TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Shades of the New Order in The Hague
âDystopia Mooi Indiëâ: âAnxiousness creeps into you as you look at his paintings,â said one patron at an exhibition of Maryantoâs work
Change Size
'Dystopia Mooi Indië': 'Anxiousness creeps into you as you look at his paintings,' said one patron at an exhibition of Maryanto's work.
The painter Maryanto has kept busy in his two years at Amsterdam's Art Academy, with several acclaimed exhibitions under his belt as he concludes a residency.
In one of his works titled Gemah Ripah Loh Jinawi ' a Javanese saying meaning 'peaceful, abundant and rich soil', depicts just that ' or does it?
A family sits around a table with plenty of dishes, but nobody looks particularly cheerful. In the background looms a dark volcano.
This image is part of Maryanto's solo exhibition at Heden, an established art gallery in The Hague. His dark canvases ' some filling a whole wall, some only slightly bigger than a book cover ' provide a disconsolate sketch of the 32-year dictatorship of Soeharto's New Order.
'Anxiousness creeps into you as you look at his paintings,' said Marion Galesloot, one of the dozens who crowded the gallery at the exhibition's opening last month.
Goatee surrounding his eternal smile, Maryanto said that living abroad makes a person 'more nationalistic and proud of Indonesia ' but also more realistic about its shortcomings.'
However, his paintings' gloomy and critical messages contrast with his own background. 'I was certainly not a victim of the New Order.'
Maryanto, 36, said he enjoyed a comfortable middle-class childhood in Jakarta. His father was a Finance Ministry accountant, while his mother was active in the Dharma Wanita, an association of civil service wives.
An avid reader, Maryanto was exposed to the cracks in the New Order dictatorship in high school, when he came across publications such as Independen, the underground magazine of the then-outlawed Independent Journalists' Association.
During the tumultuous months in 1998 that culminated in Soeharto's fall, Maryanto was among the thousands of pro-democracy students demonstrating against the regime.
The fierceness of those days can be found in some of his sketches, which have been set alongside the portraits of victims of political violence in Indonesia, such as labor activist Marsinah and human rights icon Munir, both of whom were slain.
He created the images, close to 30 pieces, during his residency at Amsterdam's Royal Arts Academy. He was one of 50 artists ' 25 from the Netherlands and 25 from abroad ' to win the competitive grant from the Dutch government.
The residency gave him two years of freedom, space and materials 'to think, to create, or to just be', Maryanto says.
Accepting the grant took courage, according to Heden curator Jacko Brinkman. 'The art market in Asia has been booming in the past few years and Maryanto was among those Indonesian artists who was starting to make a name for himself. An absence of two years can be seen as commercially risky.'
Maryanto admitted that gallery owners and art dealers in Indonesia were not enthusiastic about the residency, although his friends backed the move.
'The most important thing for an artist is intellectual development rather than just technical skills,' Maryanto says. 'It's such an eye-opener, for example, to hear colleagues from Zimbabwe and Argentina speak about familiar types of dictatorship in their countries.
'We are worlds apart, and yet we share similar experiences,' he adds.
Maryanto sees himself mainly as a storyteller. 'For me, the story is the most important thing, and I relay that through my paintings.'
While he said that he has been drawing 'since as long as I can remember', Maryanto has also spent time working for NGOs such as the children's rights organization Anak Wayang Indonesia in Yogyakarta.
One theme in his work is industrialization. 'Indonesia has been focused on economic development, but with no clear blueprint of its consequences on people or the environment.'
This was reflected in Rawalelatu, the series of paintings that established his name in Indonesia's art scene in 2008.
The works tell of the fictional town of Rawalelatu, which disintegrates, literally and culturally, as the result of industrialization.
What sets Maryanto apart from his contemporaries, says Brinkman, is an incisive view of social and political issues. 'The majority of contemporary Indonesian artists strive to produce beautiful and enjoyable work. Maryanto's work is much more edgy.'
At the exhibition's opening, Anke Bangma, the contemporary art curator of the Tropenmuseum, a prominent museum in The Netherlands, praised Maryanto for 'depicting political moments in the past that still have impact on people'.
Bangma stood next to a painting of a younger Soeharto in military gear pointing a gun at an unseen target as others watched.
While anyone who has lived through the New Order will recognize this image, Bangma said that it was also a reminder of authoritarian military figures elsewhere, both past and present.
The many hours Maryanto had spent thinking, reading and exchanging ideas in the Netherlands certainly has not impeded his productivity.
In addition to his exhibition in the Hague, his Tales of Golden Mountain was featured in the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in September.
The giant canvas references the social and environmental impact of the copper and gold mine run by
PT Freeport Indonesia in Papua.
Before returning home this month, Maryanto will have an exhibition with nine other Indonesian artists in collaboration with Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, and an exposition at the Academy with another resident artist.
Maryanto was thoughtful when asked about the most important experience about residency.
'Imagine, the luxury of just focusing on art and exchanging experiences and ideas with fellow artists. It's priceless.'
' Photos Courtesy of Heden The Hague
