STILL FIGHTING, STILL SURVIVING AND STILL CREATING

I Made Wiradana: Raining #1, 130 x 150 cm
Mixedmedia on canvas, 2012

One only has to listen to the dialogues between the members of Fighting Cocks Group Yogyakarta to see the passion for this theme, “And the Cocks Are Still Fighting,” and the eclectic selection of artists. As a group they are concerned with artists who have gone through a process of growth and found their identities whilst simultaneously being concerned with supporting new, lesser known artists. The members of Fighting Cocks Group Yogyakarta are Dedi Yuniarto as manager, Zam Kamil, Nurul ‘Acil’ Hayat, Moch Basori as the key artist members.

AND THE COCKS are still fighting…!! Interpretations for this theme are broad although many of the artists reflect on the idea of struggle. The metaphor of a cock fight where the roosters inherently want to survive, pulling on a forces from all directions regardless of pain and imminent death, they still express a fighting spirit. For these artists, sometimes the opponent is themselves, sometimes the world of art and its “players”, sometimes just the reality of surviving and other times ideology -- ideology expressed by state, society and “isms”.

On the issues of “isms”, there are parallels between the era of Impressionism in Paris and the Paris of the Indonesian art world Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is an artistically fertile community, thriving in its inspirations and its dialogues between artists that inhabit that community. Unprecedented at that time in Paris, was a visual literacy amongst artists and appreciators of all classes via the media and the reproduction of art. The world was expanding and travel had become easier, as it has now become for artists not only in Jogja but throughout Indonesia. Communication is quicker via the internet and artistic allegiances can be achieved in faraway places more easily. In Paris at that time, journalistic writing on art was also becoming popular and artists realised that they needed to court the media. Monet stated angrily in 1883, “Today nothing can be achieved without the press; even intelligent connoisseurs are sensitive to the least noise made by newspapers.”1

Consider the rise of art dealers deciding who sells and who does not, some of whom simply saw art as a business alongside those who were genuinely concerned about the wealth of artists. Patrons and collectors abounded acquiring paintings symbolising their wealth and providing financial sustenance for the artists, just as collectors do today often seeing art merely as investment. Artists in Indonesia are at a time where now, they are more visually literate than they have ever been before. Likewise, more than before, they are dependent on newspapers and curators to praise their work and of course, very dependent on patrons.

I Made Wiradana: Raining #2, 130 x 150 cm
Mixedmedia on canvas, 2012

Everyone and anyone in Indonesian art knows the names of players, knows what’s hot and what’s not. In Bali, one can see how the art market of copy artists selling to tourists is influenced by what is deemed to be sellable in the “fine” art world of galleries and collectors. Dealers often over inflate prices and perceived value leading to a “booming” of certain artists and in some cases the inability of an artist to sell. Artists who have simply “made it” without due process and exploration of their work or themselves are referred to as “Artist Goreng” which is “Fried Artist” something that appeals like junk food but lacks substance.

The biggest difference between the artists of the Impressionist era and those now in Jogja is that there are few artists who come from aristocratic or bourgeois luxury. Many of these artists’s backgrounds are from peasantry, which in a society that values hierarchy places them in a very weak position to stand up for their rights. Like the artists of the Impressionists’s world, these Indonesian artists now seek to break away from dogma and define their world the way they see it 2.

One only has to listen to the dialogues between the members of Fighting Cocks Group Yogyakarta to see the passion for this theme, “And the Cocks Are Still Fighting,” and the eclectic selection of artists. As a group they are concerned with artists who have gone through a process of growth and found their identities whilst simultaneously being concerned with supporting new, lesser known artists. The members of Fighting Cocks Group Yogyakarta are Dedi Yuniarto as manager, Zam Kamil, Nurul ‘Acil’ Hayat, Moch Basori as the key artistic members.

