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14 Nov 2000, www.karbonjournal.org Arts in Public Space by FX Harsono Does the public art really exist? Conceptually it is a concept of art creation that requires art existence to be represented in public space, but physically still needs to be proved. There are different meanings between the arts and public, the art is a medium of expression of the artist whom are now called the fine artist and public is group of people. When these two meanings are combined, we will get an understanding on art activity that represented in art medium. The art medium takes a space where society can directly connected to the artwork. A public space is very different from the canvas as the conventional medium, which will lead to unique consequences related to medium, material and size, but the concept as well that becomes the basic for creating art, using the existing space where the art could directly communicate to the whole society. Since the ‘Persagi’ era, exposing art works in public space had been started by posting wall posters of independent war, placing ballyhoos (big size posters) of certain political parties as what happened in 1965 and during the new order era. The size and appearance of those posters and ballyhoos expressed a strong, direct and widely public way of how the ruling government conveyed its political and development messages to the people. This ultimate goal made those public media as the only option available, which, at the end, can’t be considered as a new course in the art world. The presence of two artist groups whom now intensely working on exploring public space art as one of their creative process, is interesting to observe. Were their works actually created in different ‘atmosphere’ as the previous activity? Apotik Komik is one among others example of groups which work on comic visual language as their media of expression. Their creation was based on a strong experimental spirit. The intention to explore visual comic language was coming out of a total mindful determination to break out a serious disposition of art creation in 1995, when the performance of installation art became so widely grown and fashionable in contemporary art world. Although they realized the consequences of being taken out of the list of contemporary art works, some ideas were grown up, such as placing comic as a street graffiti by enlarging up the comic size from its original frame. The initial ideas that were full with jovial spirit begun to take attention of the art observers, galleries and curators who considered it as a new subject of course in contemporary art, where the visual language was placed on public and colored Indonesian contemporary art world. This initial activity of exploring public as an alternative medium of expression brought an understanding on the existing of audience’s presence, which actually was the part of the art itself. The work had created space for the audience who were not only gathered to enjoy togetherness as well, as what Samuel indicated from his experiences in Nitiprayan area, Yogyakarta. All the activities around Perwakilan and Malioboro streets were also triggering up people’s activities around the areas, and therefore an art creation had been born and had given an understanding and realization on the work’s existence for the people. Public art work has created a space where people could start to learn and understand art, and make the art as a starting point to express togetherness, to communicate to each other, to enhance solidarity. Where there is hatred and conflict, art world could give shadow of peace and humanitarian spirit, through its pleasant expression. I noticed this spirit during an interview with Apotik Komik on 23rd of May. Their contribution in creating a public space where social awareness among people could be born was considered as a precious intake, regardless of their possible hesitation to get in touch with the more conservative approach of art works. On the other side, Lembaga Budaya Kerakyatan (LBK) or people Culture Institution ‘Taring Padi’ (TP), has very clear objective of intensively creating art works to be placed in public spaces. Public spaces is being explored to be the media of communications and awareness, through their art works which are loaded with social messages. Their art works devided into two streams; praxis stream, where the creation process is also involving the community, and the individual stream, which emphasizes on individual spirit. In the praxis approach, artist and the community collaborate themselves to express the art with the purpose of developing a common understanding in facing society’s problems. The artist and community are standing in the same level, as part of the subject and process of creation where common participative and emancipative responds are taken into account. This also applies for individual and communal art works placed on public. During this awareness transformation, an artist could get new experiences and more understanding on social reality. This interaction brings a new consciousness for both sides, the ‘TP’ activities and its society, which play an important role, since no awareness could come without any dialogue or interaction between those two entities. The consciousness would reflect in their works which demonstrate some determination in ideological sphere, and distinguish ‘Taring Padi’ from others ‘TP’ art works do not only show problems occuring in society, but move further to express the solutions, and therefore they named their works as ‘Seni Rupa Kerakyatan’ (populist arts), a product or art work with the spirit of egalitarian, democratic, humanist, anti discrimination, anti gender bias, ecological, liberalization in thinking and act and being open for local knowledge. ‘People’ - which is the suppressed grass roots and always at the lowest level of society - needs to be awakened and loaded with information, while the existing gallery cannot fulfill this function and is usually out of their reach.
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Social messages being sent to society are based on the need to build society’s critical awareness to face the existing problems. Public space medium is considered as an effective and praxis way to address their messages for the whole society. Their visualization clearly and directly show the oppressed people and other power which often being identified as capitalist, military or authoritarian ruling government, supported by some text of slogan or petition. It is very much different from Apotik Komik, which shows wild and jovial visual elements, through human body figure or images from daily objects. Although the story and scenario are not in sequence, but the text and visual elements are easily recognized, so that public will never lose their understanding on the content. To make their works communicative, TP do not do many experiments to find new forms, and therefore make their works look stereotype. Fist is always associated as the symbol of struggle, the oppressed people always look thin and helpless while the oppressor looks cruel and hefty. The group seems to consider that the political goals are more important than the form, and therefore they do not place the visual art as a tool, but as dialogue means to move up awareness. In my opinion, TP’s works that are already socialized and considered as giving solutions for the problems need to be proved and to be followed up further, in order to be able to have an optimum and focus public action. Without any further step, it will end up as a commercial campaign, which then makes no different with the giant ballyhoo made by the political parties in the New Order period, using the public space only to express campaign messages for public. Apparently, these two groups have explored public space as their medium, but still on the forms level and not yet touch the more fundamental problem on public art discourse. There many things need to be questioned such as how deep the awareness in working process in relation with domination of art institutions, curators, co-modification and development of art, which are getting more elitist. If they consider the art course problems as the topic to be avoided, then it could be reflected in their statement on creation of arts. Perhaps, the seriousness in playing (could it be serious in playing?), the seriousness in explaining political statement makes artwork only as a medium of expression, rather than spirit of exploration. An art creation without exploration and further development would be a dead-end and stuck to nowhere in finding forms and idioms which actually could accommodate cultural, humanity and society’s problems. In that case, art would never touch the humanity, the remaining would only be messages containing stereotype and dry idioms, or, in the contrary, the jovial spirit that has no end beginning. My interview with Apotik Komik represented by: Samuel Indratma, Bambang Toko, Popok Tri & Ari Diyanto, 23 May 2000, in Jl. Langernajan Lor, Yogyakarta My interview with CPI ‘Taring Padi’, represented by: Yustoni Voluntero, Suwondo & Coki, at CPI ‘Taring Padi’ Secretariat, Jl. Gampingan, 21 May 2000, Yogyakarta. Notes for this essay: PERSAGI (Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia), an organization formed by a group of painters, which marked the first movement in Indonesian modern art, from 1936-1942. The members were Agus Djaja, S. Soedjojono, Otto Djaja and Emiria Sunasa. LEKRA, Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat or ‘People’s Culture Organisation’, a cell-organization under cultural affairs department of PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) which focused on art praxis as way to reach their political ideology. NEW ORDER Political term for governmental regime ruled by Soeharto from 1967 until May 1998, known in Indonesian as Pemerintahan Orde Baru. FX Harsono is an artist, critic on the social matters in art, and a lecturer at the Pelita Harapan University, Jakarta. He is one of the founders of the Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement) at the end of the 1970s in Indonesia. He lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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