Thursday, 23 Oktober 2008, 7 pm.
Curated by Yoyok MDTL
Host by Kiki Widyasari, Corporate Secretary Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI).

“Tahun 2002 aku menyelenggarakan kegiatan musik yang melibatkan banyak teman pemusik dari aliran yang disebut sebagai electronic underground–sesuatu yang berada di luar jalur mainstream. Saat itu aku masih hidup di Australia,” kata Rudy–Rudy Ardianto lengkapnya–ketika kami mulai ngobrol tentang tema pameran yang akan dipakai dalam pameran tunggalnya di vivi yip art room, Jakarta. Dari perbincangan itu, lahir tema “under current“. Secara harafiah under current adalah arus sungai yang deras dan dalam, berada di bagian arus sungai paling bawah, dengan arus yang kecil volumenya dan arah arusnya berlawanan dengan arus sungai bagian atas.

“Pada saat itu aku mengumpulkan kelompok pemusik indie label dan membuat pertunjukan yang dikemas seperti pesta musik electronic underground, dilengkapi bar-bar kecil yang ikut memeriahkan event tersebut,” ceritanya. Event yang digelar oleh Rudy dan teman-temannya itu hasilnya untuk mensubsidi kegiatan-kegiatan art yang lain misalnya pameran, pemutaran film, dan juga sewa gedung.

Tahun 2006 Rudy kembali ke Indonesia, mengusung keluarganya, yakni Vanessa sang istri berikut dua anak mereka, Mia gadis kecil berumur tujuh tahun serta Febi Dan, bocah laki-laki berusia lima tahun. Di situ kembali Rudy melihat lingkungan sekitar yang berkait dengan air–salah satu kebutuhan pokok manusia–yang nyatanya kurang mendapat perhatian. Tak ada sikap menjaga fungsi air tersebut untuk jangka waktu panjang, sampai ke generasi berikut agar mereka juga bisa memanfaatkan air dengan kondisinya yang sehat. Dengan “heroik”, Rudy mengumpulkan teman-temannya yang sevisi untuk membuat “festival mata air”–sebuah kampanye lingkungan yang melibatkan banyak elemen masyarakat, mulai dari pemerintah daerah, warga sekitar, kaum pemodal atau penggerak perekonomian, perusahaan-perusahaan, media massa, maupun teman-teman seniman untuk mendukung sekaligus meramaikan festival tersebut.

Banyak hambatan yang ditemui saat mengkampanyekan visi lingkungan, namun dengan kemasan dan pendekatan yang baik Rudy mampu mengumpulkan dukungan dari berbagai elemen masyarakat tersebut, sampai kemudian terselenggara kampanye lingkungan yang dikemas dalam bentuk budaya dan seni. Acara tersebut berlangsung selama satu minggu dengan agenda kehidupan bersahabat dengan lingkungan alam melalui kegiatan bersih-bersih lingkungan bagi banyak tempat umum yang diikuti oleh berbagai elemen masarakat. Lalu pengenalan seni terhadap anak-anak usia dini dengan mengadakan workshop daur ulang sampah yang bisa dijadikan sebagai benda seni. Tanpa terasa kegiatan itu berjalan setiap tahun. Sejauh ini, selama tiga tahun mampu melewati rintangannya dan mendapat dukungan yang semakin luas dari masarakat.

Selama tiga tahun mengkampanyekan lingkungan, porsi berkarya (melukis) Rudy banyak tersita dengan kegiatan sosial. Namun dalam perkembangannya, di tahun ketiga ini Rudy sudah mulai bisa mengurangi kegiatan yang bersifat “action public” tersebut, yang telah bisa diteruskannya itu oleh rekan-rekannya. Keterlibatannya berkurang, dan ia bisa berkonsentrasi lebih banyak terhadap karya lukisnya yang sempat berkurang banyak porsinya. Ketika kembali ke dunia seni lukis ini, diam-diam ternyata kreativitas yang bersifat under current di festival tersebut muncul lagi, sebagai referensi yang mengilhaminya untuk diangkat menjadi karya lukis.

Rudy yang pernah belajar disain grafis di Australia dan beberapa kali mencetak T-shirt dengan disain yang dibuat sendiri, ilustrasi pada sampul majalah, juga poster-poster yang merupakan hasil dari mendalami disain grafis dapat terlihat pada karya lukisnya. Warna-warna menyala menabrak langsung ke mata, komposisi yang menampakkan perbedaan jelas antara figur dan latar, yang mengingatkan akan karya poster, suatu figur yang merupakan bentuk perlawanan dan provokatif.

Konsep penciptaan karyanya menarik untuk diikuti. Satu karya mempunyai hubungan dengan karya lainnya seperti konsep komik, namun sekaligus dapat bercerita secara tunggal meski terpaut oleh karya sebelumnya. Karya-karya itu bertutur tentang kursi. Mulai dari perebutan kursi kekuasaan, adanya segelintir kursi yang kurang diminati untuk diperebutkan, kursi tersebut ada yang mengisi tapi tidak berfungsi maksimal, dan seterusnya. Dari situ pegerakan under current terjadi di luar mainstream kekuasaan. Dari karya yang sebagian berkonsep seperti komik ini dapat dirasakan nuansa emosi Rudy, yang dapat membantu kita merasakan kenikmatannya saat mengamati karya tersebut.

