(JP/Ricky Yudhistira)

The three aging men, the tallest wearing a brimmed cap reminiscent of the kind New York sidewalk newsboys used to wear, the shortest a baseball cap, and the third a beret, stood proudly in front of the huge banner covering the wall near the entrance to the vast main exhibition hall of the National Gallery.

The walls around them were filled with huge canvasses and carved wooden reliefs, with an occasional sculpture looming up from a central spot on the gallery floor.

The banner behind them boldly declared their artistic and political stances. First, that artists must understand politics in order to inform their work toward building a just and prosperous society.

Second, that the quality of a work of art is determined by its capacity to merge the aesthetic with the ideological.

Third, that artists must strive to improve their professional skills as well as their ideological awareness.

Fourth, that "revolutionary realism" is a carefully considered basis for creating art based on local (Indonesian) values, and not simply the blind following of the tenets of social realism.

Fifth, that it is important for artists to merge what is valuable from tradition with a revolutionary vision toward a better for future for all of the people of Indonesia.

Sixth, that artists must become an integral part of the grassroots toward empowering the people to achieve justice and equity through socialist principles.

And, finally, that artists must marry individual creativity with the aspirations of the masses in order empower the people to create a just and prosperous society.

"We still believe this. We believe that the aspirations of the people can take form through political actions," Misbach Tamrin, the man in the narrowly brimmed cap said.

"Art is a tool for achieving the goals of the revolution for independence, a process we started to achieve justice and prosperity for the people of Indonesia. Independence requires sacrifice, not self serving actions. We stand strong on the point that art must take a stance for the people," his studio colleague in the baseball cap, Amrus Natalsya, added.

"We have the intention of empowering the people through what we create," their studio partner, who was wearing the beret, Adrianus Gumelar, chimed in for emphasis.

These three seasoned artist-activists, and eight fellow members of Sanggar Bumi Tarung (Arena of Contention Studio), are currently holding their second exhibition in 46 years through June 29.

The Sanggar Bumi Tarung artists now exhibiting their paintings and sculptures in the National Gallery, across the street and down a ways from the Gambir train station in Central Jakarta are: Amrus Natalsya, painter-sculptor; Djoko Pekik, painter; Misbach Tamrin, painter and author; Isa Hasanda, painter; Adrianus Gumelar, painter; Hadjija Pudjanadi, painter; Sudiyono SP, painter; Sabri Jamal, painter; Dj. M. Gultom, sketch artist and painter; Muryono, painter; and Sudjatmoko, sculptor.

Their first exhibition, as a studio with a membership of more than 30 young artists, was held in Yogyakarta in Central Java in 1962, around a year after Armus Natalsya, Misbach Tamrin, Ng Sembiring, Isa Hasanda, Kuslan Budiman, Hardjija Pudjanadi, Harmani and Haryanto, had founded Sanggar Bumi Tarung.

It was a time of expectation and anticipation of better things to come for the idealistic young artists, most of whom were in their early to mid twenties and still studying art at the Academy of Fine Art (ASRI) in the quiet university town of Yogyakarta.

Some, like Amrus, were married and had small children, others were still single.

In their minds, their lives stretched out before them filled with activities dedicated to art and to ensuring that the goals of their nation's independence from Dutch or any other colonial rule announced in 1945, and formally achieved in 1949, would come to fruition.

As the new decade moved towards its middle, their days were filled with study, their artistic endeavors, and long, heated debates about the purpose of art and how to best build the nation to ensure that all of the people of the vast Indonesian archipelago had a voice in its directions, especially the downtrodden poor who had suffered so long under the heavy yoke of colonialism and imperialist rule.

"It was a heady time of romanticism, full of the certainty that we were part of a larger good, that we had the power to determine our own destinies and that of our nation," Misbach Tamrin, reminisced.really belied we could do something to make things better for everyone."

At ASRI, most of Sanggar Bumi Tarung's debates were with the members of another studio full of young idealists called Sanggar Bambu (Bamboo Studio), who were critical of Amrus and his colleagues' stances on art that they found limiting to creativity. However, the debate was not a local one.

