MUSEUM MACAN

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN) celebrated its second anniversary in 2019.

In 2020, the museum plans to unveil an outdoor area for exhibitions on its rooftop terrace, which was previously utilized for its Malam di MACAN (Night at Macan) program in November 2019.

The museum will undergo a transition period for its 2020 program in February and after this, it will feature two artists to start its 2020 program.

The artists are Julian Rosefeldt from Germany and Indonesia’s Melati Suryodarmo. The museum will exhibit their works of art from Feb. 29 to May 31 in two different exhibition spaces.

Speaking exclusively to the Post before the official launch of the 2020 program, Museum MACAN director Aaron Seeto said Melati’s exhibition would be a showcase of performance art that was going to be very different from the museum’s previous programs.

One of the pieces she will perform is a 12-hour piece of performance art titled I’m a Ghost in My Own House. This performance will take place during the opening week when the museum will extend its opening hours for visitors to fully immerse themselves. In another section of the museum, Rosefeldt’s video work Manifesto will also be on display in partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) in Australia.

The 13-channel film presentation features actress Cate Blanchett in 12 different roles performing various artists’ manifestos across the 20thcentury, including Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich and American conceptual and minimalist artist Sol LeWitt, along with movements like Dadaists and Dogma 95.

Due to the complexity of the piece, Seeto said he had to fly in technical assistance from Germany to ensure the synchronization of the video clips and the immersive experience.

“We think this work resonates with our audiences. This type of writing is very important to the history of human culture [...] and the reason we think it’s important to Indonesians is that Indonesia is a democratic country and it’s gone through massive shifts from its independence to today.”

In July, the museum will feature The Theater of Me, a major survey exhibition of contemporary Indonesian artist Agus Suwage known for his self-deprecating and ironic approach to social issues. Many of Agus’ self-portraits and installations from the 1980s will be showcased in the exhibition, which will run until October.

The 2020 program will be closed with Berlin-based artist Chiharu Shiota ‘s The Soul Trembles, which will feature her complex installations of red and black webs of yarn, which looms over large spaces. 

ARTSOCIATES

Bandung-based artist management ARTSociates will have a busy year ahead, renovating its space for the first two months of 2020 before participating in both local and international art fairs throughout the year.

ARTSociates director Andonowati told the Post it would celebrate 10 years of the Lawangwangi Creative Space in the tail end of March, hence the renovation work.

After the celebration, ARTSociates will take part in Art Moments Jakarta as well as Art Jakarta. As for international fairs, the management enterprise will be bringing the works of Mujahidin Nurrahman to Singapore’s ART SG from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 and Eddy Susanto to Artissima in Turin, Italy, in November.

Andonowati noted the importance of professional management for artists, as it stressed the balance between discourse and market, production and consumption and the distribution of artworks based on that.

“Early on, Bandung was said to be a breeding ground for art with a strong element of discourse, but the artists are said to be less skillful. In their development, Bandung-based artists have explored unconventional media that have their own appeal to collectors of contemporary art,” she said.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF INDONESIA

The National Gallery of Indonesia (GNI) rang in 2019 with a combined total of 201,587 visitors throughout 20 exhibitions as of Nov. 30.

For 2020, National Gallery head Pustanto said a crowd favorite would be the biannual contemporary art exhibition MANIFESTO, which would return for its seventh iteration from Aug. 4 to 30.

“However, there are some exhibitions that are rather unexpected, like the works of Jumaadi in Cintaku Jauh di Pulau [My Love is in an Island Faraway], which are quite dazzling,” he said.

Notable figures in the program include Srihadi Soedarsono, who will hold a solo exhibition and book launch titled The Dialogue of the Spiritual Experience: Man and Universe from March 11 to April 9; Dadang Christanto’s solo exhibition Menunggu Kereta yang Tak Kembali (Waiting for the Train That Will Never Return) from Dec. 16 to Jan. 17, 2021; and Mella Jaarsma’s unnamed solo exhibition from July 3 to 20.

Srihadi’s exhibition follows an earlier exhibition in 2016 commemorating 70 years of his career, something Pustanto attributed to his rule of having a three-year gap between exhibitions.

More than 400 works of art dating as far back as 1946 were showcased in the exhibition, mostly sketches.

The inclusion of artists like Jaarsma points to a more contemporary selection of artists, but Pustanto himself said he was unsure whether the term “contemporary art” can be used to refer to art made in recent history.

“I don’t know if there will be another term that will come out in five to 10 years, so that’s what I always discuss with our curators. The principle is that what happens here would be a novelty or something new, as we aim to be like other national galleries.

“For modern art, we can see it in our permanent exhibition, which covers both modern and contemporary art in general. Along the way, we will make space for something new that crops up, which is the objective of a national gallery.”