Roy Voragen, “The future is present,” a review of exhibitions at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space and PLATFORM3, Tempo Magazine, July 13, 2014, 32-33
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ARTS 32 | | JULY 13, 2014 THE 90AN EXHIBIT I JUST returned from a short, reju- venating trip to Yogyakarta, where I visited ArtJog—by far the most pro- fessionally-run art event in this coun- try—and a bunch of other exhibitions. As always, Yogyakarta’s art scene was in- spiring and breathtaking in scope and en- ergy. Returning to Bandung, I didn’t know what to expect from the openings at Selas- ar Sunaryo Art Space and PLATFORM3. Upon arriving at the two venues in northern Bandung, I treated these open- ings as I would any other. But honestly speaking, I was blown away by these two very different exhibitions, both by young Bandung-based artists. When we look at stories, poetry and movies on how the young are portrayed, we discover a rather contradictory amal- gam of typologies: hope, energy, angst, confidence, Sturm und Drang, vigor, im- The future is present maturity, spirit, frivolity, being carefree and careless, anxiety, cockiness, the list goes on. However, what we can take from this is a degree of openness toward yet-to- be fulfilled dreams and potentials. It’s oftentimes claimed that the mar- ket favors the young. We romantics hope there is more to art than quantification, profit-seeking, speculative flipping, back- room deals and commodification. And the young get plenty of chances to show both: to stand on their own in the market and with interesting artworks. (For sure, young artists sometimes make one anoth- er nuts by their conversations on the most prudent career strategy.) Two recent events offered such a plat- form, the Bandung Contemporary and Manifesto. The former was organized in late 2013 and curated by a young trio— Chabib Duta Hapsoro, Rifandy Priatna and Sally Texania—across eight different venues (including Selasar Sunaryo Art Space and PLATFORM3). The latter was organized in mid-2014 and curated by a group of curators—Rizki A. Zaelani, Jim Supangkat, Asikin Hasan, A. Rikrik Kus- mara, Bayu Gena Krishbie and Zamrud Setya Negara—at the National Gallery in Jakarta. And while there were plenty of interesting artworks on display, these two events were rather softly curated, to put it mildly. A strong and well-executed curato- rial concept can bring something extra to an art event. (I have nothing against show- cases—ArtJog is a case in point—but don’t call it something it isn’t.) It can take years of consistent hard work to build up one’s name in the arts and yet it can be destroyed overnight. So we should be careful with praise as well as blame. Young artists have the right to make grand mistakes, to fail miserably, to fail again and then try again. However, we need to show appropriate appreciation when called for. The future is yours, the young are told. But what if the future has already begun? What if the future arrived last June 20? Patriot Mukmin’s work (above), Mochammad Fatchi Baradja’s display (right), Ziqo Albaiquni’s art work (below). PHOTO COURTESY: SELASAR SUNARYO ART SPACE, PLATFORM3 AND ARTISTS
Transcript
ARTS
32 | | JULY 13, 2014
THE 90AN EXHIBIT
I JUST returned from a short, reju-venating trip to Yogyakarta, where I visited ArtJog—by far the most pro-fessionally-run art event in this coun-try—and a bunch of other exhibitions.
As always, Yogyakarta’s art scene was in-spiring and breathtaking in scope and en-ergy. Returning to Bandung, I didn’t know what to expect from the openings at Selas-ar Sunaryo Art Space and PLATFORM3.
Upon arriving at the two venues in northern Bandung, I treated these open-ings as I would any other. But honestly speaking, I was blown away by these two very diff erent exhibitions, both by young Bandung-based artists.
When we look at stories, poetry and movies on how the young are portrayed, we discover a rather contradictory amal-gam of typologies: hope, energy, angst, confi dence, Sturm und Drang, vigor, im-
The future is present
maturity, spirit, frivolity, being carefree and careless, anxiety, cockiness, the list goes on. However, what we can take from this is a degree of openness toward yet-to-be fulfi lled dreams and potentials.
It’s oftentimes claimed that the mar-ket favors the young. We romantics hope there is more to art than quantifi cation, profi t-seeking, speculative fl ipping, back-room deals and commodifi cation. And the young get plenty of chances to show both: to stand on their own in the market and with interesting artworks. (For sure, young artists sometimes make one anoth-er nuts by their conversations on the most prudent career strategy.)
