One Man’s Collection Fills a Museum

JAKARTA, Indonesia — For a city of 10 million people, Jakarta lacked some things one might expect: a metro system, for one, as well as a major international modern and contemporary art museum.

The metro system will be operational in 2019, but the art museum has come even sooner. On November 4, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara, known as Museum Macan, opened its doors to the public, with items from the 800 contemporary and modern works owned by Haryanto Adikoesoemo, an Indonesian tycoon.

The museum has stunned crowds with phantasmagoric light installations like “Infinity Mirrored Room — Brilliance of the Souls” by Yayoi Kusama, alongside classic Indonesian modernist paintings by the likes of Raden Saleh.

Mr. Adikoesoemo, 55, says he is determined to add a dose of culture to a city mainly known for its palatial shopping malls and awful traffic. He has amassed a collection that is a mix of modernist Indonesian artists like Affandi, contemporary Western artists like Jean- Michel Basquiat and Jeff Koons, and prominent con- temporary artists from Japan and China, including Ms. Kusama and Ai Weiwei.

While the eclecticism could pose a challenge to curators trying to craft coherent exhibitions out of Mr. Adikoesoemo’s personal collection, Aaron Seeto, the museum’s Australian director, insists that the diversity is a boon. “One of the things we are really looking at in the program is presenting Indonesia in the world, having conversations between Indonesia and elsewhere,” he said. “This is what museums all around the world would like to be able to do, but their collections don’t allow them to do it.”

Creating Museum Macan has been a decade- long dream for Mr. Adikoesoemo, whose early attempt to collect art was washed away in the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998, when his family lost nearly everything. He was forced to sell all of his most valuable pieces — including a Renoir and a late Picasso.

Mr. Adikoesoemo was born into a middle- class family at the height of Indonesia’s turmoil during the transition to the rule of the dictator Suharto. By the time he reached high school, his father had established a thriving chemical business.

He was sent to the University of Bradford in Britain, where he earned a degree in business management.

After visiting a friend who collected art, Mr. Adikoesoemo began by buying Indonesian artwork, and then in 1996 began loading up on modernist paintings. But the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997. Mr. Adikoesoemo sold the Western artworks.

By the early 2000s, he managed to restore the family business. He went back to buying art, but prices had skyrocketed, so he switched to contemporary art.

Mr. Adikoesoemo compared founding a museum to starting a new business. “The anxiousness,” he said, “this generates a lot of excitement and adrenaline.”

A showcase for contemporary art opens in Indonesia.