For Fighting Cocks Group Yogyakarta, this selection of 18 artists was directed primarily by the desire to get back to the art and artists -- artist and the art as expressions of humanity and not just $ymbol$ of $ucce$$ and non-success; not just “important” artists because they have “NAMES”; nor labelled ones with titles such as “Emerging New”. This exhibition of Fighting Cocks negotiates senses of new, by moving away from the notions of important “players” in the world of Indonesian art. “New” here is not defined by what is created but our experience to it. They also value a sense of process and dedication regardless of how long someone has been a name in the world of Indonesian art. This is why you will find names like Dyan Anggraini and Nasirun alongside Ethel Kings and Untung Yuli Prastiawan who are relatively unknown.

This exhibition could be broken down into three broad categories and definitions of struggle or fight. The first is that of the artists’s personal struggle. The second would be the artists’s view of the world and struggles they have against the world and the transformations that occur in telling that story. And the third is the artists giving voice to others who are struggling. Beneath the surface, is also the story of the artists through these paintings and all have taken an understanding of the word “fight” or “struggle” in their works. These struggles take different forms; a struggle to hold true to ones artistic integrity in terms of the market, a struggle with oneself and ones responsibilities, a struggle to produce, a struggle with one’s own multiplicity of selves. There are artists who have the luxury of not caring what others think either due to financial freedom or lack of responsibilities to anyone other than oneself, whilst others have had to deal with demons tempting them to not change their style. Of course, each artist bears a perpetual questioning within. And the cocks are still fighting....

Body Movement (diptych), 140 x 120 cm, Mixedmedia on canvas, 2011

Dancing bodies moving across the canvas, primitive hands reaching up, deformation of characters (both in terms of the subject and characters) in the artworks, all gesticulate the internal changes occurring in each of the artists. In Ida Bagus Purwa’s “Body Movement”, concepts of both physical freedom and spiritual freedom are explored. Through the gesticulation of the body, Ida Bagus Purwa’s figures express his own duality between traditions and cultures, his own screams, his fears, his sadness and his struggle to be free of them all. A pattern of duality and/or a pattern of fluidity of movement are expressed in many of the works in this exhibition.

MAD, 200 x 200 cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2012

For Dedy Sufriadi’s “MAD”, one can see a taking over of “Dedy Sufriadi” -- an artist by his alter ego which is a wilder, freer self. He rejects text with meaning, letters with form and gives rise to new characters that seem to be a search from a mystical alphabet. Each layer of his work seems to be a record of him finding his true self, with his projected self in the world of art and people’s living rooms -- the background of gold, the controlled text eventually rejected, giving form to glimpses of words. Mad, sad and a final unplanned optical illusion of a primitive symbol of Osiris sitting sideways emerge. He is the only artist that rejects the need for artists to have an argument, a need to say something. His work is essentially a protest of what is expected of him.

Unfight, 55 x 75,5 cm, Mixedmedia on paper, 2012

Gerak, 55 x 75,5 cm, Mixedmedia on paper, 2012

As opposed to Sufriadi’s desire to find freedom for himself as an artist, Made Budhiana seems to be one of the few artists who is expressing a freedom that already exists spiritually within him and his work. He takes a more pragmatic approach to the theme of this exhibition; asserting his existence as an artist who has consistently painted abstracts and never been swayed by the ideals of the market place.

He sees the exhibition as focusing on the variety of choices one has in creative experience. For him, this is a joining of both his internal spiritual world and that of the physical world around him. He offers up two watercolours, “Unfight” and “Gerak” (Move). His free lines and vibrant colours are still apparent and yet “Unfight” voices the battle of the more peaceful colours of the spectrum to ascertain calm over the more fiery elements of the oranges and yellows. Like many of the paintings in this exhibition, there is a symbolic hand reaching up expressing a yearning. In “Gerak”, a landscape of greys features a lone figure not dissimilar to Suharmanto’s becak driver in “Tuhan Sedang Melihat” (God is Watching). These figures which seem to be so distant affect a sense of timelessness towards the concept of individual struggle.

