Dear friends and colleagues
I spent much of last Tuesday with Sunaryo in Wot Batu.
So, you may ask, who is Sunaryo and what is Wot Batu?
Sunrayo who has now turned 71 is a sculptor trained at ITB – the art school first set up by the Dutch in Bandung and which originally had a more formalist, modernist approach to art education than the art school (ISI) in Jogjakarta. He also taught sculpture there for forty years, made many public projects, prints and paintings. Most of his work has been abstract. As a successful artist he put much of his money into building and running a museum or kunsthalle (Selasar Sunaryo) which shows a selection of his work, but crucially focusses on showing younger artists, and promoting events and international exchanges. In a country with no state or city support for the arts such a venture is unbelievably valuable.
His position has always been a moral one. When Selasar opened in 1998 he felt he had to react to the appalling violence that had then seized the country so covered all the sculptures of his opening exhibition in black cloth. He has over the years expanded his work to installation, sometimes using video or performers.
Wot Batu means bridge of stone. But the phrase has complex associations. Batu is the bahasa (Indonesian) for stone but wot is an old Sundanese word. Sundanese being a major ethnic/language group in West Java. Sunaryo himself is Javanese but has a deep feeling for locale and community. Wot also will tend to mean a small or simple bridge.
Bandung was the Dutch equivalent of Simla: a town up in the hills that was cooler and less humid than Delhi or Batavia (as Jakarta was then called.) Selasar Sunaryo is built in the hills above the town and is about 1000 metres above sea level. It is so cool people sometimes wear jackets up there!
Wot Batu could be seen as a compendium or culmination of his life’s work. For some time he has owned a site of about 2000 square metres a short walk from Selasar. When I first visited early last year he had detailed plans, was clearing away rubbish and starting to place some stone sculptures and rocks. It was crucially not to be a traditional sculpture garden but a single complex where stone, water, earth, trees etc. interact. To emphasise that this was a single unified experience tall walls separated the space from the road; one enters through a narrow passageway.
When finished the space will be enclosed on three sides, but on the fourth (South) side there is an expansive view of the town below and the surrounding landscape.
Since breaking ground, he has been there as often as possible, normally all day long, living the space, letting it develop organically. His original plans are much changed. For example, he re-adjusted some of the tall stones set against the west wall so they like the trees lean towards the sun. Although this is obviously a highly controlled space he wants it to be about harmony with nature. It is a meditative space: he talked of not letting more than 50 people in at one time. I said I thought 5 was enough!
It is a very concentrated space. It is not so much Marfa Texas, nor even Târgu Jiu! – maybe a bit closer to the feel of Brancusi’s studio outside the Pompidou. Or the now sadly depleted poetry garden made by Siah Armajani for the Lannan Foundation. Or the cloistered garden of a monastery. It is a modernist project, without irony, about harmony and the spirit.
Elements like the arch with his fingerprint enlarged on it, the boat, the fountain, a flame in a small room are all clearly symbolic and, of course, the bridge is symbolic too – of joining together or of crossing to the other side.
But if it works it will do so more because it is intimate: there are stone carved seats to sit on, areas of polished stone to touch. One needs to slow down and listen to the sound of the wind in the pine trees, and of water bubbling out of fountain.
Sunaryo himself will often emphasize in conversation that for him three things matter: environment, the inner life, the afterlife. He sees the project as a simple stone bridge for the soul to cross and linger on. That one should enjoy being in this sensuous world but be aware both of a possible inner peace and that this life is fleeting
As you can see from the images it is not yet finished. The east side is unbuilt yet, occupied by temporary workshops. I am involved in helping the Indonesian critic Agung Hujatikajennong edit a book on the project which will include, of course, many images but also essays on the anthropology of the site (by Iwan Eulia Pirous) archeology and geology.
So you will hear more about this in September when (DV) the work is completed and we launch the book!!!
Hoping your Tuesday is a good one
Tony