Experiencing urban paradoxes in X-Ling's sketches

Ary Hermawan ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 03/29/2008 11:12 AM  |  Lifestyle

Jakarta is a city of paradox in the eyes of X-Ling, the renowned Indonesian-Chinese sketch artist who spent the last days of his life making sketches of the capital's Old Town and its people.

X-Ling's works wittily capture the contrast between the rich and the poor, tradition and modernity.

If paintings are considered sources of history, X-Ling, who passed away last November, provided us with reliable, vivid depictions of everyday life (as meaningful as they are trivial) of the many faces of Jakartans -- especially the destitute, who symbolize the overly-urbanized capital.

When you look at his drawings, it is as if he were an old Batavian artist of the colonial times who had time-traveled to the present day Jakarta and was overwhelmed by historical changes.

And through his sketches, he managed to record the absurd collision between the city's rosy image and the ugliness of reality before him.

Imagine a romantic, monochrome image of Old Town with Victorian-dressed couples courteously strolling around or sitting on their carriages as they sluggishly moved along the quiet roads. Now add pictures of beggars, thugs, public vehicles (and their undisciplined drivers*), motorcycles and Transjakarta buses to that image. The result is what you see in Ling's sketches.

His art is indeed straightforward and far from abstruse. Agoes Jolly, a painter and Ling's son-in-law, said the strength of Ling's works was their actuality; their being created quickly and carefully by a highly skilled sketcher.

"He drew directly and swiftly. His drawings directly confronted the objects before him," Jolly said.

X-Ling was born Phoa Diam Ek on Jan. 1, 1935, in Wonosobo, Central Java. He studied art at the Surakarta Art Academy from 1955-1960 under Abas Alibasah. He learned to sketch with Fajar Sidik and C.J. Ali, and paint with Gregorius Sidharta and Handrio. He also learned to sculpture with Eddi Sunarso.

"He lived as an artist in the early post-Independence era when artists could not afford to buy imported paints and had to draw in a black-and-white medium in order to keep painting," Jolly said.

"At the time, artists were so close to the people. Many painters went to the markets and ports to paint. This practice enabled them to interact more with people," he added.

Ling died on Nov. 26, 2007. His daughter, Wiwik Kustini, said her father always woke up early in the morning and brought his pencil and paper to sketch at markets, roads and ports.

"He was very disciplined," she told The Jakarta Post.

Sketching is often considered the blueprint of painting; a half-finished art piece. Many sketchers switch to painting, as painted pieces usually fetch prices far higher than their sketched counterparts. But not Ling; he was one of a select few Indonesian artists who seriously stayed with sketching to make a living.

His commitment to this simple visual art form saw him become the only sketcher patient enough to detail the architectural beauty of buildings in his drawings.

"Mot many sketchers want to do that because they think it is exhausting and a waste of time. If you look at his lines, they are so horizontal, so straight," Jolly said.

Art critic Puguh Tjahjono said Ling's fondness for drawing buildings and transportation vehicles in detail made him reluctant to call his works "sketches", which are generally understood as "unfinished art pieces".

"I prefer to call him a drawer, because a sketcher would leave everything as a general outline and not bother with detail and precision. Ling was actually taking pictures with his pencil," he said.

A pencil is indeed a powerful medium. It works almost like a camera, only it involves mental projection by which a sketcher retains or distorts a real image in order to disclose its truer face, something that X-Ling often did.

He loved to draw transportation vehicles (buses, cars, bajaj, boats and bicycles, and even drew airplanes), buildings and the urban crowd; street vendors, shopping housewives and their children, passersby, scavengers, etc.

In his drawing entitled Jalan Pintu Kecil Jakarta Kota, he captures the atmosphere of the street; the traffic jam, advertisement boards, and even a ketupat sayur seller and his customers.

And as if he thought his drawings were unable to convey his critic and sarcasm of the social and economic conditions of urban life, he also spoke his mind through scratchy handwritings on his drawings: "The traffic is jammed, who is to blame?", a question he addressed to nobody.

Sometimes he added humor to his sketches: In the piece Pasar Glodok, he simply comments "under the bridge is a market that openly sells blue films, or porn VCDs and DVDs -- bought by people from many places because they are cheap, because they are pirated".

In the same picture, he informs beholders that "the aslant electricity pole was hit by a car". For that reason, Jolly said, Ling's works are both descriptive as well as informative.

"But sometimes he played around with reality so as to strengthen the contrast of the city," Jolly said.

Ling, for instance, often drew a woman in a kebaya (traditional blouse) in his sketches; even when he did not see a woman dressed in a kebaya on the street. He did this because he wanted to highlight the disparity between tradition and modernity, "the 'have' and the 'have nots'," he said.

Jakarta was Ling's last stop in his aesthetical explorations. He had previously lived in Palembang and made sketches of the cultural lives of those in Bali, especially in idyllic places such as Ubud and Tanah Lot.

In a digital era where artists spend most of their art activities indoor, drawing and editing their sketches with computers, X-Ling is a reminder of art's simplicity and partiality for the community to which they belong.

The Bank Mandiri Museum exhibited 168 of Ling's drawings from March 4 to 23. For further information on Ling's works, please contact: Wiwiek Kustini, Perumahan Aneka Elok Blok D 10 No. 9, Penggiliangan, Cakung, East Jakarta. Ph: 081318489113.

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