Dear friends and colleagues
Art Jog. We call it an art fair, but it is really a salon, like the Royal Academy Summer Show. If that sounds stuffy – and it probably does – let’s call it an annual art fair run by artists instead. There are no gallerists in nice suits or black dresses waiting in booths to sell you things. It is always a mix of old and young, established and “upcoming” artists.
Mark Justiniani & Masriadi
It has changed since 2008 when it started, becoming even less like an ordinary art fair. It is now perhaps the “coolest” exhibition in South-East Asia, the event people most want to be at.
This year I didn’t go to the opening night. I was told 10,000 people had bought tickets for the evening and I couldn’t face the crush. There is an astonishingly large audience for art in Indonesia – predominantly a young audience. As you can see from my snaps I went during the relatively sedate and uncrowded VIP preview beforehand. (BTW, It seems almost a tradition that not all the labels are up and work is still being installed during this preview. It is typical of the Jogja art world that it seems very improvised, chaotic and last minute – which it is! – but also in fact very professional. It is part of the charm that you can chat to the artists as they make some final adjustments.)
The organisers don’t have to worry so much now about selling work: so many people go to it that they make a lot of money just on admission tickets. For the last three years it has been curated by Bambang “Toko” Witjaksono who has sought to make it not just a showcase for what is best in Jogja but a coherent exhibition – and a little international, with two artists from overseas: this year it is Mark Justiniani from Philippines and Yoko Ono – Japanese, I think?
Jogja has always been, not just an artist’s town, but a painter’s town, so it will come as a shock to many that this year Bambang “Toko” has included only one painting in this show of sixty or more artists. As someone who is finally finishing a book on Indonesian painting is this worrying to me? Am I writing about a peripheralised medium? No, not really. There seems a general consensus that the younger generation of painters are neither very original nor very good. Perhaps the presence of so many strong personalities in the two generations above is stifling. If there are no new good painters why show weak ones? Certainly, the good paintings in past years had all been by the old guys. (Incidentally the best paintings on show in town are at another exhibition curated by Enin Suprianto: three new works by Aytjoe Christine – one of the very few female artists in Indonesia with a strong profile).
I asked Bambang if that was his thinking and he laughed “yes!” the young painters are not coming forward, so let’s focus on what is good – installations and participatory works. However apart from the maker of the token painting here Masriadi five other artists I talk about in my painting book are here anyway: Entang Wiharso, Heri Dono, Eko Nugroho, Indieguerillas and Handwirman – but with installations or sculptures. (Bambang Toko is in my book too for he is also a painter as well as curator.) Here painters are less canvas bound than in other cultures. Installation develops out of painting here in a way it has not in the West.
Which are the notable works? Mark Justiniani’s vertigo inducing hole in the floor – all done with mirrors.
Mark Justiniani
Masriadi’s painting. Installations by Eko and Heri, though not dissimilar from early work. Work in the entrance hall by Indieguerillas – customised becaks, (rickshaws used by hawkers) but selling psychological states rather than satay or ice cream. (As so often here, they contain an in-joke: the memorable hair styles of Jogja artists Eddie Hara and Nasirun as well as those of Warhol and Basquiat.)
Indieguerillas
There were some fun participatory art works: a shooting galley where you could defend the old, low rise town of Jogja against developers dropping, a la Space invaders, cranes and cement mixers from the sky; an immersive music machine by Rocka Radipa you could move your hands across to make different sounds.
Tara Kasenda, an artist from Bandung, interacting with music machine by Rocka Radipa.
A good installation by Jompet.
One very in joke: the “Prison art lab” making works from any leaves you provide – many Jogja artists have been imprisoned recently for marijuana possession. As always, Handiwirman provided something that was both fun and slightly unsettling: some years ago he became fascinated in turning rubber toys inside-out. Here he has made a table like sculpture, coated it with rubber, then unpeeled it as if he is skinning an animal.
Handiwirman Saputra
Art Jog has become such a big and well-regarded event that a whole Jogja artweek has built up around it with other exhibitions, events and openings popping up around the town. The best of them for me was a show at ARK by the redoubtable Freddie and Isabel Aquilizan. If nothing noteworthy turns up during the week I will tell you about it next Tuesday.
Wishing you all a jolly Tuesday
Tony
PS. If you are in Singapore, nip over to CCA at 7.30: I am giving a lecture there on “Why I am not a South-East Asian Specialist.”