Young artists in bandung on assemble in an art exhibition contemporary in a number of the gallery. An attempt to revive the creativity of young artists without having to bound with institutional aspects.
Since fine arts boom in 2006, there has been no significant event in Indonesian fine arts, especially from Bandung. Fine arts have waned and there is no spirit in making artworks through ideas. It is as if the issue of contemporary fine arts has been swept away by the bristled market issue.
In the middle of this uncertainty, a contemporary fine art exhibition themed Contemporary Bandung is held in Bandung. This exhibition is divided in various places, such as Rumah Seni Sarasvati, Selasar Sunaryo, Lawangwangi Creative Space, Gerilya Gallery, Hidayat Gallery, Kamones Gallery, Istitut Francais Indonesia (IFI), and Platform 3.
One of the exhibitions is held in Bale Tonggoh, Selasar Sunaryo Art Space. The exhibition’s part that is being held here is the big scale part of the Bandung Contemporary’s exhibition. This exhibition is followed by 13 young artists in Bandung from various art education backgrounds from October 20th to November 12th with Sally Texania as the curator.
These thirteen artists are Adyatama Pranada, Ahmad Nursalim, Citra Kemala, Edward Bonaparte, Eldwin Pradipta, Irfan Hendrian, Jodi Setiawan, Maharani Mancanagara, Ratu Rizkitasari Saraswati, Risa Astrini, Sutra Djarot, Zaenal Abidin, dan Zusfa Roihan.
The participants of this exhibition are those of young generation, whose average ages are under 30 years old. These artists are doing their creative process at the times after the institution authority fades, both art and social institutions. The artworks of these artists show something significant related to the art institution development, fine arts boom in 2006, and global economic crisis in 2008.
Sally Texania sees these three events as the cause of the difference of youngest artist generation from other artists. She states that Bandung’s youngest artist generation has been freed from the “struggle” to form “institutions” and “standards”.
Obviously, the assessment of their artworks consists of artworks’ components, the absorbed values, and the influences the artworks bring. These things shall be unique, different from one another.
Related to the big theme in Bandung Contemporary, Sally put forward a provocative theme “Fine Arts, Without Movement” at Bale Tonggoh, Selasar Sunaryo Arts Space.
Eldwin Pradipta uses new media art by combining the mooi indie painting or famously known as Indonesia Molek (Beautiful Indonesia) with video art. The mooi indie painting comes from ‘jelekong’, an area in Bandung that is known for mass produce of paintings.
The origin of jelekong in visual paintings might be frozen, Pradipta’s video manipulation creates a view of erupting mountain, moving out of the canvas and messing the very idea of ‘frozen beauty’ of Indonesian nature in Dutch colonial period.
Similarly, Maharani Mancanagara created an image of Dutch colonial officer in charge of overseeing the school and curriculum implementation. This story is taken from her grandfather’s diary which is related to the imperialist control strategy currently employed in our education system.
Ratu Rizkitasari’s artwork is not so similar. The video performance presents Riski putting a long, huge cloth over a moving carousel in the public space. The cloth is similar to those found in mosques as the barrier between men and women. The artwork states how a limitation is formed and sometimes is forced to an individual due to the community’s convention. Through this performance, Rizki seems to try to create an individual authority to form a distance from people’s sights.
In a formal-focused composition, Irfan Hendrian combines his interest in using grid to form a hierarchy of shapes and colors in a two-dimensional artwork. Rather than using paint, Irfan uses layers of paper to create layers of particular shapes and colors in a “shape hierarchical system”, formulated through a thought of formal art and math calculation. He himself mixes formally his understanding based on the Western formalist patterns.
Zusfa Roihan makes his own mixes of modern convention and fine arts with the latest development seen today. Zusfa, that previously took over the image and formalism series of Indonesian modern fine arts, has turned into various images he acquired through United States spying plane in cold war era. The images are then cascaded with the painting style of Junge Wilde’s group, an anti-communist-current art society at times of restrained relations between East Germany and West Germany.
The movement without motion in this article is no other than the new session of Bandung’s young artists. They are no longer meeting the authority, unlike the predecessor artists. They are more commonly familiar with influencing and being influenced. In this continuum, the key words are negotiation and bargain, resulting in a manifestation of materials, ideas, and values.
