Paintings by Dadang Christanto
At Gaya Fusion Art Space, Jl. Raya Sayan, Ubud.
Tel. 979252
And
Bulan’s Cheerful and Spontaneous World
Paintings by Bulan Trisna
At Danes Art Veranda, Jl. Hayam Wuruk 159, Denpasar. Tel.
0361 250037
Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of emerging 21st
Century art is to build a bridge between the advancements
of personal artistic expression with the traditional viable
and saleable art ‘product’. The central concept
of the ‘newer’ forms of art, such as Conceptual
Art or even Arte Povera, insist that the artist’s ideas
or processes, or even research, is as important, or more important,
than the finished product (be it a painting, or a sculpture).
Installation and Performance art only compounds this problem.
Utilizing a lexicon of private images, icons and signs, the
installation and performance artist attempts to convey a personal
message that is to be experienced in sequential moments of
time or space. Important and intriguing though the works are
it rarely lends itself to the ‘saleable art object’.
Public or private funding or documentation of the event, being
the common form of commercial revenue. Whether the artist
likes it or not, art and its ‘products’ are part
of the capitalist system. A value is placed on the marketability
and desirability of the work.
A refreshing art style, which is currently enjoying much exposure,
is an expansion on the artistic ‘journal’ or ‘visual
diary’. Personal iconography, either as image or text,
and often combining both, present the artist’s concepts
and processes in a self-contained image. Images combined together
can present a revealing narrative. Currently in two local
galleries, two very different artists both use the concept
of the artistic ‘journal’, utilizing personal
visual iconography, to convey two very different messages.
Born in Tegal, Central Java, in 1957, Dadang Christanto is
one of Indonesia’s most respected contemporary artists.
In his exhibition ‘Pilgrim Project’, at the Gaya
Fusion Art Space in Ubud, Christanto uses a large range of
personal symbols to express a very personal message. Boughs
and trunks of trees, seeds and other plants, flowers, flames,
bells, an aborigine’s windpipe, bones and other human
remains are meticulously formed with paint and charcoal, and
are placed on unprimed linen canvases. Handwritten text spreads
across some of the canvases that form a reflective analysis,
or spontaneous commentary, trying to explain the objects and
their function. In works such as ‘Pilgrim Project No
11 and 12’ these objects are placed on a tray and presented
by an idealized human form. The underlying theme of this work
is, however, man’s inhumanity to man. “To all
the various socio-political tragedies that have happened over
the last thirty two years in Indonesia”. Christanto’s
images “reign as a monument for the victims of such
crises of humanity everywhere”. This exhibition also
documents Christanto’s ongoing ‘Pilgrim Project’.
Maybe, the role of the drawings and paintings is to stimulate
dialogue, or even put the viewers in possession of all the
facts they would otherwise have missed. They set the viewer
thinking about what they see, rather than simply weighing
the formal or emotive impact of the products of the process.
Christanto is the recipient of a commission from the State
of Western Australia in-conjunction with the Perth International
Festival. Christanto has picked a vast grass field near a
small Western Australian country town to stage his ‘Pilgrim
Project’. There he will set “twenty three larger
than life figure sculptures in a circle around an altar. The
figures stand tall, rigid, with the proportions of Neolithic
idols from a pre-Buddhist era. No identification, no faces,
except the male and female genitals. Each statue carries a
tray filled with the ideas of daily life”. As we view
the Gaya exhibition, not only do we see Christanto grappling
with each individual element of the work, but, we also see
him attempting to bring the work together in its extravagant
theme and scale. This exhibition reveals not only his work
processes, but the intellectual means by which these processes
have come about. Christanto presents ‘a work in progress’
that we can also interpret as an evolving presentation of
personal symbolism.
On the other hand, at Danes Art Veranda in Denpasar, Bulan
Trisna, a young Balinese female painter, presents a delicious
element of humor in her paintings, which is by no means to
say that her work is not serious; the best comedy is always
serious. She has an ability to make clever, ironic, or even
satirical remarks by perceiving the incongruous, or even bizarre
events, in ordinary contemporary Balinese married life in
a language of child-like art. The exhibition, ‘Bulan’s
Cheerful and Spontaneous World’, is a visual diary utilizing
a personal iconography that reverberates at a universal level
recording fragments of her own domestic life. Paintings such
as ‘Living Together’ and ‘Dialogue in the
Morning’ set the scene of a Balinese family living in
peace and harmony. Cars, swimming pools and TV sets convey
the message that this could be a family anywhere. Carefree
adventures in the family Volkswagen, such as in the painting
‘Chatting in the Car’, and family outings to the
Waterbom water park in Kuta, in the painting ‘Playing
on the Water’, only go to emphasize this family harmony.
‘My Husband and Me’ depicts Bulan and her husband
as the ideal couple, surrounded by icons of family unity.
However, Bulan reveals in the painting ‘Having Affair’
that her husband is drawn between herself and a sexy, flirtatious
mistress. Somewhat like an Indonesian TV Sinetron, Bulan exposes
the joys and flaws of a marriage that could be prime-time
viewing anywhere. Each scene in her soap opera is complete,
but, combined together, they disclose a plot that we know
only too well. Seen as installments in an ongoing domestic
drama, Bulan exposes her personal iconography to convey the
tensions running deep below what appears to be domestic bliss.
With different aims and very different results, both Dadang
Christanto and Bulan Trisna present extremely stimulating
exhibitions that demonstrate that art in the 21st Century
can explore concepts of artistic ‘journals’ and
personal iconography, in a comprehensive painting technique,
very successfully. Both artists create work that is personal
and intimate, but especially ‘saleable’. In their
own ways, Christanto and Bulan are creating a viable new artistic
‘product’. Both exhibitions are highly recommended.
