Surrealist Painting in Yogyakarta Martinus Dwi Marianto University of Wollongong
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University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 1995 Surrealist painting in Yogyakarta Martinus Dwi Marianto University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Marianto, Martinus Dwi, Surrealist painting in Yogyakarta, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, 1995. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/1757 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] SURREALIST PAINTING IN YOGYAKARTA A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY from UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by MARTINUS DWI MARIANTO B.F.A (STSRI 'ASRT, Yogyakarta) M.F.A. (Rhode Island School of Design, USA) FACULTY OF CREATIVE ARTS 1995 CERTIFICATION I certify that this work has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference has been made in the text. Martinus Dwi Marianto July 1995 ABSTRACT Surrealist painting flourished in Yogyakarta around the middle of the 1980s to early 1990s. It became popular amongst art students in Yogyakarta, and formed a significant style of painting which generally is characterised by the use of casual juxtapositions of disparate ideas and subjects resulting in absurd, startling, and sometimes disturbing images. In this thesis, Yogyakartan Surrealism is seen as the expression in painting of various social, cultural, and economic developments taking place rapidly and simultaneously in Yogyakarta's urban landscape. Significantly, the structure of Yogyakartan Surrealist painting has been aligned with forms of Yogyakatan language patterns, in particular the punning which was fashionable in the same period. Yogyakartan Surrealism has affinities with Andre Breton's Surrealism. Many Yogyakartan artists were influenced visually by seeing colour reproductions of paintings by the major European Surrealists, which were printed in a number of art books coming from America and Europe. However, it is more appropriate to consider that seeing reproductions of Surrealist works triggered out surrealistic tendencies which had already been an important part of Yogyakartan life. Surrealism has been a state of mind in Yogyakarta's recent situation, as its cityscape increasingly looks like a collage with disparate, even conflicting ideas and subjects that mingle in an apparently casual ways. Beyond this, Yogyakartan Surrealism is also a variation of a realism which has continuously re-emerged through different forms in modern Indonesian art and which has been associated with independence and nationalism. In particular, realism has emerged in specific moments in Indonesian history: the impetus of nationalism, as seen in the painting The Capture of Prince Diponegoro by Raden Saleh; nationalism of the 1930s and 1940s as articulated largely by S. Sudjojono; national identity of the 1950s and 1960s, which was a period of a fierce art debate; the intention to contextualise art socially, culturally, politically, and economically; and recently, 'post- nationalism' which realistically reflected Yogyakartan 'surreal' life. With respect to the recent situation, Yogyakartan Surrealism can also be seen as a mechanism to deal with circumstances under which people were conditioned not to express the 'real' direcdy or assertively in much of the daily life. With its absurd images and logic Yogyakartan Surrealism can be also seen as a forgetting mechanism, or an imaginary space in which people could escape conditions which were becoming repressive in many respects. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 1 2. Colonial Art and The Roots of Realism in 56 Yogyakartan Painting (c. 1800-1950) 3. Indonesian Art (1950-1966) 86 4. New Art Movement (1966-1978) 112 5. Policy of Depoliticisation and Apolitical Art 140 6. Absurdism and Surreal Experience 170 7. Surrealism and Yogyakartan Surrealism 203 8. Yogyakartan Surrealist Artists 232 9. Conclusion 310 List of Plates 324 Bibliography 327 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Equity Merit Scholarship Scheme of Australian International Development Assistance Bureau for awarding me a scholarship which enabled me to have a taste of Australian life and nature, study at Monash University and University of Wollongong. This gave me a valuable chance to see myself and the life in my home country, Indonesia, much better and more comprehensively. I would like to thank Dr Adrian Vickers who helped me when I had to transfer from Monash University ( as I had not found myself and was not acquainted with Australian life) to another university. Dr. Vickers helped me out of this problem. Also thanks for Dr. Vickers's tough but sharp and creative supervisions which actually led my brain to open new cells which empowered my eyes to have different perspectives and eagerness to see more. I would like to thank Dr Sue Rowley who had brilliantly brought me to know the important relationship between Surrealism and language playing, and also for her intellectual acumen which always shook my fixed understanding about the nature of language and especially my mother tongue language. Since that time I have had open appreciations for different cosmologies of Javanese, Bahasa Indonesia, and English. On top of that really now I can see language as space, or as something real which can be entered and touched. I would like to thank T. Rina Tawangsasi my wife who was always there when I felt lonely, even sometimes almost lost in a remote imaginary space with my thought on surrealism. Also thanks for Miko and Citra, my children, who have given me inspiration and motivation. I would like to thank Steve Fitzpatrick for editorial assistance; without it the thesis would have remained in a 'surreal' English. I would like to thank Robert Goodfellow my class fellow under Dr. Vickers' supervision, for his hospitality, attention, and social excitement as well as controversial ideas, especially those which intellectually challenged me all the time. Rob Goodfellow was the first Wollongong person who came to our empty apartment bringing some chairs to sit on when we just came from Belgrave, Victoria, to Wollongong, the city I now miss. I would like to thank friends Daniela and Neil Cleary, and Rhona and Neil Wakefield who had helped make Wollongong feel really like home. I would like to thank people at the Indonesia Institute of the Arts of Yogyakarta (Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta) for all their attention, assistance, and understanding during my study, research, and finishing this thesis. I would like to thank Yogyakartan artists, especially the Surrealists, who assisted me so much with their works, information and hospitality during my research, and without whom I could not have written this thesis. Also I thank my Father, Petms Martono, and my mother Justina Sri Mulati for their loving care, assistance and support they have given to me. May God Bless you. M.Dwi Marianto 1995 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This dissertation discusses Yogyakartan surrealism, a tendency in painting and other visual works of art which emerged and became fashionable in the 1980s, and remains so today. This tendency has affinities with the work of several major Surrealist artists, which became known in Yogyakarta through reproductions and written information in art history books and art monographs. However, the information and visual sources on Surrealism have been appropriated by the Yogyakarta artists and are characterised by local colour and conditions. My main concern in discussing Yogyakartan surrealism is to discuss the factors which have been significant in gaining acceptance for Surrealism, and in helping it develop into another form of surrealism. One source of surrealist tendencies is traditional Yogyakartan cultural life. In the wayang (shadow puppet) tradition, for example, there are absurdities in the stories and the wayang shapes themselves. Linguistic absurdities are also common in wayang, such as the ways of explaining mysticism, in jokes and word plays. The historical background to Yogyakarta's socio-political setting has been conducive to the emergence of Yogyakartan surrealism. From before Indonesian Independence until late 1965 in Yogyakarta there were various approaches to art — both technically and ideologically speaking — such as realism, social realism, socialist realism, impressionism, expressionism and abstractionism. However, this changed with the political upheaval of late 1965. At this time there was a flowering of abstract art, which was claimed as the representative of the winning regime. Since abstract art appeared to be apolitical it was held up in contrast to the politically-motivated social realism and socialist realism characteristic of the groups which had lost political power. The ascendancy of abstract art, however, was challenged in the mid-1970s by groups of younger artists from Yogyakarta, Bandung and Jakarta. These groups challenged the significance of art stripped of its social and political contexts. This challenge was opposed through government campaigns to make intellectuals and students leave socio-political matters to the authorised experts and appointed figures. News media and official forums were used to convince the common 2 people not to take part in political activity. The 'Normalisation of Academic