PERSAGI is the acronym for Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia (Union of Indonesian Painters, or... more PERSAGI is the acronym for Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia (Union of Indonesian Painters, or to be more precise, Union of Indonesian Drawers). Founded by S. Sudjojono (1913–1986) and Agus Djaja (1913–1994) in October 1938, PERSAGI is widely understood to have played a major role in the development of modernism in Indonesian art. While there was no binding style linking the individual artists, they were all in search of a new art that was both distinctively national and intensely individual. Sudjojono’s influence as critic and artist was profound, and served to define a modernist—as well as nationalist—tenor in the Indonesian art of the 1940s and beyond. In terms of its importance to Indonesian modernism, it is significant that PERSAGI was formed a decade after Bahasa Indonesia was declared the national language. It was in 1928 that young nationalists in the then-Dutch East Indies led by Sukarno issued the Youth Declaration, proclaiming a unified nation with one motherland, one people, and one language. The artists of PERSAGI saw themselves as cultural workers within this nascent nation-state, making them part of a broad socialist-nationalist front aimed at the creation of a new national consciousness out of the inheritance of a colonial past. They also sought divergence from the deeper histories that divided this archipelagic country with its vast geography and a variety of ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences.
Since its debut in 2011, the Biennale Jogja’s ‘Equator’ projects have sought to produce artistic ... more Since its debut in 2011, the Biennale Jogja’s ‘Equator’ projects have sought to produce artistic encounters between Yogyakarta and other locations in the ‘Global South’ that lie partially or wholly between 23.27 degrees of latitude north and south, marking the imaginary lines that are known as the Tropics of Cancer (north) and of Capricorn (south). Initiated in 1988 as a showcase for local artists’ work, Biennale Jogja was overhauled in 2010 with the establishment of the Yayasan Biennale Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation) and increased participation in the organisation of the event by contemporary artists and curators. The inaugural ‘Equator’ exhibition featured Indian artists as interlocutors with their Indonesian counterparts, while subsequent editions engaged with the Arab region (2013), Nigeria (2015) and Brazil (2017). Now in its fifth iteration, the project presents a very specific and germinal reorganisation of geocultural relations in the contemporary world, offering interpretations of the international that are unusual if not unparalleled in the plethora of triennials, biennales and (annual) art fairs that seem to produce competing as well as complementary art ecologies of their own, like linked eruptions in a geological or climatic system manifesting across the globe like so many hotspots. The notion of using each edition to bring about an engineered collision between a pair of discrete art cultures united by causal and conventional factors would seem to follow the idea of a rules-based art practice that seeks to interrogate the conceit of uniqueness and originality. However, once we realise that the bulk of the world’s poorer economies lie in these warmer climes, the political position advanced by the ‘Equator’ projects becomes evermore poignant. The 2019 edition under the curatorship of Yogyakarta-based Akiq AW and Arham Rahman, and Penwadee NM from Bangkok, saw the biennale return closer to home, featuring Indonesian artists in juxtaposition with those from the Southeast Asian region under the interrogative thematic ‘Do we live in the same PLAYGROUND?’. Included were 33 Indonesian artists (including four collectives) and 19 (or 25, if members of a women artists’ collective from Southern Thailand were counted separately) from the region. A new feature introduced in 2019 was the inclusion of separate exhibitions showcasing three liminal island locations with a bilik (cubicle or chamber) for each: Hong Kong, Taiwan and TimorLeste, which though adjacent to or entirely within the Southeast Asian region geographically, are either not yet members of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, established 1967) as in the case of Timor-Leste, or have contested claims to separate identity (Hong Kong and Taiwan). In her public talk introducing Bilik Taiwan, titled ‘The Library of Possible Encounters’, curator Alia Swastika (also Director of Biennale Jogja) suggested that while immediately invoking the national pavilions of Venice, the biliks were so named in order find a locally resonant and internationally distinctive point of difference. While curatorially innovative, the biliks were of uneven quality: the tightly curated and highly resolved representation of Taiwanese artists was not paralleled in the uneasy mashup of two previous exhibitions from Para Site (Bilik Hong Kong, titled ‘Sea Breeze’ to signify the winds of migration), and the uninflected ethnographic display in Bilik Timor-Leste (‘Delapan Derajat Lintang Selatan’, or ‘Eight Degrees of Latitude South’). Equally unfortunately, both of these were