In “Tuhan Sedang Melihat” (God is Watching), Suharmanto gives voice to the rakyat jelata (common people) by taking a bird’s eye view of a becak driver. Suharmanto still has elements of his trademark style of painting in dynamic, hyper-realistic colours with a masterful playing of light on reflected surfaces. In contrast to Gusti Alit Cakra’s very full canvass of many struggling and Basori’s large face expressing heroism, Suharmanto’s protagonist is physically small in the scheme of things.

Tuhan Sedang Melihat, 180 x 150 cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2012

The grey of the canvass gives a sense of timelessness and no place. The becak driver is struggling alone and often finds himself limited by the simplest of things symbolised by a zebra crossing in the right of the picture. The emptiness of the canvass gives a poignancy to the daily struggles that Suharmanto wants to highlight and the bird’s eye view could be interpreted as one that is filled with empathy or of one that simply looks down on its subjects. The artist himself expressed a desire for a more understanding view. However, the appreciator who views from an all powerful position, and not directly partaking in the picture, must make this choice alone.

Like Suharmanto, Ethel Kings’s “Fight for The Light” contrasts with Sufriadi’s and Budhiana’s very free work (and influences by such Western artists as Jackson Pollok and Basquiat), Ethel Kings seems to be painting in a very fixed style. Unlike the three artists above, she has no formal art training or knowledge of art history in Indonesia. She is an Estonian who has been living in Indonesia for one and a half years and ironically her work seems to reflect the process of acculturation that she is unwittingly going through -- the process of adopting the other to find oneself. 

Fight for The Light, 150 x 130 cm, Oil on canvas, 2012

In her own words, she feels that there is something uniquely Estonian about the painting and, yet ironically, nuances of Indonesia have made their way through in particular the wash technique of Balinese traditional art. The striating yellow and reds across the canvass so often seen in “traditional” cock fight pictures, the primitive dancing hands that seem so like a kecak 3, the hook nose that may possibly be the beak of a Garuda, seem particularly nuanced with Indonesia. As one looks, one gets the sense that these two old distorted characters are not fighting with each other but with themselves. Even the lines on the figures seem to mimic the wash technique of dark to light in “megamendung” 4 or lontar leaf paintings etched by burnt bamboo and yet Ethel herself has not studied either Cirebon batik or Balinese art. Culture can be absorbed through the skin and change our DNA. Dedy Sufriadi and Ethel Kings reflect change, while the East is giving the Western artist freedom to express herself, the West reciprocates this freedom to the Eastern artists based in Jogja.

Similarly, a stream of consciousness through cultures, multiple selves, time and space dance across the canvas in “Auver Someday, Somebody, Vincent and Me” by Zam Kamil. Zam Kamil is an artist from Makassar domiciled in Jogja. He is overwhelmed by two contrasting mythologies that of Vincent Van Gogh and I La Galigo. Taken together, Van Gog’s tormented like in art and Sulawesi’s epic poem I La Galigo are married in the work of Kamil. The culture of Sulawesi divides human beings into four genders, male, female, female form male soul, male form and female soul.

Auver Someday, Somebody, Vincent and Me, 200 x 300 cm, Oil on canvas, 2012

The possibility of multiple selves striving for existence is apparent in three terpsichorean, primordial figures floating above Auver, spinning and entwining as they rise up, faceless representing everyman, each one in concert with the other, is the same but also different. The dichotomy between two lands and times and the dichotomy between male and female presents itself in the bodies of the dancers -- pointed western feet of a ballerina in flight, primitive hands outstretched like those in the Lascaux Caves warding off ghosts, reaching and offering. Dance like painting gives voice to what cannot be adequately understood in the mystical words of the Sulawesian script that is etched across the sky giving form to the clouds.

The myth of Sisyphus and his perpetual struggle of pushing the rock up the hill only to roll back down again; the absurdity of life which is teeming with a load of problem; and an arc that carries the hopes and dreams of civilisation or simply a boat that carries the dead; Budi 'Bodhonk' Prakoso‘s “Melewati Batas-batas” (Overcoming Limitations) is another that is steeped rich in symbolism of the struggles of common people. His little people float through the grey of their lives, boxed in, struggling to achieve their dreams. The soul of the artist is etched into the body of a character who is not carried away into a sea of dreams but carries the boat. His history and feelings are written up in his very flesh. Civilizations are built on desire for change and the hope of a safe house and yet the reality is that in this process, as with the great pyramids, hundreds even thousands little slaves fall unwittingly to their deaths without ever achieving the first level of their hopes.

