Design details: The preliminary rendering of Museum MACAN’s education area. (Courtesy of MET Studio Design Ltd)

Indonesian art lovers will soon have a chance to admire not only the works of Indonesian masters and prominent contemporary artists but also works by renowned world artists — from Andy Warhol, Banksy and Jeff Koons to David Hockney —right here in Jakarta.

The museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Nusantara (Museum MACAN) director and lead curator Thomas J. Berghuis and his team have access to an extensive collection belonging to businessman and collector Haryanto Adikoesoemo, who built and funded the museum, which will open its doors early next year.

In the past 25 years, Haryanto — president director of chemical and energy logistics company PT AKR Corporindo and property developer AKR Land Development — has collected some 800 artworks; 40 percent from Indonesia, 25 percent from the greater Asia region and 35 percent from the US and Europe.

Berghuis said people in the art world knew Haryanto as a major international art collector. “But I must also say the collection, which is 40 percent Indonesian art, actually allows a perspective of Indonesia in touch with international art,” he said.

The collection includes works by Indonesian masters like Raden Saleh, Affandi and S. Sudjojono, as well as prominent contemporary artists like Heri Dono, FX Harsono, Agus Suwage, Christine Ay-tjoe and Handiwirman Saputra.

“We’re aiming for as soon as possible, but let’s say end of the first quarter [or] second quarter of the year we want to open the museum with an exhibition of the collection,” he said.

Berghuis said the exhibition would intertwine the highlights of Haryanto’s collection with stories and history about Indonesian art.

He said some would like to see what Haryanto had collected and how successful he was as a collector. “We know that Haryanto has collected Andy Warhol, so Andy Warhol will be exhibited in that space.”

Apart from Warhol, Haryanto has also collected works by Robert Rauschenberg, Anish Kapoor, Gerhard Richter, Banksy, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Keith Haring and David Hockney. Top Asian artists in his collection include Fernando Amorsolo, Sanyu, Yang Maolin and Wu Guanzhong.

“The other thing is that we also need to allow people, especially when it comes to our international collection, to have a little bit of an experience of different styles and movements, as well as individual artists and their role in the development of modern and contemporary art.”

With the upcoming acquisitions of artworks, exhibitions and commissions of new works, it will come as no surprise if Museum MACAN is bursting at the seams with a more diverse collection in its first months of operation.

“The collection is growing,” Berghuis noted. “We’re going through an acquisition process but also it will grow through exhibition-making and commissioning in the future.”

Art curator Jean Couteau said the move to engage reputable collectors in museums was a good sign and that Haryanto was an important collector of international and Indonesian art.

“What worries me is if ‘outside’ parties take too big a role in the definition of Indonesian art, and ‘compel’ a monopolar [American/Western] or bipolar [West+ China] understanding of contemporary art — which should be multi-polar in my eyes. Foreign capital and taste — even though useful — should remain no more than marginal players in Indonesia,” Couteau said.

He added that it was not Haryanto who worried him but another collector, who, the word goes, intends to build a huge “contemporary” museum somewhere north of Ubud, Bali.

Curator and Sidharta Auctioneer auction house owner Amir Sidharta said it would be a pleasure to be able to visit Museum MACAN to enjoy Haryanto’s extensive collection.

By hiring a world-class curator like Berghuis — who brings over two decades of experience working as a curator, educator, and museum practitioner to the museum — Amir believed Museum MACAN would become a world-class museum and attract international attention toward Indonesian art.

He raised hope there would also be major educational projects allowing Indonesians to become familiar with art from an early age.

“We also hope that the museum will not be a private museum that is only open by appointment, but a museum that is accessible to the public all year round, with daily operational hours of at least nine hours,” Amir says.

— JP/Yuliasri Perdani and Stevie Emilia

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