Held at Sampoerna Strategic Square, the exhibition is titled “Contemporary Culture Interplay”. Curated by Jim Supangkat, Asmudjo Irianto, Dian Muljadi and Sebastian Gunawan, featured artists were selected from the worlds of contemporary art and fashion. The exhibition includes work by established as well as young and upcoming Indonesian artists and fashion designers.  

Among the more than one hundred works filling the 1,000-square-meter exhibition hall are Astari’s iconic bag revealing the home as a prison,  provocative works by Altje Ully from her solo show “The Second Skin” this year, Chusin Setiadikara’s realistic images now rendered in yet another fashion, Andita Purnama’s incredible wall hanging made of cassette tapes, Indyra’s mystic nude, Sanchia Tryphosa Hamidjaja’s tiny images running the length of a triptych, Ali Rubin’s upside-down hanging sculpture of a pregnant woman, Didik Nurhadi’s tantalizing burger painting, Deden Hendan Durahman’s fine art photography, Dita Gambiro’s vagina-like work titled Burgeon of polymer resin and car paint and Yuli Prayitno’s evocative work featuring a sagged chair and a cushion titled Cerita Hitam Dalam Pintu, narrating the superstitious story that a woman must never sit at an open door lest she never find a husband.

But, energizing the venue are in fact the works by fashion designers selected by Dian Mulyadi and Sebastian.

There were the models by Sapto Djojokartiko, whose design uses hair for the lower part of a frock, with the reason for the use of hair unclear. In the Indonesian art world, only artist Nindityo Adipurnomo and Dita Gambiro have used hair as a medium for their art.

Another fashion designer has poured out his love with text written on a dress surrounded by barbed wire as a metaphor for the fullness of his love that cannot be entered by anyone else. There is also an installation, which was not yet finished when the exhibition was visited by this reviewer, but looked dramatic enough with red robes and baby dolls rolling out onto the floor. Participating fashion designers include Andreas Odang, Adesagi Kierana, Barli Asmara, Deden Siswanto, Didit Hediprasetyo, Jeffry Tan, Sapto Djojokartiko, Steven Huang and Tex Saverio.

So, can fashion design be called art? Examples abound abroad, where fashion designers are included in prestigious art exhibitions. Hussein Chalayan, Yohji Yamamoto and the late Alexander McQueen are just a few exemplary names.

It is general knowledge that when the design is spurred from within the designer, it can be considered “art”, when it is not, then it’s just fashion.

According to Sebastian, it will be quite a challenge for Indonesian fashion designers to make a fashion-to-art crossover as they would have to create a work without going through their usual client-based interactions.

In fact, the thread between fashion and art is very thin, as the works of Amalia Sigit reveal. Run Like Hell, which was made of papier mache and likens to Venetian carnaval images, could well have been made by a fashion designer. Not surprising for someone like Amalia who studied fashion design at the Jakarta Academy of Art and Design.  

The combination of art and fashion in one exhibition has of course occurred earlier, but never on this scale or concentration. It is in line with the shifting concerns that are preoccupying practitioners of various branches of art in which cultural and personal identity, conformity and freedom, globalization and tradition and also commercial considerations are increasingly becoming points of reference.

The inaugural art show by PMR, which stands for Patty Kaunang, Millie Stephanie and Rina Salim, is partnered by Lorenzo Rudolf, the mastermind behind Art Basel and Art Stage Singapore. Millie Stephanie said she hopes to be able to bring Indonesian art and fashion to Art Stage in January 2012.  

While this is the first show presenting art and fashion in a reasonably well curated space, the exhibition will only run for five days. Many are wondering why the show is so short, as a serious exhibition usually allows the public at least two weeks to view the works.

Contemporary Culture Interplay
Dec. 1 – 6
The Atrium, Sampoerna Strategic Square
Jl. Jend. Sudirman 45-46
Jakarta

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