Melewati Batas-batas, 150 x 200 cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2012

Acil’s “Single Fighter”, also personalizes struggle and gives voice to the ‘rakyat jelata’ in the sculpture of a rice farmer, half falling, struggling to stand with a distorted body.

Single Fighter (model to aluminium)
70 x 60 x 85 cm, Newsprint, 2011

The sculpture is constructed of newspaper and utilizes found text and images to create the textures in the piece. The images and text are from articles that Acil actually read and drew on as a source of inspiration for his single fighter sculpture. His work symbolised the strength of the people with one half of the body strong, the hoe raised and the toes of the right foot digging deep into the soil for balance. The other half of the body, with its falling shield of the DPR (House of Representatives), the thinner upper arms and lack of stability in the left foot, represents the weakness of the DPR to support the aspirations of the people. There are obvious signs of a fight such as the claw like scratches in the chest. Like the rice farmer, the artist can only rely on himself and not his government. Acil’s second work “I am Single (Fighter) And Very Happy” which uses the famous artist, AT Sitompul as  a model, also reflects on the artist’s ability to survive via a range of means from doing commercial enterprises such as screen printing and commissions, in order to keep producing art.

Daniel Rudi Haryanto’s installation and video art, “Marline and The Blue Channel” gives voice to the struggles of single TKW (migrant worker) whose story is similar to the many who have chosen to work overseas to get out of cycle of poverty and who often face abuse from employers in the countries they work in and are not supported by their own country.

Marline and The Blue Channel, 100 x 120 x 20 cm, Multimedia: wood,
audio visual, 2012

He blends both a cinematic experience and a fine art experience strategically placing elements of a typical Indonesian home along with symbols of the TKW. He plays with language and symbolism -- blue being an overwhelming of sadness and yet blue also represents the channel of sea that they travel over to break their cycles of poverty. The word “channel” could reference television and the dreams it presents little people with. The passport symbolizes the TKW, the KTP references the place of origin, and the small change represents what she earns which is not in accord with her suffering or work. Within the house there are other symbols and one understands that the trouble of working overseas seems to only amount to little things. For the suffering that one experiences, the financial gains amount to not much more than small change that can be placed in the money box.

Fighting Series #3, 100 x 125 cm, Burning technique and oil on canvas, 2012

Untung Yuli Prastiawan who is better known as Wawan Geni, has entwined figures rising above Indonesia and in what could seem to be either a fight or a dance, about to crash in his work, “Fighting Series #3”. His work is distinctly contemporary in content and yet he employs a technique that is based on tradition. Not dissimilar to the technique used in lontar leaves designs which is a burning of the lines of the image into the coconut palm fronds, Wawan Geni employs lit mosquito coils and cigarettes to etch the parts of the image that should be imbued with power. This is an example of tradition reinventing itself albeit in technique only. His current technique was discovered at a time when he did not have enough money to buy paints and like Budhiana in his youth, saw the world was not limited by lack of finances, but only by one’s lack of imagination. To this day, Wawan Geni is dedicated to exploring the potential of this technique regardless of market demands.

Nginang Karo Ngilo, 180 x 150 cm, Mixedmedia
on canvas, 2012

Ivan Yulianto explores the losing of the artist’s self in the hopes of being praised by an art player in “Nginang Karo Ngilo” 5. The artist still exists but sometimes the art player appears more important than the act of creation. Ivan reflects on the desire of artists to be praised by certain people in Indonesia as a justification for what they do and as a step to being financially successful. It is the painful reality of many artists that by simply not convincing a curator or an art player to visit their studio or exhibition, can be a defining moment of their failure or success in the art world. The power of curators and collectors to assess what is good art is often heart-breaking. Time and again, one can see artworks rejected in one period of history, then praised again at another 6. The artist is always struggling with his own integrity and his own needs especially when faced with the hopes of being received by a curator, collector or art dealer. The arm of Ivan can be seen and one gets the sense that this is a self portrait of himself through the eyes of others. Ivan explores the double edged blade of success and in reality revels in the freedom that poverty can bring when one has nothing to lose.