Jiwa under current Rudy terlihat pada karya-karyanya yang mengkritik dunia kekuasaan yang menghasilkan ketentuan atau undang-undang dalam suatu negara, seperti karya tiga dimensi yang terdiri dari susunan kursi-kursi sebagai gambaran dari kursi parlemen yang membentuk piramida yang di atasnya terdapat satu kursi yang sangat berbeda karena bentuknya yang eksklusif dibanding kursi lain di
bawahnya. Di antara tumpukan kursi itu ada kursi berwarna hijau yang mewakili kursi lingkungan hidup, berada paling belakang dari kursi lainnya. Rudy berkata, susunan paling banyak dan paling bawah melambangkan idiologi, naik satu tingkat merupakan susunan kursi keamanan, di atasnya terdapat susunan kursi mewakili moral, yang paling atas adalah absolute power (the devil’s throne) .

Pada karya lukisnya yang berjudul “The Wheel Chair“, terlihat ada satu kursi yang memperjuangkan lingkungan tapi kursi itu kurang berfungsi karena tidak ada yang tertarik. Yang tertarik pun tak begitu berdaya karena terlalu banyak lawan yang harus dihadapi. “The Wheel Chair“itu sebuah kursi yang ada, tapi tak berfungsi sampai kelihatan bulukan seperti patung Rudy.

Tidak semua karya pada pameran ini menampilkan kursi sebagai perwujudan dari kekuasaan. Pada karya “Art Militant“, Rudy bercerita tentang perjuangan seni dimana seorang seniman merupakan pejuang yang melalui karyanya selalu menyuarakan isi hatinya untuk diperjuangkan. Seni bisa menjadi media yang kuat untuk berbicara. “Art Militant” adalah kosep berkesenian yang militan: seni untuk perjuangan, dalam hal ini lingkungan.

Rudy adalah seorang seniman yang menyadari bahwa narasi yang disampaikan kepada kita melalui karya-karya lukisnya lebih banyak bersifat lingkungan. Dalam banyak karyanya bisa kita temui narasi-narasi itu bermula dari pikiran yang terkonsep dan memenuhi dirinya, dibiarkan mengalir begitu saja dan dikeluarkan secara alami pada kanvas. Bentuk dari intensitas Rudy pada lingkungan terwujud pada karya-karya yang diciptakan, dan hasil dari penjualan pameran ini juga akan disisihkan sebagian untuk lingkungan.

Bentuk figur yang sederhana dari tampilan sesungguhnya merupakan perwujudan dari under current, dimana jiwa yang selalu mempertanyakan akan sesuatu, gelisah terhadap apa yang ditemuinya dalam khasanah pemahaman akan suatu hal, mencoba diekspresikan dalam bentuk yang baru, atau keluar dan melawan dikarenakan kebosanan terhadap wacana yang berkembang.

Berkarya seni tanpa harus dipusingkan oleh aliran ataupun genre tertentu, berkarya dengan kenyamanan hati dan apa adanya, penghargaan terhadap kreativitas diri yang lebih menonjol dibandingkan dengan hasil karya tersebut, bahkan keindahan visualnya bisa dilihat dari keberadaan visual yang tidak porposional. Karya seperti ini lebih dekat dengan sebutan lowbrow yang cenderung tak ambil pusing dengan selera vulgar dan jauh dari cita rasa intelektual.

Karya-karya selebihnya tetap menghadirkan takaran Rudy yang selalu menggali kadar kecerdasannya dalam menggabungkan imajinasinya dengan bentuk visual pada karyanya, mengemas karya secara easy going dan berani, tanpa ragu memberi warna yang mendukung visualnya dalam menyampaikan pesan, seperti pada karya “Lawan”, figur penunggang kuda yang membawa senjata sambil mengepalkan tangan, louder!!! , kepala yang berteriak seperti komik kartun.

Selintas ulasan di atas, semoga dapat membantu kita untuk mengetahui proses penciptaan karya Rudy yang sebelum karya lukis tersebut tercipta, sudah ada sebuah imajinasi yang ramai dan dituangkan kedalam kanvas secara detail. Karya yang hadir dari hasil pengamatan dari pergerakan budaya dan lingkungan under current. ***

Curated by Aminudin TH Siregar
Saturday, 30.08.2008 at 5 pm
Hosted by Cicilia King
Special Appearance: Alakazam Rock Band

Sejumlah Gejala

Seniman-seniman di zaman sekarang lebih menyukai tema-tema ringan, yang tak segan-segan mereka cerap dari pengalaman sehari-hari. Apakah gejala ini bisa kita tengarai sebagai pudarnya minat pada narasi besar seraya sekaligus berpaling ke narasi kecil - yang pada fase-fase historis tertentu pernah disepelekan, dijauhi dan dimarjinalkan karena dianggap tidak mengandung permasalahannya yang mendesak bagi kehidupan? Apakah bawah sadar dari gejala ini bisa kita baca sebagai penentangan terhadap elitisme seni rupa?

Situasi yang demikian sesungguhnya tidak lagi baru. Para pelaku Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (GSRB) telah memulai pembongkaran terhadap elitisme ini. Pameran terakhir mereka Pasar Raya Dunia Fantasi (1987) tidak semata merefleksikan ‘kenakalan anak muda’, tetapi memanifestasikan perluasan sejumlah hal di dalam dunia seni rupa, terutama pada pokok estetika. Kalau kita tarik garis lurus dari pameran itu sampai ke dasawarsa sekarang, tampak benang merah ketertarikan di kalangan seniman. Plesetan ala GSRB toh masih dilakoni Bambang Toko, Eko Nugroho, dan lain sebagainya. Secara estetik, pengemasan genre seni pop dan penganut neo dada secara bersamaan muncul di dalam tampilan karya mereka. Kalau begitu, mestinya ada kesamaan latar sosial yang mendongkrak lahirnya kecenderungan karya-karya seperti itu. Diantaranya mungkin bisa kita sebut di sini: produksi-reproduksi citraan budaya konsumerisme yang berada di dalam ranah kebudayaan pop.

