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Repetition,
Deafening Din, Excess, and, Once Again, about the CP Open Biennale 2003
Agung Hujatnikajennong
Sunday, September 14, 2003
MEDIA INDONESIA
The presentation of the CP Open Biennale 2003 (CPOB 2003) with the theme
Interpellation at the Indonesian National Gallery through October 3, 2003,
brings hope as well as concern. Hope " because in the midst of a
poverty of infrastructure for art in Indonesia, this activity brings form
to the aspiration to develop a sustainable international art dialog and
forum. The concern " because when viewed from all aspects, this presentation
and activities have turned out to have displayed a number of basis weaknesses,
especially if we carefully and thoroughly analyze and compare the concept,
the vision, and the curatorial goals of this exhibition with their realization
through the mechanism of selection and presentation of the works displayed
in the exhibition spaces.
As has been noted in the curatorial essays for the exhibition, the presence
of the works (20% of the total) of artists from countries outside of Indonesia
not only brought the CP Open Biennale 2003 to the scale of "national
plus" but also onto the level of "international". This
should be valued as an effort that is significant enough when viewed from
the perspective that this activity/event is capable of filling a vacuum
in relation to the frequency (or rarity) of "international"
scale art events in Indonesia. Even though the comparative ratio was not
balanced, the presence of the artworks by European, American and Asian
artists (outside of Indonesia) evenly juxtaposed with the works of Indonesian
artists could become an important signal. After more or less a decade
has passed " at the very least counting from the Non-Block Nations
Contemporary Art Exhibition in Jakarta in 1995 " until now, at long
last, the public can once again witness the works of Indonesian artists
alongside the works of foreign artists within the same context. Before
that the public could only hear, read, and know that the works of a handful
of Indonesian artists of the likes of Dadang Christanto, Arahmaiani, and
Heri Dono had made an appearance in the universe of large exhibitions
in Europe and America, even though these artists and their works rarely
appeared before their "own public".
Besides that, the arrangement of sub-sub programs in the CP Open Biennale
2003 seems to have made reference to the "ideal" model for the
presentation of art events. There were an international symposium, a national
seminar, artists" talks, public education programs through tours,
and art workshops for children, all in an apparent effort to involve the
public more intensely.
Outside of analyzing/evaluating the quality of the implementation of
this exhibition, the overall scheme itself deserves to be looked at from
the point of view of the extra value of the CP Open Biennale 2003 within
efforts to mediate between the actual practice of art and the public through
a variety of levels of understanding.
However, outside of noting the expectation that there will be more exhibitions
of this caliber to make a contribution to the institution and discourse
of art in Indonesia, there is also the need to note the various obvious,
or even blatant, weaknesses in the CP Open Biennale 2003, which certainly
cannot be ignored. The involvement of 114 artists with a wide variety
of creative tendencies apparent in their artworks in the limited spaces
available at the Indonesian National Gallery causes this exhibition to
seem just like a crowded din-filled art expo, a little bit like a "general
store". All kinds of "things" are on display there: ranging
from paintings, photography, sculptures, space and wall installations,
ceramics, graphic artworks and drawings on paper, video pieces, baskets
that looked like traditional craftwork, and other items all overflowing
into every nook and cranny of both the closed and open spaces used for
the show.
Taking a critical look back at the pre-exhibition preparations, when
the curators and the management of the of the CP Open Biennale 2003 began
publicizing the activities by holding traveling discussion sessions and
passing out application forms to artists, it was stated quite firmly at
the time that the framework used in relation to the criteria for selection
was visual art as an alternative to the paradigm of contemporary art.
As a frame of thinking, visual art, which is initially set forth to "interpellate"
the paradigm of "contemporary art" (which is generally used
in international exhibitions such as Dokumenta and La Bennale de Venezia)
certainly does make it possible to include all kinds of categories of
art objects, and is even unlimited in relation to what is called "artwork".
