Dear friends and colleagues
Maybe friendship is a sufficient reason.
I was asked if I would curate an exhibition in Jogjakarta of two Malaysian artists (Jailani Abu Hassan (Jai) and Zakii Anwar) and two Indonesian artists (Agus Suwage and Jumaldi Alfi.) They are all people I like and artists I respect, so of course I said “yes”. But it seemed to me that bringing two Malaysian artists and two Indonesian artists, all of whom have a very substantial career, was not sufficient rationale for an exhibition. Therefore, I talked to them of making it about working methods: where an art work originates from and how it develops. They all agreed and we talked of showing sketches and notes and studio photos. Anyway, this weekend, Jai and Zakii flew over to Jogja so we could all meet though as Alfi was down with a fever he couldn’t join.
In nations where many don’t drink eating food together is important as an occasion for meeting, conversation and conviviality. So, we went for lunch at a very good Sundanese restaurant. The Sundanese from West Java like the Padang from Sumatra display their food in bowls from you to choose from, so we shared fish, chicken, meat, rice and assorted vegetables including at my request grilled petai (unfortunately known as “stink beans” in English).
But then we went to the gallery to discuss installation and by now as they discussed what would go where I began realizing that the show would transpire to be how I conceived it.
And then to the studio of Agus where there was much animated conversation and banter. These are old friends whose native languages (Bahasa and Malaysian) are very close. (Fortunately I had someone to translate.)
We talked about music, which is Agus’s great passion, dogs – he has nine – and our assorted children. Then, being artists, Jai and Zakii wanted to know what he was making and how. He uses an old epidiascope to derive figures. Nods of approval from Zakii who like him once worked as a graphic designer – this is not uncommon in this region: several artists have design backgrounds. He complained of getting back ache when making a very large watercolour despite it being made of linked panels and hence flexible.
Then I started asking questions about the works he will put in the show. There is an installation he showed in Jakarta and wants to show again, a set of three large watercolours, a painting derived from an earlier installation. What led to them? Firstly, his confusion at the goat sacrifices he was supposed to make as a Muslim for each of his children, when he loves animals and, secondly, his disgust at the Chinese passion for shark fin soup – forty per cent of sharks that have their fins hacked off and left to die are mutilated and killed in Indonesian waters. I’ll show you the works when the show goes up in late May. What about the preparatory works? He did lots of small watercolours but they have all been sold – inevitably, he has a natural touch for watercolours: they are always elegant and deft.
And the other two? Zakii will show a set of large photographic works – he is known for drawings and paintings whilst Jai plans to make a very extended work on paper with other paper works framed and placed on it. Sketches? err no. Working notes? Err no.
So it will be a show of new works by artists who want to spend time and show with artists they like and respect. They want, one could say, to show their new works together. And I am fine with that: it is the journey that matters not some notional pre-determined goal. But my catalogue essay will be about how and why they make what they make. I’ll go to see Jai and Zakii in Malaysia next month, talk to Alfi by email etc. once he is better and spend time with them installing.
They gathered for a group photo against his painting wall. We take a lot of photographs in Asia.
Artists are always interested in what other artists collect, as I am, so we talked about his guitars. He played a bit – and very well – on a flute. We talked about the old bicycles he has collected. I noticed the five cages with song birds in them on the ground floor of his studio. It is a very big thing in Jogja. The bird market is near by. Many shops and houses have birdcages, often beautifully made, with birds in hanging outside.
I was staying in the new “hot” eco hotel in Jogja – we spied several dealers there in the morning – as were Jai and Zakii.
In the evening we talked, as you always do with Malaysians, about the absurdity of their political situation (Najib et al.) the changes in the market (too many art fairs, too many auctions, too many collectors in a rush), the differences between Malaysia and Indonesia, of how when they were young you rarely saw a woman with their head covered in Malaysia and why that has changed, of how as an artist in a smallish country like Malaysia you could only rise so far. If the abstract painter Latiff Mohidin, now aged 75, had been American not Malaysian would his major works sell for 100,000 US dollars as they do or 10,000,000US dollars? Probably the later.
When will history re-assess the value or importance of things made outside the dominant (NYC and London) art world or market. Not, I fear, in the imminent future.
Have a good week
Tony