Design Anthology - Asia Pacific Edition
Profiles
Three stalwarts of Indonesia’s art scene talk about their roles in the country’s artistic development over the years
Indonesia has a natural penchant for the visual arts.
Its dramatic history and colourful mix of cultures and craftsmanship has nourished a multitude of contemporary artists over the years. Backed by auction houses, the local art market soared until it crashed in 2008 with the global economy, indirectly weeding out speculators and leaving only the most dedicated art connoisseurs to re-energise the industry and support its talent. These enduring, inspiring individuals include driven curator
Alia Swastika, unconventional collector Natasha Sidharta and gallerist Jun Tirtadji, who is particularly mindful of young artists. Delving into their work paints
a broad picture of the art scene in Indonesia today.
Swastika is one of Indonesia’s most indefatigable and in-demand cultural agents. Last autumn, she curated four exhibitions for the Belgian arts festival Europalia, among them a phantasmagorical installation made from destroyed chandeliers addressing the rise and fall of colonial power by Jompet Kuswidananto. In May, she decided to put her role as artistic director at Ark Galerie in Yogyakarta on hold, taking advantage of an ending lease. ‘I want to focus on new projects by younger artists,’ she says. With that goal in mind, she initiated a series of informal gatherings, inviting mostly women graduates to join readings, discussions and trips to local communities. For participants to be able to learn from each other within their country’s sociopolitical context is the curator’s underlying aim. ‘There’s no fixed goal for now, but I wonder what would happen if we keep meeting regularly,’ she says. The meetings are food for thought for graduates who would otherwise flee to Jakarta, joining the ranks of creative professionals without ever looking back at their arts backgrounds. Thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation, Swastika is also building a database of interviews with women artists active during the New Art Movement between the 1970s and 1980s, an anti-establishment current that emerged from Bandung’s highly politicised art university milieu. ‘We know a lot about the work of male artists such as FX Harsono and Jim Supangkat,’ she explains. ‘But the movement had two great female artists also — Nanik Mirna and Siti Adiyati Subangun — and there’s very little information about their contributions.’
Meanwhile, patrons of contemporary art in Indonesia often have glamorous collections that they show off as proof of their support. But Sidharta is doing her part behind the scenes. In fact, she does not even consider herself a collector. ‘A collector is someone who actively collects following specific concepts to build their collection,’ she says. ‘For me, it’s more like a challenge.’
Sidharta contributes by running exhibition projects from start to finish. An art angel investor, she often gathers funds in order to advance the careers of local artists. She is responsible for the presence of new media art collective House of Natural Fiber at the 2013 Istanbul Biennial. She has also collaborated with Hong Kong’s Asia Art Archive to create English translations of several key exhibition texts from the 1980s and 1990s, thus making Indonesian art more accessible to researchers overseas. ‘I’m always thinking of what the Indonesian art scene needs,’ she says. ‘And it always starts with a conversation.’ Sidharta also works with individual artists, some of whom enjoy considerably high prices domestically but lack institutional or museum records that could justify their prices to international collectors. But thanks to Sidharta, a number have found success abroad. For instance, Handiwirman Saputra put on a major exhibition of works in Tokyo, which led to several of his works being showcased in the Mori Art Museum’s collection. ‘When I have to decide between buying a work or sending a young artist to be part of a workshop with, let’s say, Joan Jonas, of course I go for the second option,’ says Sidharta. ‘I try to connect artists with the right sources.’
Another person working hard to support the local scene, Tirtadji made his start in the gallery business in 2012, after the boom and bust of the Indonesian art market. Unlike many of his veteran colleagues, he was not present when buyers were so avid that gallerists had to organise lotteries in order to sell artworks. Despite having missed that particular boat, he is clearly making the best out of the Indonesian art market as it stands — his Jakarta-based gallery, ROH Projects, is now a name on many lips.
‘We had to think about how to position ourselves within the wider conversation on Indonesian infrastructure,’ Tirtadji explains. His sophisticated demeanour certainly gains him points when he represents his compatriots abroad, especially at the renowned Art Basel Hong Kong. Tirtadji often represents artists from his generation, growing their careers together. Being a relative newcomer to the art world himself, he is in a good position to understand them. ‘We want to create a sustainable career pathway for them,’ he says.
Recently, ROH Projects created a co-working studio space in Bandung to host residencies and give a permanent house to several artists, collaborating with other Asian galleries such as Manila’s Silverlens and Hong Kong and Shanghai-based Edouard Malingue. ‘A couple of years ago, we realised that collaboration with international galleries was essential,’ says Tirtadji. The three galleries have since been exchanging shows and holding pop-up events in an atmosphere of palpable camaraderie. Tirtadji’s enthusiasm extends to Indonesia’s art world as a whole, too. His most recent cause for excitement is the newly opened Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jakarta. ‘Yayoi Kusama’s show was groundbreaking in magnitude and scale, with six thousand visitors per weekend,’ he says proudly. ‘It’s great to see that in a museum.’ Tirtadji’s upbeat attitude and the work of people such as him, Swastika and Sidharta inspire confidence in the Indonesian art scene and its future.