Despite human resource and funding restraints, the city's Conservation Institute can offer conservation services to private collectors and other museums.

The institute also invites the public to learn the basics of conservation at its Central Jakarta workshop.

However, some private collectors still doubt the institute's ability to conserve cultural and historical collections.

"Honestly, I have never heard of or seen their work," said private collector Hauw Ming, who has collected antiques since 1999: furniture, paintings, books, World War II-era enamel advertisement placards, and Chinese-Indonesian artifacts, just to name a few.

Director of the Indonesia Contemporary Art Network, Antariksa, held a similar view.

"What are the backgrounds and qualifications of the people at the institute? As a public institution they have seemed inaccessible until now.

"It would be hard to entrust the conservation of a painting worth Rp 3 billion (US$320,000) to people or an institution without strong backgrounds and qualifications," said Antariksa, who established his commercial organization for the visual arts in January 2008.

The city's Conservation Institute, whose offices are located just a stone's throw from the Jakarta History Museum in Central Jakarta, has been involved in the restoration of Indonesia's first red-and-white flag in 2003, the 200-year-old portrait of an East Indies Company governor general by Raden Saleh last year, and the 3-by-10-meter oil painting by the late S. Sudjojono this year.

Head of the institute, Enny Prihantini, said her office had not done enough to promote the services it can offer private collectors.

"It's all about trust. They need to know their collection will be safe during restoration and that we are skilled. We still need to get that message out."

Antariksa said private collectors usually organize themselves to invite foreign conservators to restore several collections in private homes at once.

Hauw Ming cofounded the Association of Art Devotees in 2002. He said he usually invited a Belgium-educated restoration expert to repair any damaged pieces and did the rest of the basic maintenance himself.

Some 1,200 private collectors of paintings, sculptures and antiques are members of ASPI nationwide, with membership concentrated around Jakarta, West Java, Central Java and East Java.

"Most of us rely on restoration services of foreign experts, especially those from European countries," Hauw Ming told The Jakarta Post on Thursday at his private gallery in Central Jakarta.

Asked how much foreign experts charge for their services, he said in Singapore experts usually charge SGD 150 (US$105) per hour.

"We usually use foreign restoration experts because we don't know any qualified ones here. If I knew someone here, I wouldn't look abroad," said Hauw Ming, adding there were probably only 10 local experts in the country, none of whom had formal education in conservation and restoration.

Curator Jim Supangkat said he would encourage the conservation experts at the institute to extend their knowledge on the historical context of local antiquities and their creators as well as improve their skills.

"We shouldn't stop at conservation. It's more urgent the staff improve their restoration know-how because there are many valued items, in both private and public museums, that need work. That's the major missing link here."

In another effort to generate more interest in cultural conservation as a field, the institute is also offering a one-day workshop on introduction to conservation to the general public.

Groups of at least 10 people can request the workshop. "They need to pay a group fee of Rp 500,000 to pay for the materials used in the workshop," said Enny. -- Agnes Winarti

Popular

Bali flights canceled after Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano eruption

Early school a new burden

Mt Lewotobi Laki-Laki’s alert status raised to highest level