Rocka Radipa plays with two faces, two sides of the same blade and two meanings of a word in “Backsword Eternal”. The decorative, hook like knife, is essentially useless but still potentially dangerous. It is decorated in with “pamor”. Pamor is a decoration etched into traditional Indonesian’s kris 7 which sometimes imbue the kris either through its design or words with mystical powers. The word pamor in Indonesian  also means lustre or prestige. The word war reflects as peace and the question is whether peace is guarded so there can be no more war or whether war is fought against evil in the search of peace?

Backsword Eternal, 250 x 80 cm, Brass etching mixedmedia, 2012

Gusti Alit Cakra’s “Potret Negeri Hiruk Pikuk” 8 landscape of infertility, entwined cars moving but not going making real progress across the canvass of devastation of dry parched lands. Due to the drastic increase of a new middle class, one can see in any large city of Indonesia, the growth of “progress” symbolised by cars with no infrastructure in place, spreading madly, creating traffic jams and encroaching on not only spiritual and traditional values but also physically on ways of life that were traditional. The mask of each individual is their car and their wealth. Their humanity is lost. Each car struggles to reach the light. Each car is in muted whites like ghosts and the gaps in between the cars, seem to forebode potential fissures in the psyche of the people and in the reality of being in a land that can physical seek vengeance via its earthquakes. Each individual struggles, completely unaware of the power their numbers have in creating havoc and ruin or the power they have to work towards a greater good.

Potret Negeri Hiruk Pikuk, 250 x 180 cm, Mixedmedia on canvas, 2012

Nasirun, an artist who needs little or no introduction, has achieved what Van Gogh never achieved in his lifetime a position of importance in both the Indonesian and international art world and financial security. Despite this he has never forgotten his roots and approaches his work by digging deep into his cultural and filial history.

Imaji Dasa Muka, 145 x 89,5 cm
Oil on canvas, 2009

He works through the memory of his mother and the rich traditions of Javanese culture as well as research into wayang, Javanese mysticism via tarot cards and philosophy.  “Imaji Dasa Muka”, an older but previously un-exhibited work, explores the story of Dasa Muka, a character with ten faces. He implicates modern politics into the metaphor with the boot of an army general on the left foot and reflects on the lessons of the past that could be brought to the present. Like many traditions including that of I La Galigo’s third and fourth sexes, the player holds  both most male and female. The duality of the body is the duality of desire and the desires that are often repressed when one is a public figure. Many in politics are wearing ten faces and despite the smiles, the pretty hues or pinks and purples, Nasirun seems to be warning the viewer that all is not what it seems.

Tri Suharyanto’s sculpture, “Ideologi”, presents his desire to talk about Indonesia today. However, Tri has fallen prey to the dogma of patriotism with his desire to speak passionately about the power that Pancasila could be. Ironically, his statue seems to speak inherently of what his soul already knows. Unlike Nasirun’s and Acil’s work, where the body is clearly Asian, Tri’s body is that of body builder, an obsession with perfection that looks good but is not functional -- it is also this obsession with human perfection that contributed the notions of the Aryan super race and later the extreme notions of nationalism that led to the Holocaust.

Ideologi, 186 x 146 x 46 cm, Resin polyester, duco color, mixedmedia, 2012

The body, with arms outstretched like the wings of Garuda at the Monumen Pancasila Sakti, is ready to take flight and attack. The aggression in the hands is static unlike the notions of perpetual movement that seem to be seen in the sculptures of Acil. His work comments on the changing values of Indonesian society in the face of globalism and the insecurities of Indonesian people. The body does not embrace a projected image and strength that is inherent in the Indonesian body but a body of superficial power. Tri’s work challenges the viewer to reject this projected image and reawaken the true values of Pancasila 9.

