ATMOSPHERE TRENDS IN INDONESIAN GRAPHIC DESIGN, ILLUSTRATION AND PHOTOGRAPHY

UK PAROBROD // 22-29 September 2014
Opening: Monday, September 22, 20.00
Kapetan Misina 6a

In partnership with creative web portal Grafis Masa Kini (Indonesia Contemporary Graphic) from Indonesia (http://grafismasakini.com/), Belgrade based art production company 80|10, made an open call for all interested Indonesian visual artists-graphic designers, photographers and illustrators to present their artworks that should represent “new” and young Indonesian creative scene (both commercial and experimental works). Most of the artworks which will be presented to the Belgrade audience from 22-29 of September at Cultural center Parobrod, were created either for specific projects or especially for the purposes of making of this exhibition.

Selected artists Catherine Susilo (photography and digital imaging), Haris Mustafa (graphic design-Illustration), Ines Aryaniputri (graphic design, typography, brending), ktodia Mardoko (& Haryadhi)- Belantara Studio (animation and design), Onny Renantalice (illustration & design) and Belgrade guest artist Rege Indrastudianto (graphic design, illustration) are presenting narratives that are culturally distinctive and contextualized within Indonesian cultural frame, but at the same time can easily communicate and be understood by the Serbian (European) audience.

The aim of the exhibition is to present this part of the world from a different perspective than usual, when distant, “exotic” countries like Indonesia is from European perspective, are often shown as “banana republics”, as rural areas and / or jungle, often associated with economic and social underdevelopment. In this sense, the topic of the exhibition is very broad and reveals all the things which the individual / artist is dealing with at the moment: cultural, social, religious and / or ideological interpretations, or individual dreams that could be a critical reflection of everyday situations.

Exhibition curator Sara Brkić questions what is the atmosphere like in Indonesia today, and is it any different than in Europe (Serbia). Can design be seen as a force that shapes reality or at least anticipates it and expects new atmosphere. The exhibition examines the dialogue of Indonesian artists through their works with their own culture and how do they adapt their ideas to the culture of heritage while maintaining its creative character and features. This event will try to present reality beyond the frame of this exhibition and question how far we are willing to see.

On the occasion of ATMOSPHERE exhibition, Milena Dragićević Šešić, UNESCO Chair in cultural policy and management at the University of Arts in Belgrade, questions how far away are the art scenes of Serbia and Indonesia in this global world and could remembering the period of common geopolitical hopes – the period of non-alignment and the dream of a multi-polar world of the Cold War re-bind us again?

Dragićević Šešić refers to Dominique Moisi’s book The Geopolitics of Emotion (CLIO, 2012), who marks the entire Asian continent as the continent of hope, a continent in which not just only two economic superpowers in BRICs archipelago (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), but other states also, are stretched with desire for progress and internal issues of realization of specific multicultural identities, and are trying through all forms of creativity, especially with those that are now marked as “creative industries”, to achieve a breakthrough in the world – on the world cultural and economic market. Among them, Indonesia certainly takes quite specific and powerful place.

Exhibitions like these are opening spaces for new, wider reflected thoughts, for discovering the world as it truly is, beyond the dominant image about its homogeneity the global media is providing in the images of popular culture. Through these exhibitions we see it as it truly is, with number of issues that come from the edges, which are directed towards the center – In from the margins! (on which the seminal book of the Council of Europe from 1996 is referring us).

Dragićević Šešić points out this exhibition will not only open up new horizons, but will also provide new perspectives of cooperation between Indonesian and Serbian artists, and through them the collaboration of artists from South East Europe with artists from South East Asia, and will also jointly achieve new, non-hegemonic cooperation networks.

Izložbu podržala | Supported by:

Ambasada Republike Indonezije u Beogradu i Nj. E. Samuel Samson, Ambasador Indonezije Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Belgrade and H.E. Samuel Samson, Ambassador of Indonesia

Many thanks to: Artists- Catherine, Ines, Rege, Haris, Onny and Oktodia; Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Serbia, UK Parobrod, Serbian and Indonesian Society of Friendship- Nusantara and everyone who contributed to this event in any way!
Sara Brkić

On the occasion of ATMOSPHERE exhibition in Belgrade
August 2014

How far away are the art scenes of Serbia and Indonesia in this global world?
Could remembering the period of common geopolitical hopes – the period of non-alignment and the dream of a multi-polar world of the Cold War re-bind us again?

Dominique Moisi in his book The Geopolitics of Emotion (CLIO, 2012), marks the entire Asian continent as the continent of hope, a continent in which not just only two economic superpowers in BRICs archipelago (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), but other states also, are stretched with desire for progress and internal issues of realization of specific multicultural identities, and are trying through all forms of creativity, especially with those that are now marked as “creative industries”, to achieve a breakthrough in the world – on the world cultural and economic market. Among them, Indonesia certainly takes quite specific and powerful place.

The first time I encountered with Indonesian artists was at the exhibitions of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Almaty (Kazakhstan). Displaying both their own and the works of Indonesian artists from Yogyakarta, they were convinced that they contribute a powerful, and energetically important contribution to the world of art. Brutal performances, installations, art actions in public space, I remember to this day, although almost fifteen years has passed since then.

Here, even today, on August 2014, while I’m walking around Singapore museums, works of Indonesian artists are the ones that stand out with its charge, focus, and strength of the works of artists who come from other countries of Southeast Asia. (..)

Of course, Indonesian contemporary visual art is very diverse – and artists and artistic styles and trends are difficult to unambiguously define. Artists are working in various materials, from classical painting, animation, sculpture, via embroidery to video and music videos (Tromarama), often in collaborative projects with local communities, seeking to draw attention to burning social problems and thus help the flow of social changes (Eko Nugroho). At the same time, they often use iconography of popular culture, even if the medium of expressing is the usage of embroidery, the most traditional form of visual art.

Surrealistic forms, together with hyperrealistic ones, and then with those belonging to the styles of popular culture, all the way to the computer animation, playing just with this recognition of characters from comics and popular culture, Indonesian artists achieve a socially and politically engaged universe in which there is nothing banal and stereotypical. Robots, monsters, activists, themselves as human beings of flesh and blood who suffer, who are happy, who are trying, succeeding or failing, are creating one unusual ATMOSPHERE, unusual and yet recognizable to all of us.

For almost each artist from Indonesia I could find the adequate work with our “counterparts”, regardless of whether it comes to graphic design, art, photography or performance. Therefore, re-construction of a remote yet common space of cultural creativity, or we can even say the first real establishment of strong, direct mutual relationships, can greatly strengthen both art scenes that face difficult issues of socio-political and economic development, pressed with external requirements of global society (understood as an inevitability). Therefore, the real voices of resistance and diversity, and the simultaneous deflection from generality and globalizations lack of imagination, but also from the deviation from localism and nativism (nationalism) carried by people of narrow horizons, lies in art (..)

I hope this exhibition will not only open up new horizons, but will also provide new perspectives of cooperation between Indonesian and Serbian artists, and through them the collaboration of artists from South East Europe with artists from South East Asia, and will also jointly achieve new, non-hegemonic cooperation networks.

Milena Dragićević Šešić, prof.
UNESCO Chair in cultural policy and management
University of Arts, Belgrade

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