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Artists depart from high art in 'Manifesto #4'
Preludes by Windi Apriani
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Preludes by Windi Apriani. JP/Novia D. Rulistia
The biannual grand exhibition at the National Gallery in Central Jakarta features reflections on the daily life of a modern society.
The fourth staging of the 'Manifesto' exhibition involves a total of 78 artists, all under 35 years old, displaying more than 100 contemporary artworks.
The exhibition runs until June 7 and takes place in all of the Gallery's exhibition rooms, and also outside.
''Manifesto' gives younger artists space to display their work. Many of them are still new to the art scene, but their lives and works are very interesting to see,' Asikin Hasan, one of the exhibition's curators, told The Jakarta Post.
Asikin said there was a change of focus in the works of young artists nowadays where they no longer saw high culture as their sole focus.
'Back in the 1980s or 1990s, artists saw high art as their main focus and that being involved in the biennale or triennial was a very important thing to achieve. But younger artists now don't make a big deal about such things anymore,' he said.
'They just want to do what they like to do in their art.'
However, Asikin said, their qualities were no less captivating than those of the previous generations.
He said the painting of Windi Apriani was an example of how solid work could be produced from the simple things in our daily life.
Windi's work, called Preludes, is a painting in ink and oil on canvas that displays a woman who is sitting in front of a dressing table and is also seen moving back and forth.
'She uses ink to draw and the result is amazing. Overall, she has finished the work very well and with a simple medium she can achieve something that feels so grand,' Asikin said.
The exhibition also displays other kinds of work, such as installations, photography, video art, ceramics and handicrafts.
There is a teak music box made by Rudi Hendriatno in the middle of the exhibition room A, a screen that displays edited photos of international celebrities doing activities that people in Indonesia usually do in the My Political Friends work by Agan Harahap, and a colorful 700 x 4,000-centimeter Selimut (Blanket) fabric installation by I Made Wiguna Valasara in the Gallery's yard.
'Valasara's work shows diligence and the artist's crafting skill. The fabric installation is also a metaphor for diversity,' Asikin said.
All the works have been assembled by a team of curators, namely Rizki A. Zaelani, Jim Supangkat, Asikin Hasan, A. Rikrik Kusmara, Bayu Genia Krishbie and Zamrud Setya Negara.
Asikin said they had selected artists from Bandung, Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Bali and Solo because modern and contemporary art had developed more significantly in those five places than in others.
Bandung-based painter M. Zico Albaiquni whose painting installation, called Artist Studio, is also on display said he wanted to make something he had never tried before for the Manifesto exhibition.
'Because the theme is about daily life and my daily activity is painting, so I decided to put myself into the painting by becoming the object of the painting,' he said.
His installation consists of three oil paintings: a painting of himself painting in his studio, a painting of a woman wearing a hijab and an experimental painting about a video screening.
Zico also put in neon lights and other objects that he usually uses while painting as part of his installation project.
'This is like my own biography: I do research for my project, then I paint and present it,' Zico said.
Another interesting work is Mengintip Lubang (Peeping into the Hole) by Jakarta-based illustrator Marishka Soekarna who exhibits colorful, painted boxes. But to see what her works are really about, visitors must take a peek into the hole in the box.
'These three works talk about sexual routine in a household. Through the boxes, I've created a space that illustrates a moment to talk about intimate things that I sometimes find uncomfortable to discuss with other people,' she said.
Marishka said the work was also like a whisper, where the 'listener' could 'listen' to intimate stories personally by peeping into the hole.
Looking at the works that were being displayed in the exhibition rooms, Asikin said many of the artists liked to mix one media with another, displaying no boundaries in their work.
'They were raised and are living in an era where new media and materials of arts are available; where visual and virtual matters also play a great role in their lives.
And all of that has become one of their means of expressing their lives through art,' he said