stranded in the northern part of Yogyakarta, in the ill-frequented cultural centre of Universitas Gadjah Mada. A distinctive feature of this year’s biennale was the relatively high number of featured artists who were not men. Twelve women and one non-binary person were part of the Indonesian cohort, while the international selection featured eight (or 13, counting collective members separately) women artists. This was remarkable in light of overwhelmingly patriarchal narratives of modernism and contemporary art in Indonesia and the region. A second point of interest was the effort by biennale organisers and curators to seek out voices of difference within the ‘peripheral’ construction of Indonesia and Southeast Asia in the global art world. This attention to peripheries within Opposite: Citra Sasmita, Timur Merah Project: The Embrace of My Motherland, 2019, acrylic on Kamasan canvas with turmeric and spices, each scroll 400 x 90cm; photo: Documentation Team, Biennale Jogja 2019
An overview of pre-modern and modern conditions that influence the emergence and character of con... more An overview of pre-modern and modern conditions that influence the emergence and character of contemporary art in Indonesia
Contemporary Indian art has become the site for an unprecedented series of investments since the ... more Contemporary Indian art has become the site for an unprecedented series of investments since the beginning of this century. Individual and institutional collectors, market speculators, commercial galleries and public museums, university departments and publishing houses, all seem to have arrived at a realisation of the significance of contemporary art in India. And this new realisation is being acted out with a degree of enthusiasm that would have seemed improbable a few decades ago. New commercial galleries and auction houses have mushroomed in major Indian cities. International galleries have started courting major players in this lucrative sector of the art market. A number of artists have become regulars in a supercharged gallery and museum circuit. Names such as Subodh Gupta (b. 1964), Bharti Kher (b. 1969), Jitish Kallat (b. 1974), and Shilpa Gupta (b. 1976), are now to be commonly found in international listings of what's happening and who's who. As Subodh Gupta put it in 2008:
Concentrating on contemporary art from India at the end of the twentieth century, this essay plac... more Concentrating on contemporary art from India at the end of the twentieth century, this essay places it in the context of economic liberalisation, globalization and increased sectarian and regional conflict on the subcontinent. The last two decades of the twentieth century have seen the abandonment of the project of a secular, socialist democracy as this is enshrined in India's Constitution.! Economic liberalisation and an entry into the globalised world order has taken place under a regime of structural reform, privatization and public disinvestment. These changes have been accompanied by the rise of religious and parochial fundamentalism and an attrition of appositional forces, particularly those of the Left. 2 Working with selected examples of recent Indian art, this essay tries to understand how artists have responded to these conditions, and what these responses may tell us about the role of contemporary art from India, both in the Indian context and internationally.
Contribution to roundtable on pedagogy, by invitation from the journal editors. My article presen... more Contribution to roundtable on pedagogy, by invitation from the journal editors. My article presents reflections on teaching the history of modern and contemporary Indonesian art at ANU
PERSAGI is the acronym for Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia (Union of Indonesian Painters, or... more PERSAGI is the acronym for Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia (Union of Indonesian Painters, or to be more precise, Union of Indonesian Drawers). Founded by S. Sudjojono (1913–1986) and Agus Djaja (1913–1994) in October 1938, PERSAGI is widely understood to have played a major role in the development of modernism in Indonesian art. While there was no binding style linking the individual artists, they were all in search of a new art that was both distinctively national and intensely individual. Sudjojono’s influence as critic and artist was profound, and served to define a modernist—as well as nationalist—tenor in the Indonesian art of the 1940s and beyond. In terms of its importance to Indonesian modernism, it is significant that PERSAGI was formed a decade after Bahasa Indonesia was declared the national language. It was in 1928 that young nationalists in the then-Dutch East Indies led by Sukarno issued the Youth Declaration, proclaiming a unified nation with one motherland, one people, and one language. The artists of PERSAGI saw themselves as cultural workers within this nascent nation-state, making them part of a broad socialist-nationalist front aimed at the creation of a new national consciousness out of the inheritance of a colonial past. They also sought divergence from the deeper histories that divided this archipelagic country with its vast geography and a variety of ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences.