Many other people in the arts across the country at that time were also taken aback by the idea that "Politics is the Commander" in all sectors, including art, and that only social realism was valid for artistic expression in Indonesia. The artists of Sanggar Bambu and these other creative people, unlike the members of Sanggar Bumi Tarung, were not affiliated with the Indonesian Artists Association (Lembaga Senirupa Indonesia), an art body under the auspices of the People's Cultural Association (Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat: LEKRA), the cultural arm of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia: PKI).

By 1963, a process of crystallization became increasingly apparent as consolidation occurred in various sectors. According to Misbach Tamrin, in his book titled Amrus Natalsya and Bumi Tarung, which was launched at the opening of the current Sanggar Bumi Tarung II Exhibition on June 19, the revolutionary politics movement had begun to make itself felt.

"The revolutionary spirit of unity, based on the Nasakom -- nationalist, religious, communist -- teachings of Bung Karno (Indonesia's first president, Sukarno) had begun to garner support among all levels of society . From the beginning of the Cold War, Bung Karno had faced resistance to his teachings from both inside and outside of Indonesia. At least seven attempts on his life were recorded and a number of separatist movements emerged, for example, DI/TII, PRRI/Permesta, all of which involved attempts to overthrow him before he was finally truly removed from power," Misbach says in his book.

The polarization between the segments of society who endorsed Sukarno's thinking and those who rejected it -- most notably the right ring factions of the military and the more moderate intellectuals, particularly those who subscribed to the social democrat school of thoughtbecoming increasingly marked.

By August 1963, the intellectuals and people in the arts who called themselves "free thinkers" who were being "suppressed" by Sukarno's far-to-the-left teachings and his steadily more heavy-handed administration, decided they had certainly had enough. They issued a petition called the "Cultural Manifest" in which they advocated universal humanism that was not based in any national affiliation, ideology or politics of any kind.

This head-on confrontation between the ideas of "politically guided creation" andof expression" in the arts only served to sharpen the controversy, already rocking almost all sectors throughout the country, concerning whether Indonesia should take the left or the right fork in the road of the Cold War period.

By mid 1965, with LEKRA and the Communist Party seeming to gain more and more credence and influence in Sukarno's circle of authority, it seemed inevitable that Indonesia was bound to stay on the path to the left. Then, suddenly, on the night of Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 1965, everything changed when seven military men were killed.

Although, until now, there is no definitive proof of who actually did what and exactly what went down that night, the Indonesian Communist Party was blamed for attempting to stagecoup".

"The elite officers of the Army were decidedly anti-PKI . partially due to radical differences in ideology and political directions " Misbach writes in his book.

Whatever the reasons, even Indonesia's government-sanctioned histories acknowledge there was a backlash toward adherents of leftist teachings, and a new political order began that was to take up "development" as it central focus.

"There had been excesses (on the part of LEKRA and PKI)," Misbach said sadly during a recent interview.

"We (the members of Sanggar Bumi Tarung) were so young. We had gotten caught up in a larger picture we couldn't see clearly at the time," he said as Amrus and Gumelar nodded in agreement.

On that pivotal night, the Sanggar Bumi Tarung headquarters in Yogyakarta was all but empty. Most of the artists were away working on projects. Amrus Natalsya, Djoko and Gultom were all in Lampung working on a huge wooden sculpture ordered by Hotel Duta (now Duta Merlin).

Amrus heard the news about the killings in Jakarta and that Sukarno "was very ill" on the radio, and everyone waited to see what was coming. He realized that the political environment around them had shifted drastically. He worried about his Sanggar Bumi Tarung friends.

Eventually all of the members of the outspoken and politically active artists' studio Sanggar Bumi Tarung would be arrested.

All but one of the currently remaining eleven members spent between two and 10 years in prison, others simply disappeared, never to be heard from again, still others, like Harmani and Hardjatno, were beaten to death by angry mobs.

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