Recovering the Contemporary
Indonesian artists struggle with the notion of the contemporary. What is the now is hardly reflected in their works, or rather hardly reflected themselves for that matter. What I see prevalent in their works is the voice of others. The author does not speak for themselves, instead, represented by the voices of others, namely critics, curators, fashion, market and trend — muting their own expression. Even their form does not speak their politics, which is unfortunate, further rendering their work meaningless (to themselves and to others), vague, floating around among waves of ambiguity — yet certainly trendy and marketable.
What is the problem?
I argue that discourse, theory, discussion, trend, and fashion that are woven by critics and curators bind them in a fog, hazing their sight of a reflection of themselves from a mirror. I believe in autonomy of art (I chose not to use the term: "art for art" — a term abused and misused as agency for the artist’s sake), the form as content, though not from an elitist or authoritarian standpoint, instead as an emancipatory potential. If the artist believes that self expression is freedom from the form, isn’t their expression constructing a form itself — unintentionally? I say to those artists not to worry about expressing cultural baggage, tradition, norm, and training (that in the postmodern seem to represent the contemporary as the eclectic subject, free from the constructs of hegemony, politics, society, and therefore true to themselves); for what is true self expression (along with those baggages) is from within, reserved in the unconscious. How might the artist release this potential? If intent is the fog, it is a myth far from the truth, demistify it by dreaming. In dreaming one is able to recover, visit the unconscious. How do we bring about the unconscious in the dream when the act of expression is in waking?
Then dream while awaken.
Awakening from sleep is a snap, a flash, pulling oneself from the unconscious to the real. But in the instant process, traces of the unconscious are brought in this act, resulting in the ambigous sense one feels, an alienated feeling of the real. Regard the form as the present. A temporal object that objectifies the subject. The task of the artist is to express. And to express means to bring
about what they see in the mirror. The contemporary — the present –
is the past and present synthesized, the emancipatory potential of the
past (or unconscious) opened recepted in a flash in the present. This is the awakening. Redeem
the categories of the past as categories of the present, therefore it
is not history that is dwelled upon, but rather the past functioning in the present (together) for the future. The baggage will undoubtedly surface on its own, an automaton triggered by the form, and the audience would unconsciously project themselves to the work of the artist.
The meaning of contemporary is a mere trend that the Indonesian artist deem necessary to grasp — or catch up. The biennale is an objective. The show a target. Instead what is art, but an expression of oneself. Incorporate the critic, the curators as what they function: the unpackers of the artist’s works and the promoter of them. The discourse they bring about does enrich, but it should never let it drown the artist.
December 21st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
betul ji, gue setuju. Lagian what is exactly the term:contempary itu? kayaknya cuma sesuatu yang diada-adakan biar rame aja hehe…
December 30th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
I think anyone who’s capable of manipulating reality is already an artist, regardless of what the critics say.
I would argue that the moment the artist ends his object’d'art then that very moment, the artist has managed to being contemporer, a reflection of himself and his surroundings.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:11 am
the problem is the object hasn’t brought themselves. all their content is subject to trend, fashion and what the critics/curator has to say. they are being directed. this to me is not contemporary.