Contemporary art in Yogyakarta (August 1988)
artdesigncafé | café library | Published 26 January 2012
This article was previously published in the Jakarta Post, on 1 September 1988, p. 6 with the title "Yogykarta’s art world bustles with activity".
The second week of August was a busy one for the art public of Yogyakarta. In a single week, five exhibitions were put on, an almost impossible feat in a city which usually saunters about its daily business to a slow Central Javanese rhythm.
While Bagong Kussudiardja’s exhibition showed at the Bentara Budaya, Mochtar Apin from ITB Bandung opened a retrospective at the ISI (Art Academy of Indonesia) campus.
The three other exhibitions were: Five students of ISI showing their work at Karta Pustaka, the Dutch Cultural Center; Ishendra Zaidun showing graphic works at Cemeti Gallery, and finally, the large exhibit Creation wayang at Gadjah Mada Campus’ Purna Budaya.
At Karta Pustaka four young men and a woman ranging in age from 19 to 21 and all still students at the Art Academy, showed their paintings. All five groups of work differed drastically. This could be taken as a basis for a theory of how individualism has replaced older Indonesian notions of social consensus and loyalty to a tradition; on the other hand, it could be taken as illustrative of the fact that in the art academies, art students feel pressured to choose a certain style as "their own" at an age when such a choice too often draws more on external than internal commitments. Since not enough time has passed for a personal expression to synthesize out of the various style / theme models available, the students’ paintings remain more or less well executed exercises within a certain style. This is not to say that age guarantees greater quality, but is one factor which may play a role. It so happens that it is the oldest member of this exhibition who shows the most mature and interesting work.
Pawit’s surrealist paintings of landscapes with organic forms; Fajar Iriadi’s decorative repetitive compositions of masks; Pramayasti’s deliberately child-like idioms and Melodia’s bleak, photorealistic street scenes all have clear prototypes both within Indonesia and without, prototypes which at the moment are extremely popular among a number of young Indonesian painters. Though well-executed, especially Melodia’s work, these paintings are only the beginning of a search for an artistic self.
The painter that stands out is Heru Daryatmo (29) from Jakarta. Although his paintings also carry echoes and associations to other artists, these are subordinated to each work’s own atmosphere and subject matter. Working with acrylic, oil or watercolor, Heru Daryatmo creates a fine and rugged texture. Within this neutral, textured space he places his people, always caught compellingly absorbed in the midst of an activity, playing music, singing Keroncong, painting Merdeka [on] a wall. Even when it is a group activity, each individual appears lost in concentration, as if each inhabits a separate world of his or her own.
From these intensely private worlds, large, dark eyes look out at us, Indonesian eyes but also archetypically soulful. In these portraits the timelessness of early Egyptian and Roman portraiture is given an Indonesian expression that reaches an almost existential level, and that is something many painters older than Heru Daryatmo have failed to do. His small boy lost in concentration before a solitary chess game, though a small canvas, attains the universal relevance of a statement about death.
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