Two recent events off ered such a plat-form, the Bandung Contemporary and Manifesto. The former was organized in late 2013 and curated by a young trio—Chabib Duta Hapsoro, Rifandy Priatna
and Sally Texania—across eight diff erent venues (including Selasar Sunaryo Art Space and PLATFORM3). The latter was organized in mid-2014 and curated by a group of curators—Rizki A. Zaelani, Jim Supangkat, Asikin Hasan, A. Rikrik Kus-mara, Bayu Gena Krishbie and Zamrud Setya Negara—at the National Gallery in Jakarta. And while there were plenty of interesting artworks on display, these two events were rather softly curated, to put it mildly. A strong and well-executed curato-rial concept can bring something extra to an art event. (I have nothing against show-cases—ArtJog is a case in point—but don’t call it something it isn’t.)
It can take years of consistent hard work to build up one’s name in the arts and yet it can be destroyed overnight. So we should be careful with praise as well as blame. Young artists have the right to make grand mistakes, to fail miserably, to fail again and then try again. However, we need to show appropriate appreciation when called for.
The future is yours, the young are told. But what if the future has already begun? What if the future arrived last June 20?
Patriot Mukmin’s work (above), Mochammad Fatchi Baradja’s display (right), Ziqo Albaiquni’s art work (below).
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And this is the time to do so.In collaboration with Bandung-based
Galeri Gerilya (founded in 2011), Selasar Sunaryo Art Space is showing an exhibi-tion by nine artists—Angga Atmadilaga, Mi-chael Binuko a.k.a. Koxis Verserken, M.D. Natsir, Mochammad Fatchi Baradja, Mu-hammad Zico Albaiquni, Patriot Mukmin, Siddhartha Kandahdjaja, Wibi R. Triadi (who studied in Australia and is the front-man of Galeri Gerilya) and Zusfa Roihan (with the exception of Wibi, all are from ITB and most are MFA students or just graduated with a MFA)—which is curated by Bob Edrian Triadi, Danuh Tjas and D. Ahmad.
Young curators might be tempted to try to prove themselves by pulling out all discursive tricks from their short sleeves and in the process putting the artists in straightjackets. None of that at 90-an (the exhibition title can be read as a pun to the generation who started their careers in the tumultuous nineties). The exhibition was given visual coherence by applying grids, which gives each component a spatial ele-ment and off ers connection between the works of diff erent artists (one downside of the grid system: if an element is even slightly lopsided then the complete grid is out of balance). There is also a research
element to the curatorial approach, which was nicely visualized in diagrams, but I’m not sure how serious we have to take these research fi ndings.
These artists have been active for a num-ber of years now; for example, graphic artist Michael Binuko’s intaglio dry point prints were recently on display at ArtJog. In the 90-an exhibition, however, he shows drawings (drawing, obviously, is the basic technique of printmaking). Another inter-esting printmaker in this show is M.D. Nat-sir, he usually works with silkscreen print but in this exhibition he shows ‘smudgy’ digital prints on paper.
Muhammad Zico Albaiquni, with his fl air and confi dence, is everywhere these days. Recently he had a solo exhibition at PLATFORM3 and showed an immense installation at Manifesto. He is trained as a painter—and he has acquired an amaz-ing brushstroke technique—but of recent he is morphing his paintings into organic installations. It seems that ITB’s painting studio has an uneasy aff air with the paint-ing medium, many of its graduates end up doing anything but purely painting (too commercial? too Yogya? not contempo-rary enough? conceptually a zombie me-dium?).
Another artist in the show trained as a
painter, who also doesn’t paint in a tradi-tional way, is Patriot Mukmin; expanding the perceptual fi eld is his intention by re-framing how we view paintings. At Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, he shows his work as wall pieces, which play tricks on how we perceive objects but as such they have the danger of becoming merely tricks. For his fi nal MFA work, he created an installation, shown at Galeri Gerilya, which is thus far his best work (later shown at Bandung Contempory in an entirely diff erent set-ting and as a consequence it fell fl at).
And PLATFORM3 shows an exhibition by the collective Pemuda Setempat (founded in 2012; its members are all BFA students at or just graduated with a BFA from ITB). This exhibition has a raw energy result-ing in a very un-ITB-like aesthetics; the exhibition title can be roughly translated as Saturday Night Loosers, in other words: adolescent Angst. On a critical note: in dis-playing the exhibition, Pemuda Setempat should have attempted to connect the dif-ferent parts to show that this is a collective endeavor.
The future looks brighter when tangible. The future is present among us.
