Just as one should not read the emergence of surrealism in Indonesia as a continuation of the world Western surrealism, one must also interpret the Indonesian realism movement carefully. The creative process of each individual artist must be taken into account; otherwise, misinterpretations are likely to occur. A painting that appears visually to be a realistic one may prove after further inspections to be something else. Textual (as in the aesthetic concept) and contextual (as in the social relations) readings, therefore, are unavoidable. One should also read Toto Kamdani's paintings in this light. Toto usually began his creative process by intensely observing his social surroundings. Whenever some social realities were disturbing him, he recorded them using his camera. He then created and built a "new reality" by using the photographs. The "new reality" was based on a premeditated theme. Therefore, the "new reality" was actually the fruit of Toto's own thoughts and reconstructions, although it was based on some actual social realities. It could be said that the actual, social realities were the first reality, while the "new reality" that became manifest in the painting was the second reality and the photographs here play the role as the "mediating reality."

Naturally, Toto was very faithful to the methods of realist paintings. From the matter of perspectives, the precision and characters of forms, proportion, anatomy, volume, light... everything received his full attention. The result was a painting almost with the precisions of a camera. But, once again, the paintings could not be read directly as a photographic-portrayal.

His later works, however, have been slightly different. Although the process in the beginning is still similar to what Toto has been doing before, his later works have been questioning more about the second meaning behind his realistic portrayals. Take, for example, his painting Pertarungan (Fight, 2001), where he depicts the realistic portrayal of a colossal cockfight, watched in confusion by tens of chickens. Is this a depiction of an actual reality? Naturally, no. Indeed, here Toto does not create a realistic painting as he commonly did, but instead is formulating a meaning in the social context: The raging fight among the elites (seen as the roosters) that neglects the plight of the common people (seen as the confused chickens).

The same goes for the painting Cakrawala Baru (New Horizon, 2003), where there are contrasts between the left and the right part of the painting. At the left-hand side are the piles of coconut shells, on top of which several frogs are perched. The frogs are no longer in the shells. At the right-hand side are children playing around competing for something, oblivious to their threatening surroundings. The painting makes us aware about the reality of the marginalized people and the childish political elites who are engrossed in the competition for important positions.

With these two examples in mind, one could say that Toto's paintings cannot simply be categorized as realistic paintings, because the present forms exist there not to represent the reality as it is, but rather come into being to bear a particular meaning: this "realism" is placed between quotation marks.

Djuli Jati Prambudi

Born on March 24, 1957 in Kediri.
Studied at Education Science Institute (IKIP), Malang.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1998 "Lifestyle of Indonesia", Queensland Arts Council, Rockhampton, Australia; Mills Gallery, Yeppoon Rockhampton, Australia.
2000 Group Exhibition of the Chosen Artists, Auto 2000, Malang; "Silaturahmi Budaya 2000", PT Semen Gresik.
2001 "One Nation, Peace on Our Country", The Mosque of Malang City, Malang, East Java.

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