Dari perspektif internal seniman, penciptaan karya terjadi atas dasar ‘sesuka suasana hati mereka’, ‘yang penting cool’ dan adakalanya sangat bergantung pada komunitas atau ‘dengan siapa dia bergaul’, menunjukkan tengah terjadinya krisis identitas dikalangan muda. Kita harus maknai konotasi krisis di sana secara positif, sebab dia berurusan dengan semangat ekploratif dan ekperimentatif. Di antara sesuatu yang serius dan ringan, batasannya kini lebur. Yang tadinya hanya cocok untuk dijadikan ilustrasi majalah pop atau aplikasi poster, kini menghias kanvas-kanvas seniman. Yang tadinya sangat profan, menjadi adiluhung. Yang tadinya dipandang murahan, menjadi mahalan. Yang mulanya main-main, kini menjadi serius. Yang tadinya berlokasi di jalanan dan menyerang kemapanan galeri, kini justru menempel di tembok galeri-galeri bergengsi.

Bersamaan dengan itu kita dapat amati, seni rupa tengah mengalami pemekaran, baik pada corak maupun tema. Hal ini terjadi karena teknologi komunikasi menyebabkan seniman dihadapkan dengan keleluasaan untuk memilih. Di situ, ide menciptakan karya seni bisa datang secara eklektik dari film, MTV, putus cinta, terancam drop-out dari kampus hingga renungan eksistensialis yang serius. Corak dalam seni lukis bisa secara serentak distimuli dari kartun, manga, majalah pop, tanda-tanda di dalam dunia maya hingga buku-buku seni rupa dan lain sebagainya.

Apa yang sesungguhnya tengah terjadi?

Yang terjadi saat ini adalah bahwa penciptaan seni bukan lagi bertolak dari pengalaman estetis, melainkan lebih merupakan hasil-hasil dari reproduksi serta manipulasi citraan. Akibat yang cukup serius: dunia seni rupa mengalami disensus nilai-nilai. Kita akhirnya mengalami kesulitan mengaitkan masalah dari satu peristiwa seni rupa ke peristiwa lainnya menjadi suatu urut-urutan yang koheren. Segala sesuatu kini tidak berkelanjutan dan tidak berhubungan.

Di luar itu, kini kita sedang bertemu suatu fase yang dulu ‘diperjuangkan dan dibayangkan’ oleh pelaku GSRB, yaitu leburnya batas-batas hirarki di dalam gerak kebudayaan kita. Atau di dalam keniscayaan kritikus Sanento Yuliman: dari pluralisme estetik ke estetik pluralis. Seni rupa bawah mendesak ke permukaan dan lebur dengan seni rupa atas, bertransformasi ke dalam kepingan-kepingan kecil. Di dalam kepingan itu, kita kehilangan rujukan. Sanento Yuliman saat itu menyebutnya sebagai seni rupa sehari-hari. Dalihnya: macam-macam masyarakat, macam-macam kebudayaan dan masuk akal apabila tercipta pula macam-macam seni rupa.

Lobrow yang Memikat

Disensus nilai dalam seni rupa dewasa ini tentu saja perlu penamaan. Untuk sementara kita pinjam istilah lowbrow untuk menampung gejala kekaryan yang semacam itu. Gejala ini tidak saja menjangkiti Indonesia, di negara-negara lain, genre yang sering diidentikkan dengan selera vulgar dan anti intelektual ini juga menjadi trend baru di kalangan seniman.

Ya, mungkin lowbrow atau acap disebut pula dengan surealisme pop inilah yang tampaknya diposisikan pada bibir gelombang perkembangan seni rupa kita. Gerakan seni yang pemekarannya terjadi di Los Angeles, California pada awal 1990an dan kadangkala dikaitkan dengan gerakan Stuckism di Inggris ini memang memiliki tawaran unik. Selain menyuguhkan citraan yang berbeda dengan lazimnya estetika dalam ‘budaya tinggi’, genre lowbrow yang merefleksikan ‘budaya jalanan’ itu seolah memberikan jawaban ketika penciptaan artistik tanah air mengalami jalan buntu dan terutama sekali ketika terjadi krisis identitas di kalangan muda. Semangat anti kemapanan yang meluap-luap terhadap dominasi estetik sebelumnya juga menjadi basis titik tolak karya-karya tersebut.

Gejala lowbrow di Indonesia dimulai dari bocornya citraan yang komikal ke dalam karya-karya seni lukis. Dari situ, kita bisa katakan mulai kelompok Taring Padi, Apotik Komik, Daging Tumbuh di Jogjakarta serta sejumlah komunitas anak muda lainnya di Bandung dan kota-kota besar lain, serta penerbitan majalah-majalah underground dan sejenisnya cukup mendongkrak lahirnya genre tersebut, tentu dengan pelbagai karakteristik lokalnya yang khas, yang ditopang oleh kebudayaan pop Indonesia. Tidak cuma itu, nafas formalisme seni tradisi yang flat turut memperkaya diksi seniman kita, Pada batas-batas tertentu kita temukan benih gejala ini secara individu pada karya-karya Heri Dono, Agung Kurniawan, Eddi Hara, Hanura Hosea, Popok Triwahyudi, dan banyak lagi.

