, and formed on integral part of religious and mystical ceremonies. The famous wayang theatres, for example, originate from ancient Hindu mythology and feature portions of The Ramayana and Mahabrata epics which have been adapted to suit local traditions older than anyone can remember.


Cave paintings, for the most part, of hand stencils but also of human and animal figures, assumed to be some 5,000 years old, are found in South Sulawesi and Irian Jaya. The inner walls of some megalithic graves in the Pasemah highlands, southern Sumatra, contain colored paintings dating from about 100 AD. In the 14th century mention was made of painted scrolls of fine white bark-cloth used in wayang beber, one of the oldest forms of wayang performances.
The art of decorating cloth in the batik technique is a form of painting, for the molten wax is applied on the cloth with a canting, a pen-like instrument, though the colors are provided by dyeing. Early Javanese literature even refers to batikers as painters.
The people of Central Sulawesi painted intricate symbolic motifs in bright colors on bark-cloth vestments by using vegetable dyes and bamboo brushes.
Temple hangings, streamers, curtains and traditional astrological calendars in Bali are made of painted cloth or wood.
Balinese painting is characterized by its style of filling all space, its themes which are taken mainly from Hindu religious life, mythology and legend, and the absence of time, space and perspective. The founding of "Pita Maha" in the 1930s by Cokorde Sukawati from Ubud (Central Bali) together with Dutch artist Rudolf Bonnet and German painter Walter Spies, brought a dramatic revolution in Balinese painting.
Influenced by these and other Western artists, Balinese painters came to use oils and to apply the concept of colors, perspective and the third dimension, and their subjects were no longer drawn exclusively from the traditional repertory, but scenes from everyday life began to emerge.


A brilliant exponent of "Pita Maha" was Gusti Nyoman Lempad, noted for his cremation towers and ink drawings. He died in 1978 at the age of 121. Works of art from Ubud, the center of local and foreign artists, were bright and vivid in contrast to those of the "Community of Artists" in which dark and sombre colors were dominant.
The "Community of Artists" was formed in 1969 by Dewa Nyoman Batuan at the village of Pengosekan (Central Bali), the home many artists who draw their subjects from nature and Balinese daily life.
Foreign artists apart from Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet, who have lived and painted or are still living and painting in Bali, include Hans Snel and Arie Smit from Holland, Spain’s Antonio Blanco and Theo Meier from Switzerland. The present "Le Mayeur Museum" at Sanur, South Bali, was formerly the home of the late Belgian impressionist Le Mayeur and his Balinese wife Ni Polok, once a famous Legong dancer.
Indonesian painters came to be known late in the nineteenth century after Raden Saleh earned world fame on account of his naturalistic technique in paintings of animals and landscapes and his portraits in oils. Later, other naturalist painters followed, such as Abdullah Surio Subroto and his son Basuki Abdullah, a renowned portrait painter, Pringadie, Hendra, Trubus, Omar Basalamah, Sukardji, Wahdi and others.
In 1937 Sudjojono and the brothers Otto and Agus Djaja founded PERSAGI (Indonesian Painters Association) whose members sought a synthesis of traditional and modern painting while developing a style of their own which was characteristically Indonesian. Other art groups came into being as "Seniman Indonesia Muda" (Young Indonesian Artists) and "Pelukis Rakyat" (Painters of the People). The leading man of the latter was category Affandi and artists of this group include Trubus, Nashar, Hendra Gunawan, and Sjafei Sumardja. Him-self an expressionist, Affandi was said to have opened "a new way of expressionism". He was one of the few Indonesian artists to have participated in famous international exhibitions such as those of Venice and Sao Paolo.
During the Japanese occupation, Indonesian artists were recruited to make posters for propaganda. They did accept the orders and thus had the opportunity to develop their artistic abilities, and during the Revolution did not stop painting.



Since many artists had joined the guerilla warfare, their paintings consequently bear witness of those turbulent days of the revolution, like Sudjojono's "Flight" and Surono's Frontline".
In 1947 a college for art teachers was set up in Bandung which in 1951 was incorporated into the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Bandung Institute of Technology. Other steps towards promoting fine arts in Indonesia were the founding of the Academy of Fine Arts in Yogyakarta (ASRI) in 1950 and the Jakarta Institute of Art Education (LPKJ) in 1968.
Primitivism, naturalism, obstructionism, expressionism and impressionism have all been displayed in Indonesian paintings, and Indonesian artists today are developing new forms and styles by using feathers, bronze, velvet, glass, banana-tree barks, cloves, etc. Recently "batik paintings" by which oils and canvas are replaced by the ancient wax-and-dye technique, have become popular. Contemporary batik artists are Amir Sapto Hudoyo, who has a gallery of his own, Kuswadji, Bambang Oetoro and the Sumatran Amri Yahya all of them domiciled in Yogyakarta.
For the development and appreciation of the fine arts, Balai Budaya (Hall of Culture) and Taman Ismail Marzuki (Jakarta Art Center) have been founded. Named after the late poet-composer Ismail Marzuki, the Art Center has four theaters, a dance studio, an exhibition hall, a number of small studios for contemporary artists and residential units for members of the administration.
Present-day painters are Mochtar Apin, But Muchtar, Srihadi Sudarsono, Popo Iskandar, Abdul Djalil Pirous (calligrapher), Abas Alibasjah, Tom Harry, Cak Kandar and Jim Supangkat. Woman painters include Emiria Sunasa, the oldest of the group; Kartika, Affandi's daughter, Umi Dachlan, Sriyana Hudionoto, Agnes Julinawati, Nunung W.S. and Sisca Damayanti Soebyakto.