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At last, Altje Ully talks back
For women, talking back is often considered taboo
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For women, talking back is often considered taboo.
In keeping with the general rule, one has to keep emotions under control and behave as expected. Altje Ully (born in 1958), known as a female sculptor, did so for most of her life, or so it seemed.
Her new solo show of doll sculptures, currently at Dia-lo-gue gallery in South Jakarta, presents 18 doll sculptures she made while undergoing profound frustration.
Clad in tight pants and tight tops, high jackboots or trendy low-heels, they represent defiance.
“I did not make these to be exhibited,” she revealed. “I just made them while taking a break from the exhibition craze.”
She said she had experienced profound frustration at her own vulnerability as a female sculptor.
In addition, as the wife of a celebrated curator and art critic, she had always been anxious to comply with the demands of that particular role. This brought along a sense of insecurity, as she always wondered whether her artwork was good enough in the eyes of the public.
But today Altje Ully is a confident artist.
Her doll sculptures are posing as if they were challenging anyone disagreeing with their visions or behavior. Half tomboy, half macho, funny and rebellious, yet dead serious, they are the personification of Altje Ully — who made them not for the gaze of others but out of her own self.
What brought about such change? Altje says it started with Oei Hong Djien’s birthday party a few years ago. Oei is Indonesia’s premier collector, who also happens to be fond of dancing. Any party he throws includes dancing.
“I wanted to do well, so I took lessons,” says Altje. She loved Latin dancing, salsa, chacha, rumba and the movements were liberating.
It was a time where she had just about had it with the art world, so she rekindled the joy in dancing that she had felt as a young girl and had been forced to give up because her father was opposed to her appearing before the public.
She excelled in Latin dancing, even grabbed an award from an international contest held in Lombok.
But her hands could not remain idle, and whenever possible, she would be artistically engaged. Freed from the burden of other people’s wishes, she laid bare, visually, all that she wanted herself. Defiant and rebellious, but also intensely enjoying her own self.
Her works in this show are striking examples of change. Altje has now moved from the meditative female figures “trapped” in the rules of Batak marriage tradition, to figures that stand on their own feet.
Even more striking is that she has become more creative than ever: She dressed the sculptures with real leather, jeans and other material, fitting the body as if they were a natural part of it.
A second skin? It depends how one perceives the skin. Although the material is real, the making has been executed in a way that is hardly discernible.
Curator Jim Supangkat alludes to philosopher Simone de Beauvoir whose seminal book The Second Sex — a treatise on the situation of women as the Other — remains a bible for women activists today.
The fine leather, jeans, latex pants and tops may remind one of a second skin, but one that cannot be torn apart from the original skin.
Made up entirely in the image of her wardrobe, perhaps this is Altje Ully’s way of bringing forward the idea that women are really marked by what they wear and how they dress.
Referring to the doll sculptures, she states: “this is uniquely me”.
— Photos by Carla Bianpoen
The Second Skin
A solo exhibition by Altje Ully Pandjaitan
30 March – 1 May 2011
Dia-lo-gue Gallery
Jl. Kemang Selatan 99A
Jakarta 12730
t. +62 21 719 9671/72
f. +62 21 719 9670
e. info@dialogue-artspace.com