Konstruksi ‘Aku’

Dari 36 seniman yang terlibat di dalam pameran Ini Baru Ini, karya semisal Andi Cakra Abbas, W Alimin SW, Badru Zaman, Baskoro Latu, Lia Mareza, Bonita Margaret, Eunice Nuh, G Prima Puspitasari, Hendra ‘Hehe’ Harsono, Irfan Winoto Dechan, Octo Chan, Lydiawati, Kania, Tere/Theresia A Sitompul, Timotius Anggawan, Restu, Riduan serta Radi Arwinda setidaknya berada dalam semangat lowbrow itu. Karya-karya mereka mengakar pada aktualitas kebudayaan pop kita. Dan perlu dicatat bahwa mereka tidak berkarya secara deduktif, artinya mereka membebaskan diri dari kepentingan yang ada di luar dirinya, yang kita sebut narasi besar itu.

Di dalam seni video, kita temukan Febie Babyrose dan Yusuf Ismail. Memang, tidak seluruh karya-karya yang kita nikmati di dalam pameran ini mengusung lowbrow. Lukisan dari Abdul Fattah, Donny Paul, Iwan Hasto, Hikmah, Mulyo Gunarso, Monika Ary Kartika, Patricia, Dita Gumira, Irawan Pras serta I Wayan Kun Adnyana misalnya. Selebihnya kita temukan karya-karya yang menyuguhkan kuasi estetik, yaitu berupa kombinasi dari pelbagai genre seni rupa.

Hanafi tampil dengan karya yang berbeda dari kelaziman reputasinya selama ini. Dia menampilkan potret dirinya sebagai pose yang terbuka untuk ditafsir. Saya menduga hal ini terkait dengan revitalisasi kekaryaan Hanafi yang mencoba menginterupsi situasi aktual yang dihadapi olehnya. Potret diri disitu Sejauh pengamatan, menyoal pembedahan satu sisi modernitas (modernity) dari perspektif: cara bertanya terhadap suatu fenomena dan cara bertanya individu terhadap dirinya sendiri (self). Untuk memudahkan, perbedaan cara bertanya tersebut saya kategorikan sebagai: kesadaran sosiologis-historis dan kesadaran filosofis-etis. Tampilan wajah Hanafi yang frontal mencakup ihwal cara bertanya tersebut. Ada kesan Hanafi menghindari perangkap cara berfikir periodik dan mengutamakan suatu keterputusan (discontinuity) dengan masa lalunya.

Dari refleksi karya Hanafi ini, kita bisa menjabarkan kecenderungan umum di seniman lainnya dalam pameran ini. Yakni bagaimana seorang seniman berani ‘memproblematisasikan” dirinya dengan situasi terkini. Sekali lagi, ini akan terkait dengan krisis identitas yang saya tulis di atas dimana ihwal diri (self) harus diciptakan dengan cara terus mempertanyakan apakah hari ini? apakah situasi terkini dari kesadaran sang-self tersebut?. Sebagai seniman, tentunya, kedasaran untuk mempertanyakan terus apakah seni itu? Dalam makna yang positif – dan memang kita harus menilainya dalam koridor itu - krisis identitas memuat simtom sizofrenia (pribadi kembar) yang banyak bermukim di dalam individu seniman.

Seniman pada prinsipnya mengolah dunia batin untuk mengonstruksi keutuhan sang “aku”. Yaitu “aku” yang menempuh resiko hidup, “aku’ yang menghadapi konflik-konflik antara diri dengan dunia sekitarnya. Itulah “aku” yang modern, yang merupakan tindakan tajam melihat realitas, berani melakukan konfrontasi pada praktik kebebasan seraya sekaligus dijadikan penghormatan dan pelanggaran terhadap realitas itu sendiri.

Pameran bertajuk Ini Baru Ini ini mencakup pula seniman Asia Tenggara, sebutlah Eric Chan (Singapura), Ruel Cassi (Filiipina), Bembol de la Cruz (Filipina) serta Wong Perng Fey dan Liew Choong Ching (Malaysia). Karya mereka tampil dengan kematangan tertentu yang dengan segera bisa kita rasakan perbedaannya dengan seniman lokal. Perbedaan itu terletak pada gagasan yang berujung pada tematik yang khas. Selain itu, secara teknik kita jumpai tingkat kematangan yang berbeda.

Epilog

Dilihat dari kuantitasnya, pameran ini terbilang berskala besar. Ini Baru Ini mengingatkan kita pada Pasar Raya Dunia Fantasi tahun 1987. Perbedaannya, kalau yang dulu diiringi kontroversi, sementara dewasa ini karya-karya, hemat saya, akan menuai apresiasi. Sebab, kini kita memasuki era seni rupa yang kehilangan tegangan itu. Satu-satunya tegangan yang tersisa sekaligus tersedia hanyalah tegangan internal setiap seniman, sejauh apa dia mampu bertahan hidup di zaman sekarang, bergulat di dalam pemekaran ke corak baru dan tema baru.

