Photographs by Darwis Triadi at Ganesha Gallery, Four Seasons
Resort, Jimbaran Bay. Tel: 701010.
Edward Steichen (1879-1973) is one of the most important figures
in the history of photography. During his career, which lasted
over half the life span of photography, he was renowned as
an artist, fashion photograph, curator, writer, and technical
innovator. He was also an advocate for photography as an art
form, and led an aesthetic revolution that enabled photography
to be considered as a medium capable of interpretation and
expression, and not as a mere documentary record of visual
facts. Writing about his work Barbara Haskell, from the Whitney
Museum of American Art, was to say “Steichen’s
richly toned, evocative photographs reflected the yearning
in the early years of the 20th Century to escape from the
crass materialism and rationality of the everyday world, into
a space of quiet meditation, embracing the transient imagery
of dreams and the luminous mysteries of nature and metaphysical
truths”. It comes as no surprise that Indonesian photographer
Darwis Triadi cites Edward Steichen as a major influence in
his photography, for Triadi and Steichen have much in common.
Darwis Triadi is one of Indonesia’s top fashion photographers,
a celebrated portraitist of his generation, a teacher and
a talented artist. In his current exhibition, ‘Terra
Incognita’, Darwis Triadi places nude female models
amidst the natural splendor of Central Java’s nature,
and its ancient Hindu-Buddhist temples. The results are a
rich and sensuous collection of images, which not only pay
a deep homage to the formalist and metaphysical early photographs
of Edward Steichen, but, also present Triadi’s personal
imagery of female beauty. Darwis’ muse is the innocent
female nude. But, his camera conjures up enchanting photographs
which are more mental than physical.
In his delightful 1955 movie ‘The Seven Year Itch’
director Billy Wilder was to give Marilyn Monroe one of her
most memorable scenes. Invited to drinks by her neighbor,
Marilyn explained to her host a nude photograph which received
an Honorable Mention in the book ‘US Camera’,
and for which she posed. “It was one of those artistic
pictures”, Marilyn enthused, “it was on the beach,
with some driftwood. It was called ‘Textures’,
because you could see three different kinds of texture. The
driftwood. The sand, and me. I got $25 an hour, and it took
hours and hours”. Naturally, her host provides a salacious
reaction. There is a paradox inherent in the two attitudes
to Marilyn’s photograph. Her host sees the ‘artistic’
photograph purely in terms of content (a nude), whereas she
sees it in terms of the photograph’s formal qualities.
Of course there is no getting around the content. It is what
it is. But within the framework of the photographic act, by
a skilled and talented photographer, the content is preserved
but it is also negated and transcended, and that means the
work can not merely be reduced to its content for the forms,
composition, texture and sources are also relevant, and in
many cases in an ‘artistic’ photograph, more important.
It is all about creating a subjective aesthetic space. This
is reinforced by the title and theme of Marilyn’s photograph,
‘Textures’. Finally, taking an exceptional photograph
does involve ‘hours and hours’ of preparation,
lighting, thought and luck. It is not a matter of pointing
the camera and taking a ‘snap shot’.
Darwis Triadi has given many of his photographs titles such
as ‘Thou Shalt Not Great Adam’, ‘Where is
Adam?’ and ‘Unfortunately Wingless’, which
suggest a religious theme of the Garden of Eden, before Adam
and Eve lost their innocence. An idealized Eve exhibits no
shame in her body or in her nudity. Triadi presents an idealization
of nature, an image of perfected female humanity, noble and
serene, remote from the actual conditions of our daily life.
Indeed, it would be hard to find anything ‘offensive’
within Triadi’s works, for they are all beautiful images
which exemplify the female form, and its role in the traditional
symbolic representation of innocence.
There are, perhaps, two key photographs in Triadi’s
exhibition that can be seen as representative of two themes,
which together, constantly appear throughout the works on
display. ‘Beauty Yields’ is a straightforward
‘formalist’ image that is concerned with composition
and the interaction of horizontal and vertical lines. Within
the image the sinuous curves of the nude model can be seen
as just another element of the composition, contrasting with
the verticality of the photograph. The photograph is ‘about’
form, light, composition and abstraction. However, the implied
imagery of human beauty bowing to, or acknowledging, the overwhelming
forces of nature or God cannot be ignored. ‘Wardress’
places an upright female nude within an ancient temple, the
house of God. Her stance echoes the upward movement of the
temple’s pillars, but, the title of the piece infers
that this woman possesses a spiritual knowledge, which it
is her duty to protect. Throughout his exhibition, Triadi
repeats these superbly composed formal images, but he also
repeatedly suggests a sense of innocence and mysticism.
Much like Edward Steichen, Darwis Triadi is also an innovator.
For the photographs in his exhibition Triadi has employed
a digital infra-red camera. Although infra-red photography
has been known and used for many years, until recently it
usually brought haphazard results. Digital technology has
greatly enhanced infra-red photography, and one of the ‘side’
effects of current black and white infra-red photography is
that while most of the image appears normal, all greens, especially
foliage, attain a brilliant luminosity, as if glowing from
within. Photographs, such as ‘A Lily Among Rocks’
and ‘Woe To Earth (In Silence)’, fully explore
this unusual phenomenon, caused by infra-red exposure. These
photographs, and many more in Triadi’s exhibition, achieve
a surrealistic three dimensional impression, wherein Triadi’s
Eve appears unable to prevent some form of approaching cataclysmic
doom, or her expulsion from the garden of Eden.
Triadi’s exhibition is a wonderful example of a photographer’s
subjective vision of the world. The landscape in which the
nude ‘moves’ is not just a space of moral ideas.
This is also an aesthetic space, the space of pleasure, and
a treat for the eyes. It is not in the knowing about, or being
able to interpret what one sees, that the pleasure of this
exhibition lies, but in the directness, the power, and the
lavish quality of the photographs themselves. Triadi has created
an exhibition which is very stimulating, and highly recommended.
It is a must see show for all interested in Photography as
Art.