Moch Basori’s latest work, “Podojoyonyo”, like Nasirun’s work, draws on traditional folklore. The expansion of the hero’s face also has that sense of being outstretched in its power like Tri’s symbol of the Garuda. The slashing brush strokes seem to cut into the face deeming the protagonist fresh from battle. The ambiguous smile of one who sees himself as the hero despite being responsible for the chaos through poor leadership 10. The expanse of the face across the canvas and the bright colours, the spirit of the fighter captured in the eyes of the protagonist, contrasts with Tri’s. Both are legends. One as a mythical hero of Javanese folklore and the other (both the artist and the art player) in the world of Indonesian art moving towards folklore. What is striking is that Tri’s reminiscence of the power of Indonesia in the past and Basori’s reminiscence of a mystical heroic figure reflect nationalism, yet ironically neither of these two artists transfer that heroism to bodies that are typically Indonesian.

Podojoyonyo, 150 x 200 cm, Mixedmedia on canvas, 2012

In contrast to Tri’s bombastic symbol of perfectionism, Basori’s figure of heroism and Ivan’s slightly more blatant commentary, Dyan Anggraini’s “Still Surviving” shows the power of the Asian body -- the proud and beautiful posture, elegant yet strong arms and hands. Anggraini’s character is still but not stiff, a relaxed state that is potent with power. Like Nasirun, she draws on elements of tradition in her use of Topeng.

Still Surviving, 150 x 150 cm, Oil on canvas, 2012

In traditions around the world, masks are mystical and transformational. Sometimes, they are used to disguise the truth but many times empower the wearer to speak the truth without consequence from those in power. The mask in Anggraini’s painting still offers some protection -- one cannot see into the soul of the protagonist’s via his eyes yet his body and his mouth belie his defiance. He refuses to be compromised and refuses to hide his true nature behind the mask of civilised society. He seems to be stating that he will not step down, he will not pull back and he has not been defeated. The cock is still fighting.....

And so it can be said, Dyan Anggraini’s protagonist reflects the souls and the spirit of these artists, principled and defiant regardless of what the players of Indonesian art say. In the text in the Sulawesian language of Zam Kamil’s painting: sellu’ka riale kabo, fusa, nawa-nawa, naiyya ati, mallolongeng (i am lost in a wild jungle, my thoughts are lost and yet my heart find them). The artists find themselves in their defiance. Regardless of the individual hardships they face -- the financial struggles, artistic warfare, treachery and accusations -- the cocks are still fighting.

Bandung, May 2012

Kerensa Johnston

Footnote:
1 Pg. 13 Denvir B., The Chronicle of Impressionism, Theames and Hudson, 2000, London.
2 Denvir, B.,The Chronicle of Impressionism, Theames and Hudson, 2000, London.
3 Kecak is the monkey dance of Bali where a chorus of men often with raised hands chant ‘cak-cak-cak’.
4 Megamendung is a cloud motif found in the batik of West Java.
5 “Looking at mirror, whilst chewing tobacco”.
6 Pg. 190 Suardika I.W. Crossing the Horison, Matamera Books 2010, Denpasar.
7 Kris is a ceremonial, double-edged wavy blade found in Bali and Java. Many kris are passed down through families and are said to have mystical powers.
8 “Portrait of Noisy Land”
9 Pancasila is the state ideology of Indonesia. There are five elements: 1. A belief in one God; 2. A just and civilized society; 3. The unity of Indonesia; 4. Democracy guided by the inner wisdom via process of deliberations amongst electives; 5. Social justice for all Indonesians.
10 The story is a folktale of a King who gave instructions to one of his followers not to let anyone to look after his kris and not give it to anyone else but himself. The King then gave instructions to another follower to go and get the kris. Both fought with passion because their promise to the King and the instructions they gave him. The story also symbolizes the start of the Javanese alphabet. The meaning of the phrase is ‘Both are equally strong, both are equally glorious’.