Dan, sebagaimana Sanento Yuliman (1987) menengahi kekeliruan Trisno Sumardjo pada tahun 1949 yang mengatakan bahwa masalah kita adalah mengadakan tradisi baru dan bukan membuat renaisans karena dinilai olehnya kita tak punya tradisi, maka Sanento boleh jadi benar: premis Trisno itu jangan-jangan memang kehilangan relevansinya. Seniman sekarang tentunya mengantongi dua bekal: bekal budaya ketika dia hidup dan bekal seni tradisi yang kaya potensi untuk didaur ulang. Segalanya tinggal dipilih. Zaman sekarang adalah surga bagi penciptaan karya seni. Namun, bagi mereka yang tidak peka, zaman sekarang adalah neraka.

English:

This is It: Symptoms from Below

Several Symptoms

Artists of today prefer lightweight themes, which they unhesitatingly take from their daily lives. Can we read the symptom as the fading away of interest in grand narratives and the turn to petite narratives—which in certain historical phases had been looked down, shunned, and marginalized, because it was thought that they did not carry urgent matters? Can we say that underlying this symptom has been the subconscious effort to challenge the elitism in art?

Such a situation is in fact not new. The artists of the New Art Movement had started to break down such elitism. Their last exhibition, “Pasar Raya Dunia Fantasi” (1987), did not merely reflect “the naughtiness of youth,” but was also the manifestation of the expansion of several matters in art, especially in terms of aesthetics. If we draw a line from that exhibition to the situation today, an underlying theme would transpire, which had apparently been of interest among the artists. Playfulness à la the New Art Movement is still apparent in the works by such artists as Bambang Toko and Eko Nugroho. Aesthetically, pop art packaging and traces of neo-Dadas are apparent in their works. In that case, there must have been similar social situations that had triggered the birth of such works. One of such situations might be the production-reproduction of images of the culture of consumerism that exist within the realm of pop culture.

From the internal perspective of the artist, the process of creation of a work of art occurs on the basis of “whatever the mood dictates,” “cool is crucial,” and it sometimes depends very much on the community or the peer, evidence of a crisis of identity among the youth. We must take “crisis” there as something positive, as it deals with the spirit of exploration and experiments. The boundary between the serious and the lightweight blurs. The ones that previously were appropriate only for pop magazine or poster illustrations are now found in the artists’ canvasses. The ones that were profane are now sacred. The ones that were lowly are now luxury. The ones that were mere plays have become serious. The ones that previously were found on the street and attacked the established position of galleries are now hung on the walls of prestigious galleries.

At the same time it is apparent that art is undergoing an expansion, whether in terms of styles or pattern. This is due to the communication technology that presents to the artists an array of choices. Here, ideas for art works can come eclectically from movies, MTV, heart breaks, university’s drop-out warnings, to profound existential meditations. Painting styles can be simultaneously stimulated by cartoons, mangas, pop magazines, signs from the virtual world, up to art books and whatnots.

What is actually happening?

What happens is that today art creation no longer departs from the aesthetic experience, but instead is the result of image reproduction and manipulation. A rather serious consequence of it has been this: The world of art faces a dissensus of values. It is eventually difficult for us to relate the problems of one art event and the next in a coherent sequence. Every thing is now discontinuous and unrelated.

Furthermore, we are now experiencing a phase that the proponents of the New Art Movement had fought for: the blurring of hierarchy in the movements of our culture. Or as per the certitude of the late critic Sanento Yuliman: from the aesthetic pluralism to the pluralistic aesthetics. The low art is pushing upward and merges with the high art, transformed into tiny fragments. Amid the fragments, we lose our reference. Sanento Yuliman calls it the art of the daily lives. The reason: a myriad of societies, a myriad of cultures, and so it is only logical that there will be a myriad kinds of art.

The Enchanting Lowbrow

We certainly need to give a name to the dissensus in the world of art today. We will temporarily borrow the term of ‘lowbrow’ to contain such symptoms of art, which are rife not only in Indonesia. In other countries, the genre that is often identified with a vulgar and anti-intellectual taste has also become a new trend among the artists.

Yes, probably it is the ‘lowbrow’ or what is often called ‘pop surrealism’ that has been placed at the cutting edge of our art development. The art movement that has grown in Los Angeles, California, in the early nineties and is often linked with the Stuckism movement in the UK indeed presents a unique opportunity for the artists. Besides presenting images that are distinct from the common aesthetics of the ‘high culture,’ the lowbrow genre that reflects the “street culture” also seems to provide an answer to the situation in which the artistic creation in Indonesia faces a dead end and especially when there is a crisis of identity among the youth. The brimming anti-establishment spirit against the previous aesthetic dominance has also been the basis for such “lowbrow” works.

The symptom of lowbrow art in Indonesia began with the leaking of comical images into painting. We can say that such groups as Taring Padi (literally: Fanged Husk), Apotik Komik (Comics Apothecary), Daging Tumbuh (literally: Tumors) in Yogyakarta, as well as a number of youth communities in Bandung and other Indonesian cities, and the publication of underground zines have all supported the birth of this genre—with the various attending local characters and buttressed by the Indonesian pop culture. Furthermore, the atmosphere of formalism of the flat traditional art has also enriched the artistic diction of our artists. To a certain extent, we discover the seeds of this genre in the works by such artists as Heri Dono, Agung Kurniawan, Eddi Hara, Hanura Hosea, Popok Triwahyudi, and many more.

