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Salon Yogya: Telling a story
Prodita Sabarini , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 09/28/2008 10:00 AM | Arts & Design
A picture of the Dalai Lama and paintings including that of a giant face looking at bubbles, a horse with a very big penis, green legs with muscular calves and sad green faces behind a red cross draw visitors into an art exhibition located in a Central Jakarta mall.
CGartspace on Plaza Indonesia's third floor was packed last week with people viewing the rich colors and various styles of 32 renowned painters from Yogyakarta, Central Java, in an exhibition called "Salon Yogya". Traditional keroncong music played in the background, while the artists and their groupies relaxed and chatted.
Veteran painters Heri Dono, Agus Suwage, Eddie Hara and young talented artists such as Bayu Widodo, Allatief, Arya Panjalu, Irennius Bongky, Gatot Widodo and others took part in the exhibition. The exhibition runs from September 19 to October 7.
CGartspace owner Christiana Gouw said the idea was to bring the 19th century art salons of Paris to the present day art scene in Jakarta.
"Currently, the art scene in Indonesia is booming with auction houses and the selling price of an artwork has become the measure of its artistic value," she said.
"In the 19th century, a salon was a place where artists could exhibit their works after being assessed by a team of judges. Although we did not have a team of judges for this exhibition, we wanted the idea of a salon where Yogyakarta artists could exhibit their creations."
Curator of the exhibition, Wang Zineng, stated in the catalog that "The auction sales -- fueled by the recently emerging strong market interest in contemporary Indonesian art -- have become the ultimate forums for the affirmation of the quality and arrival of artists and their works".
"It is a type of validation that is based largely, and precariously, if I may add, upon the sole indicator of what the piece sold for," he said.
Christiana said the exhibition was an attempt to fight the phenomenon.
The paintings exhibited were a mix of neo-realism to absurd contemporary paintings. Heri Dono exhibited his work titled "New Slavery Theory". A picture of three men with asymmetrical arms -- the left is longer than the right -- with their tongues out, was intriguing. The men were pulling a cart while a man behind them pointed a gun to their heads.
Bayu Widodo's "Sick Nation" showed green heads with mournful faces clamped together behind a bleeding red cross. "This nation is sick," he said, referring to widespread corruption and consumerism.
Arya Panjalu exhibited an interesting painting titled "HangOver". Here he drew a man with a bird's head lying beneath a line. The creature's human hand was painting the word "hangover" above the straight line.
Ahmad Syahbandi's "New Chapter" is a neo-realist painting of a globe outside its plastic wrapper upon a newspaper that has the drawing of a green atlas on it. His realist depiction of plastic and paper was a testament to his technique. It was very minutely detailed.
Christiana said the signature style of Yogyakartan contemporary artists was that their paintings told a story. "Compared to Bandung artists whose contemporary works lean toward an absurd style, Yogyakartan painters like to tell a story," she said.
You might want to come to the gallery and see what the paintings say to you.
