Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar
Rows of cartoons and caricatures created by political cartoonist GM Sudarta were on display Thursday at Popo Danes Art Veranda in Jl. Hayam Wuruk, Denpasar.
Sudarta's famous critical cartoon Oom Pasikom and caricatures of the nation's leaders and world leaders formed the bulk of the exhibition, which is being held to celebrate 40 years of Oom Pasikom.
Oom Pasikom is the longest-running political cartoon published in the Indonesian media. Sudarta started to draw Oom Pasikom for Kompas in 1967.
The exhibition in Denpasar, which opened Thursday and will run until Oct. 28, is the fifth leg of a seven-city road show.
The road show was launched in Jakarta in July and later traveled to Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Malang.
After Denpasar, the exhibition will travel to Semarang and Bandung, where it will wind up in January next year.
Painter Hanta Guna was just one of many visitors to the exhibition in Denpasar on Thursday, saying cartoons such as those created by Sudarta were a powerful tool with which to criticize governments.
""Even though they are wrapped in humor, people get the message,"" he said.
Throughout his career, Sudarta consistently used cartoons as a vehicle for social criticism. His themes have included local politics, corruption, press freedom and international issues such as the Middle East conflict.
His Omm Pasikom cartoon has depicted the highs and lows of the nation throughout the last 40 years.
The book 40 Tahun Oom Pasikom, Peristiwa Dalam Kartun 1967-2007 (Forty Years of Oom Pasikom, Events in Cartoon 1967-2007) includes various highlights of this journey.
In a 1970 cartoon, Sudarta hints the media has long criticized the government in relation to corruption. The cartoon, published on July 23, 1970, depicts a devil dressed in a suit with ""koruptor"" printed on it standing on a pile of money. The devil is saying van huis vit rijk to a student and prosecutor below him.
Sudarta was criticizing then president Soeharto for defending graft suspects, saying they were van huis vit rijk (rich from the start).
Sudarta also criticized the alienation of the families of former Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members in his work.
In a 1970 cartoon published on Pancasila Day (Oct. 1), Sudarta drew three men holding up signs reading ""Long Live Pancasila"", with a small man in the background wearing a G-30-S shirt timidly holding up the same sign.
One of the men in the foreground is looking sourly at the small man, asking ""why are you joining us?"".
Hanta said he hoped young Balinese artists would learn from the exhibition and would use their art as a form of social criticism.
""Art is a powerful tool,"" he said.
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