Hosted by Priscilla P. Handajani
Saturday, 02.08.2008 at 5 - 7 pm

exhibition until 16.08.2008
open daily 11am-7pm except sunday & public holiday

A multitude of artists today are moving in droves, adopting the painting style called “the contemporary”—a style of painting with which today’s artists are familiar—as if fearing that if they do not take that grand train, they will be left behind in the trend, missing the party, missing the chance, outrun by history, missing the paradise. But in the speeding era, there is always a person who patiently chisels the works, in the search for an identity through daily travails, and after passing through one period after another, reaching a culmination in the form of spontaneity that unites the actions and ideas, intention and deed, routine and breakthrough, the mundane and the refined, the past of history and the dynamics of today, etc.

The Dynamics in Gampingan

Ipong Purnama Sidhi, 53 years old this 2008, reminisces about his time as a student at the ASRI (Indonesian Institute of Art), Yogyakarta, whose campus was in the area of Gampingan at the time. Ipong can remember not only the place where he boarded, but also the food booth where he usually ate, the voluptuous gudeg seller, the various events from his daily and college lives, which took place in 1975 – 1981. As for his study, among his many lecturers, the one he always remembers is Fadjar Sidik, who at the time was head of the Painting Department.

“When Pak Fadjar Sidik was ill, just before he died, I had the chance to visit him. He didn’t react to some other people at the time. But when I came, he took a long look, and then we even chatted and laughed together, so much so that the graph on the electrocardiograph went wild. The nurse warned us and asked me to go,” Ipong reminisces about Fadjar Sidik, who passed away in 2004.

Fadjar Sidik—loyal to the tradition held in ASRI, with its figures such as Affandi, Trubus, Sapto Hoedojo, and others—encouraged the students and stressed on the need for a strong character. Students should not be reluctant to hold exhibitions. What they must strive for was the development of strong characters, more or less like the dictum of the painter whose influence has been significant in this country: Sudjojono. Paintings, according to Sudjojono’s widely known creed, are “jiwa kethok,” “the revealed soul.” Without a strong character, the painters would not be taken seriously.

Within the history of art education in Indonesia, what had happened at ASRI Yogya is deemed different from what had happened at ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology) at the time. The two cities that have been playing a significant role within the dynamics of art in Indonesia are considered different. While Yogya functioned more like a “sanggar” or a communal studio, Bandung was known with its structured education system, with a stringent academic tradition, stressing on the technical capability of the students before they were prepared to perform out of the campus. Unlike Yogyakarta, whose students went out of the school, painting on the streets and in the market, Bandung generally educated the students in the studio, with technical rehearsals, loyal to the standard set by such educators as Ries Mulder, who was known as the figure who introduced cubism to Indonesia. Thus in Bandung, as the critic Eddy Soetriyono once wrote, himself also a graduate of ITB, art does not accept the excuse that “it does not have to be beautiful.” Eddy went on further to say that Ries Mulder’s students (Sadali, Mochtar Apin, Srihadi, and But Mochtar among others) never took beauty for granted.

The above background information is given solely with the intention of explaining the context in which artists like Ipong grew at the time. With the knowledge about impressionism and its figures like Monet, Manet, Renoir, or Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who made a breakthrough by purifying the painting and bringing it down to the fundamental elements of lines, colors, planes, and textures, the students strove to find their character. Is it not like what Barthes has said when he discusses about text—that text is not a “theological” string that descends down from the heaven; rather, it is a multidimensional space in which a myriad of texts—none of them original—blend and clash? In other words, in the process of searching for one’s character or identity, there are always texts, symbols, signs, narratives, and others that have existed before, forming a kind of discursive construction.

It is therefore understandable that the influence of Cobra, an art movement that proliferated in Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam—thus the name of Cobra—could sweep Ipong-the-student along. The simultaneity of lines, colors, plane processing, within the scope of influence exerted by the lecturers who were also pouring their emotions on the instant they created their works, was certainly related to the choice of style that Ipong adopted for his paintings at the time. He lived within an environment where painting was done quickly, expressively, strong in character, revealing traces of emotions. As to where the idioms were discovered, Ipong quotes Picasso, “…if there’s something to be stolen, I steal it.” Ipong does not deny how in terms of colors and forms he has been influenced by such figure as Asger Jorn, who aside from being a painter is also known as an essayist. In terms of wildness, there is also the influence of Jean Dubuffet, whom art history associates with “Art Brut”—which, like its name suggests, is related with some sort of brutality. The spattering and drips of paints on the canvas might have been borrowed from Jackson Pollock, whose break with all forms of (aesthetic) repressions at the time had emancipated America to stand on the same level with Europe.

Here we meet one of Ipong’s works, an illustrative work, with a form of simultaneity in the expression of lines, points, colors, strokes, spatters, all seemingly made in one breathtake. This was made in 1976. The time frame is necessary, because it means that the forms Ipong so far brings with him has been with him since more than thirty years ago—when such forms have not become trendy and neither were they ready meals for the art market, unlike today. Ipong’s early works in 1976, made on a piece of plywood using wall paints, and another made in 1978, a work of oil paints on canvas, were bought by the government, in this case the Ministry of Education and Culture. The two works are now in the collection of the National Gallery.

“I remember that the 1978 work was sold for Rp 40,000. At the time, one US dollar was equal to Rp 415. For a student, I felt that I had so much money. My friends asked me to buy them meals. Pak Fadjar Sidik also said, ‘Come, Pong, buy us meals…!’” Ipong reminisces.