However, it is really astonishing that this framework, in the end, has
not been touched upon at all in the written curatorial introduction to
the CP Open Biennale 2003. What happened that the discourse about that
framework would go up in smoke just like that " when, initially,
it could be imagined that it would become a unique "new discovery"
" does this mean that this has just turned out to be a sign of inconsistency
within the curatorial practice?
Another fatal mistake in the curatorial arrangements and presentation
of the CP Open Biennale 2003 is the division into sub-sub themes that,
as it has turned out, do little to assist the public to more easily access
and understand the exhibition as had been desired. The three sub-themes
of the main theme of Interpellation -- Changes Interpreted, History Translated,
and Localness Reconsidered -- have turned out to be simply an effort at
small talk, because they are not at all realized within the actual presentation
of the exhibition. The division into or grouping under sub-themes should
actually have been done with a more "lofty" purpose, that being
to "serve the public" so that a kind of consensus could be reached
about how best to understand the overall exhibition, and to make the curatorial
practice a basis of thinking.
As an example of this, just take a look at how a few of the installation
pieces are displayed in "meaningless" array in open spaces,
because if we look very closely and carefully, we will see that the artists
whose works are displayed there are classified under different sub-sub
themes. In the catalog for the CP Open Biennale 2003, Tisna Sanjaya is
categorized under the sub-theme " Changes Interpreted", while
Amrus Natalsya and Sunaryo are listed under "Localness Reconsidered"
The presentation of the artworks in the main space of the gallery also
raises some "suspicious" things. True enough, there certainly
are many works displayed there by artists with admirable international
reputations, such as Fang Lijun, Wenda Gu, and Heri Dono, who are actually
(also) grouped under different curatorial sub themes. Is this because
these works have a "unique value" so that they must be placed
in the main exhibition hall? If so, what is the use of the sub themes?
This kind of presentation is sure to confuse.
Referring to the article by the art observer Wicaksono Adi (Media Indonesia,
Sunday, September 7, 2003) that describes the CP Open Biennale 2003 as
having "sophistication that confuses", in this writing I would
say that the view is the opposite. In my observations and through comparison
with regional exhibitions in Asia and the Pacific that have been taking
place since the beginning of the decade of the 1990s, actually, the curatorial
concept for the CP Open Biennale 2003 is truly nothing new at all, and
it is almost exaggeration to call it "sophisticated". If considered
and comprehended more basically and overall, the curatorial agenda of
Interplellation is the thinking that has been repeatedly set forward by
Jim Supangkat over a prolonged period of time, at the very least since
the Jakarta Art Biennale IX, at Taman Ismail Marzuki (1993-94) just as
Post Modernism was becoming a kind of buzzword among the practitioners
of art in Indonesia. At that time, internationalism and modernism, which
are Euro-American centrist (and which now tend to be merged to become
"the contemporary"), continued to be used as the supposition
of domination that must be questioned (interpellated?).
Certainly, the thinking of Jim Supangkat has made many contributions
to the emergence of artworks from Indonesia into international art exhibitions.
From this point of view, the CP Open Biennale 2003 constitutes a "repetition"
(although not necessarily an "emphasizing") of this kind of
thinking with a few new samples thrown in, and with a context that has
shifted slightly.
On the other hand, Wicaksono Adi"s concern about the disarray in
the "interpretational boundaries" of the curators in the reading
of the artworks and the artists at the CP Open Biennale 2003 could actually
be well based and reasonable because of the chosen mechanism " that
being an "open" format. Using this kind of mechanism or selection
format, the curator certainly does not have to do research, and because
of that it is highly likely that the CP Open Biennale could be construed
as being a "semi-competitive" biennale that is epistemologically
flawed because it resembles a kind of roll-calling or elimination activity.
If this mechanism continues to be used without introducing issues and
clear curatorial research criteria, it is possible that the next CP Open
Biennale will continue to be perceived as overly full, din-filled, out
of focus, and excessive.
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