Dear friends and colleagues
Do you hedge your bets? I often do.
I was reminded of this the other day when I left the HDB in Hougang where I stay when in Singapore, to go to work in the National Library. There was a banging and a crashing of drums and gongs. I looked around and there was a void deck funeral going on. That familiar traditional noisy Chinese music. It’s meant to chase away the malevolent spirits. But as I left I saw the hearse arrive to take the coffin away: “Amazing Grace” was blasting out from its speakers. The Chinese here are not into any exclusivity of faith. Just as one of the collectors in Manila told me – he was ethnic Chinese like so many collectors in the region – they go to the Buddhist temple on Saturday and on Sunday the Catholic church. Perhaps the exclusivity that Islam demands is one reason why it has never appealed to the Chinese.
Mind you, the Javanese take a relaxed view of Islam’s demands… The Bandung painter Srihadi is serious about being a Muslim. He describes his haj as being a profound religious experience. But he also talks of the bedaya katawang he paints so frequently as being a spiritual experience. This traditional dance by nine young women represents the sexual and mystical union between the sultan and Ratu Kidal the mythic queen of the South Seas.
Srihadi’s studio with two bedoya ketawang paintings on right
Agung Hujatikajennong, Srihadi, myself.
When I visited the Jogja painter Nasirun and saw he had placed an old traditional mosque in his garden I asked whether that was where he prayed. He laughed. “Oh no,” he said, “I keep my guitars there. I am a Javanese Muslim.”
Nasirun outisde his “mosque”
Meaning, not that he is unreligious, but open to old folk beliefs as well as scripture, believing in people with healing powers as well as prayers. For him and for others the sense of the numinous that is still around us in the natural world, in rocks, stone, trees and shadows seems to persist. But it is seen in a rather matter of fact way – not a gooey romantic way.
Heri Dono said it outright once when I was talking to him: “I am an animist.”
Sometimes I feel I am too.
I bought a spirit house from Borneo. It is very plain. I like it because it reminds me of the very simple model garage I had as a kid. When people ask, what I say is that it is where my much loved brother lives – a sort of temporary resting place. Do I believe that? In a sort of way.
We could get into an argument like the reformation disputes on the status of the mass. Does the priest truly perform a miracle and turn the wine and bread to blood and flesh or is it just a symbolic re-enactment? Like a true Anglican I am happy to be a bit fuzzy here – somewhere between presence and symbol. (Maybe with humour too.) Tribal people have a far stronger connection to the world and the powers they believe to be there. That appeals to me.
Different religions, belief systems, offer different things. But Gods, or more certainly priests, imams and evangelists are jealous people. They want 100 per cent of your soul. They do not see faith as a big buffet where you can help yourself and mix and match. Choose one faith and stick to it. For me that is a bit like having to eat at Macdonalds every day or KFC, which is probably worse.
For Your Information, my grandfather was a major – in the Salvation Army, my father was a vicar (Church of England) My undergraduate degree was in English and Comparative Religion. It’s the variety that is so fascinating.
What about you? Do you believe in spirits? Let me ask another question: “Do you believe in angels?” I’d like to. 75% of people in Manila and in Singapore do. Or at least that’s true of the artists and non-artists who visited a show I curated there of that title and where we had voting boxes. It doesn’t necessarily mean they believe in God, or go to church: though it probably does in Singapore. As far as I can tell most artists in the Philippines are lapsed Catholics. What beliefs does that leave you with?
Voting boxes at Do you believe in angels? 2014
This generous or easy going approach to faith that we find in South-East Asia – the technical term is syncretism – has an impact on art too.
I don’t want to make a sweeping generalisation, but maybe there is a bit more tolerance of other forms and other ways of working than we get in the West. But even as I say that, I start to think of people here with narrow views and pronounced dislikes for certain types of art.
Art in South-East Asia, even in just those four countries I regularly visit are very various – happily. As soon as someone makes some big claim, “It’s all about identity!” “It’s all about politics!” “It’s all about the market!” they end up trying to justify themselves by ignoring most of the best art.
Let’s keep looking.
Have a good week
Tony