In 1981, just before his graduation, like other students Ipong must exhibit his works at ASRI Hall in Gampingan. He displayed fifteen works, as a requisite for graduation. As soon as Ipong was pronounced as passing the final test, the works were gone. The lecturers requested his works for their collection. Ipong says, “They collected the works for free. Well, you must understand, it wasn’t quite booming yet…”

The Dynamics in Palmerah

Palmerah, Jakarta, is where the media conglomerate which would later be known as KKG (Kompas Gramedia Group) headquartered. Here is the office of the editors of the Kompas daily, of boards of editors of various magazines within the same group, of the printing house, publishing houses, as well as the home for a traditional Kudus house that had been brought to Jakarta in 1984, which then functioned as the building of Bentara Budaya, where cultural activities of the group were held. In 1982, after graduating from ASRI Yogyakarta, Ipong moved to Jakarta and joined the group, working as a book designer in the publishing house of PT Gramedia. From time to time—especially in that era—there was the cynicism that was sometimes revealed in insinuating jokes: why would an artist work in an office? There was an attitude of not taking seriously graduates of the art education institutions who worked in offices such as publishing houses or in the advertising industry. It was similar to the cynicism toward the student activists at the time who worked in big corporations. They were seen as accomplices of capitalism.

In reality, office work indeed poses the threat of trapping someone in a routine: doing the same work every day. Routine work is often considered as undermining creativity. It might be so, but the Executive of the Kompas daily and the Chief Executive Officer of the group, Jakob Oetama, always reminds and encourages people about the importance of doing routine work, or even doing the things that others consider as menial, unimportant, mundane. Jakob often says how from the small things that are scattered about, seemingly unstructured, which we go on doing every day, we can create something big. As a man from the past era, Jakob often mentions the “oto”—a child’s bib made from unused pieces of fabric sewn together. Today, such rags are creatively used in Bali to make colorful blankets.

Ipong’s earnestness in doing his daily work was actually apparent. Within the period of around eight years (1982 – 1990) when he was working as a book designer, he received seven awards for book design. In other words, he received an award for almost every year of his career as a designer. In 1990, he was transferred to do the design of the Kompas daily. When he moved to the daily, besides designing the newspaper, he also made illustrations, for example for the short stories that were published every Sunday. He also wrote art reviews. In 1995, he was transferred again, this time to Bentara Budaya. Here, Ipong has the task of managing the art activities held by Bentara Budaya, ranging from performing art activities to art exhibitions. For the art exhibitions, Ipong has also been working as one of the curators.

As he first started to work in Palmerah until many years after, Ipong practically stopped painting—as he admits it himself. “I haven’t been painting for around fifteen years,” he says. “In Bentara Budaya, the task is to honor the artists, take care of them, giving them opportunities to perform,” he says about his position in Bentara Budaya, which he has been holding to this day.

It was only in 1997 that Ipong took up painting again, although it was not with any particular intensity. Sometimes he took part in joint exhibitions with other painters. He tells us, “When I’m sane, I paint. But I’m more often insane.” The drive to paint again, which had not been quite intense as he was “more often insane,” started to become rather reinvigorated when he received an offer to exhibit his works at Tony Raka Art Gallery, in Ubud, Bali, November 2007. The exhibition in Bali has surreptitiously revitalized the painter in him.

The drive to paint went in full form, as if having gulped Viagra pills, as he was challenged to present his works in a solo exhibition, in the art room that wishes to become a companion to artists, the vivi yip art room. This is probably what Jakob Oetama means: nothing is futile in our daily travails. Working in the Kompas daily making illustrations, engaged in the dynamics of newspaper publishing, inundated by information and the problems of information, all of those have apparently been preparing an increasingly solid base for Ipong to use when he was challenged to express his ideas and the pertaining forms harmoniously, in speed and simultaneity—just as it is in the dynamics of newspaper publishing.

The images that have been in his mind, lying dormant for years, went flooding out. Like in a computer, as soon as the ‘enter’ key is pressed, all the master images that have been stored in his mind emerge. In a period of around five months, from March to July 2008, about 35 to 40 paintings took shape. And it seems as if they are still not enough. There is a flood of uncontained energy. Seeing the wooden boxes in the gallery, usually used as pedestals for the displayed works, Ipong had the idea of screen-printing his characteristic images on the boxes. Images and ideas, united in a point of culmination, emerge, exposing the dynamics of daily lives. From here on, we do not need to look further for the theme of the exhibition. The theme is there, ready for Ipong to use: Pop Culmination.

Pop culmination

Life experiences, daily events, memories, emotions, all find their stylized forms without much ado. The stylized forms are ready to express the brimming emotions. Ipong remembers his mother, whom he says was a simple mother, at least if compared to his father, whom he says was educated and intellectual. With all those memories, however, it is the figure of the mother that has left a more significant mark upon the six children, Ipong one of them. He expresses this with the image of a female figure in the corner of the canvas, beautiful, gentle, trusting, raising hopes. On the other side of the canvas, six hands are trying to reach her. That is how Ipong reveals himself in the work. The painting is titled Mother of Hope. Still about the relationship between a child and the mother, Ipong describes such relationship in the series of “Mother & Child Reunion,” borrowing the title of a song by the musician who was an icon of the seventies generation, Paul Simon.