Since its debut in 2011, the Biennale Jogja’s ‘Equator’ projects have sought to produce artistic ... more Since its debut in 2011, the Biennale Jogja’s ‘Equator’ projects have sought to produce artistic encounters between Yogyakarta and other locations in the ‘Global South’ that lie partially or wholly between 23.27 degrees of latitude north and south, marking the imaginary lines that are known as the Tropics of Cancer (north) and of Capricorn (south). Initiated in 1988 as a showcase for local artists’ work, Biennale Jogja was overhauled in 2010 with the establishment of the Yayasan Biennale Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation) and increased participation in the organisation of the event by contemporary artists and curators. The inaugural ‘Equator’ exhibition featured Indian artists as interlocutors with their Indonesian counterparts, while subsequent editions engaged with the Arab region (2013), Nigeria (2015) and Brazil (2017). Now in its fifth iteration, the project presents a very specific and germinal reorganisation of geocultural relations in the contemporary world, offering interpretations of the international that are unusual if not unparalleled in the plethora of triennials, biennales and (annual) art fairs that seem to produce competing as well as complementary art ecologies of their own, like linked eruptions in a geological or climatic system manifesting across the globe like so many hotspots. The notion of using each edition to bring about an engineered collision between a pair of discrete art cultures united by causal and conventional factors would seem to follow the idea of a rules-based art practice that seeks to interrogate the conceit of uniqueness and originality. However, once we realise that the bulk of the world’s poorer economies lie in these warmer climes, the political position advanced by the ‘Equator’ projects becomes evermore poignant. The 2019 edition under the curatorship of Yogyakarta-based Akiq AW and Arham Rahman, and Penwadee NM from Bangkok, saw the biennale return closer to home, featuring Indonesian artists in juxtaposition with those from the Southeast Asian region under the interrogative thematic ‘Do we live in the same PLAYGROUND?’. Included were 33 Indonesian artists (including four collectives) and 19 (or 25, if members of a women artists’ collective from Southern Thailand were counted separately) from the region. A new feature introduced in 2019 was the inclusion of separate exhibitions showcasing three liminal island locations with a bilik (cubicle or chamber) for each: Hong Kong, Taiwan and TimorLeste, which though adjacent to or entirely within the Southeast Asian region geographically, are either not yet members of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, established 1967) as in the case of Timor-Leste, or have contested claims to separate identity (Hong Kong and Taiwan). In her public talk introducing Bilik Taiwan, titled ‘The Library of Possible Encounters’, curator Alia Swastika (also Director of Biennale Jogja) suggested that while immediately invoking the national pavilions of Venice, the biliks were so named in order find a locally resonant and internationally distinctive point of difference. While curatorially innovative, the biliks were of uneven quality: the tightly curated and highly resolved representation of Taiwanese artists was not paralleled in the uneasy mashup of two previous exhibitions from Para Site (Bilik Hong Kong, titled ‘Sea Breeze’ to signify the winds of migration), and the uninflected ethnographic display in Bilik Timor-Leste (‘Delapan Derajat Lintang Selatan’, or ‘Eight Degrees of Latitude South’). Equally unfortunately, both of these were stranded in the northern part of Yogyakarta, in the ill-frequented cultural centre of Universitas Gadjah Mada. A distinctive feature of this year’s biennale was the relatively high number of featured artists who were not men. Twelve women and one non-binary person were part of the Indonesian cohort, while the international selection featured eight (or 13, counting collective members separately) women artists. This was remarkable in light of overwhelmingly patriarchal narratives of modernism and contemporary art in Indonesia and the region. A second point of interest was the effort by biennale organisers and curators to seek out voices of difference within the ‘peripheral’ construction of Indonesia and Southeast Asia in the global art world. This attention to peripheries within Opposite: Citra Sasmita, Timur Merah Project: The Embrace of My Motherland, 2019, acrylic on Kamasan canvas with turmeric and spices, each scroll 400 x 90cm; photo: Documentation Team, Biennale Jogja 2019
An overview of pre-modern and modern conditions that influence the emergence and character of con... more An overview of pre-modern and modern conditions that influence the emergence and character of contemporary art in Indonesia
Contemporary Indian art has become the site for an unprecedented series of investments since the ... more Contemporary Indian art has become the site for an unprecedented series of investments since the beginning of this century. Individual and institutional collectors, market speculators, commercial galleries and public museums, university departments and publishing houses, all seem to have arrived at a realisation of the significance of contemporary art in India. And this new realisation is being acted out with a degree of enthusiasm that would have seemed improbable a few decades ago. New commercial galleries and auction houses have mushroomed in major Indian cities. International galleries have started courting major players in this lucrative sector of the art market. A number of artists have become regulars in a supercharged gallery and museum circuit. Names such as Subodh Gupta (b. 1964), Bharti Kher (b. 1969), Jitish Kallat (b. 1974), and Shilpa Gupta (b. 1976), are now to be commonly found in international listings of what's happening and who's who. As Subodh Gupta put it in 2008:
Concentrating on contemporary art from India at the end of the twentieth century, this essay plac... more Concentrating on contemporary art from India at the end of the twentieth century, this essay places it in the context of economic liberalisation, globalization and increased sectarian and regional conflict on the subcontinent. The last two decades of the twentieth century have seen the abandonment of the project of a secular, socialist democracy as this is enshrined in India's Constitution.! Economic liberalisation and an entry into the globalised world order has taken place under a regime of structural reform, privatization and public disinvestment. These changes have been accompanied by the rise of religious and parochial fundamentalism and an attrition of appositional forces, particularly those of the Left. 2 Working with selected examples of recent Indian art, this essay tries to understand how artists have responded to these conditions, and what these responses may tell us about the role of contemporary art from India, both in the Indian context and internationally.
Contribution to roundtable on pedagogy, by invitation from the journal editors. My article presen... more Contribution to roundtable on pedagogy, by invitation from the journal editors. My article presents reflections on teaching the history of modern and contemporary Indonesian art at ANU
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