It is indeed the human relationships that give a distinct color to Ipong’s work. Human relationship in the contemporary society is sometimes absurd, ironic, even tragic. The boundary between tragedy and comedy is not clear. The smile—does it show happiness, or bitterness? The tragic-comedy of the urbanite is revealed in the series entitled “Aftermath.” As the title suggests, something has happened before, but what was it, what took place before the “Aftermath”? Is it an act of love-making? Done in the bed of marital formalism, or in the surreptitious chamber of extra-marital affairs? The figures in “Aftermath” can lead us to various kinds of reading, in the context of the urban dynamics that is all so unpredictable and sometimes tragic.

Tragedy, in any case, has been following humans throughout the long history of civilization. Around the fourteenth century, Dante has written La Divina Commedia. The clown in Ipong’s work, white-faced, grinning, preparing a joke or unconsciously experiencing the bitterness of life, with one hand on the chest—can it be that he is expressing the history of human’s painful and tragic journey? The work is titled Divine Comedy, the English version of Dante’s La Divina Commedia. Another work, showing a similar spirit with the previous work, reveals a grotesquely-faced figure, his hand pointing toward the head, reminding one of Robert De Niro’s madcap in The Deer Hunter, when he fools around with the perilous play of Russian Roulette. The work is entitled Jakarta Roulette. An atmosphere of insanity is apparent in another work, with a figure who is laughing for God-knows-whatever-reason while covering his ears. That is the work with the ironical title of Dumber is Golden. It is as ironic as the work entitled Never Marry the Angel. Why can one not marry the angel? The answer can be seen in the work: the angel has only one wing, and she has a child, too. So, Never Marry the Angel.

The ancient instinct is held in all of us humans, and probably that is what makes Ipong often use symbols of creatures considered as remainders of the primeval era—geckoes, for example. A tattooed figure—in which, like other figures in Ipong’s works, the sexual identity is not clear, a man or a woman?—is holding a gecko. The tattoo as well as the gecko insinuate primitiveness, and so the work has a satiric title, playing on the term ‘globalization,’ i.e. Ancientation. Primitiveness, while revealed on the surface in the tattoo, in the more profound level is contained and hidden within the self, in the passions, in the physical desires. It resides in the instinct that is furtively revealed in the work in which a figure has been more definitely referred to the figure of a beautiful woman, probably with a voluptuous body, and there are hands trying to grope her, Devil in the Flesh.

Ipong feels free to let his imaginations run far. He has made an illustration for the short story written by Martin Aleida, entitled “Mangku Mencari Doa di Daratan Jauh” (Mangku Seeks a Prayer in Faraway Lands). The story tells of a person that has been thoroughly marginalized in his homeland, Bali. The character decides to go far to the Island of Sumatra, to Lampung to be exact. After portraying the itinerant figure accompanied by a monkey and a dog, crossing cities and towns like Sanur, Banyuwangi, Jakarta, and so forth, Ipong goes on with his own experience, making a stop in Singapore, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, and others, as he mentions in the work. It is not off the mark, I think, if the work borrows the title of a book by the philosopher Umberto Eco: Travel in Hyperreality. Other works, Anomaly, Bravery, Octopussy, Red & My Pillow, Dream of Whom, and Double Fantasy are works that confirm Ipong process of simultaneity in the creation of his works. It is not only the forms and the ideas that have been harmoniously united, but also the titles that immediately surface accompanying the works.

I am closing the introduction as Ipong is finishing one of his works, in which a face is revealed, one that is no longer young, full of wrinkles, as if containing not only life experiences of the past, the bitterness, but also a kind of madness. Ipong keeps on making strokes wildly on his canvas. Probably this is the one work that most aptly describes the artist and his works. The title of this particular work is a play on the title of the book by James Joyce, A Portrait of the Oldman as an Insane.

Pejaten, July 2008
* Bre Redana, journalist of the Kompas daily. The essay is written as Ipong is still busily finishing his works.

Curated by Sudjud Dartanto
Saturday, 28.06.2008 at 5 - 7 pm

Exhibition until 12.07.2008
open daily 11am-7pm except sunday & public holiday

Preamble

Why do we present works by Hendra “HeHe” Harsono? Is it merely because of something inherent in the works? Or do we present them just by accident in the soft opening of this art room, vivi yip art room?

It is not a mere chance, a mere coincidence. Although such visual strategies as the one that HeHe adopts has spread for quite a while, one must admit that the art world has not been wholly familiar with them. This is especially true if we associate the term ‘art’ with a “serious” world, where one would be forced to frown and need bags full of intellectual references in order to understand it. One can enjoy HeHe’s works without having to frown. The references that might be required would perhaps consist of one’s familiarity with comics, cartoons, and other expressions of the popular culture.

If there is indeed another set of references—as internet sites could explain—then such a visual strategy would be defined as forming works that do not quite concern themselves with the recognition from the “serious” art world. These works are the manifestation of the street culture, the underground culture. This movement, which blossomed in California since the late seventies, has been called “lowbrow”.

Perhaps that is where the encounter takes place between the choice to present HeHe’s art works and the soft opening of our art room. We fully realize that an art room like this must have a cultural function. Personally, vivi yip art room feels that we are inclined toward the subculture that lies at the basis of such art movements, which if traced backwards seem to remind us to all liberation efforts; just like the psychedelic images of the seventies, the underground art, pop art, and others. We think that parts of the cultural function of such an art room consist of our engagement with the cultural processes, including the dynamics of the marginal subcultures.

We hope that we can keep on walking steadily toward the horizon of culture, which can very well be consisting of layers upon layers of horizons. Behind the horizon—just as Rendra the poet once quipped—always lies another horizon.

Pejaten, June 2008
vivi yip art room