Catriona Richards

Jakarta Globe, January 20, 2012

Toxic smoke billowed from an earthy pit as activists chanted slogans condemning social inequality. An old man delivered an emotional monologue before a maze of white mice, while a nearby bamboo structure teetered and swayed in the breeze. So went the opening of the Jakarta Biennale XIV, Indonesia’s premier arts event, which came to an end last Sunday.

Apparently freed from the constraints of health regulations, building permits and concerns over animal rights (the mice were reported to be abandoned in the outdoor maze for several days), the Biennale was a riotous celebration of creativity, providing a platform for untrammeled expression by the country’s best contemporary artists.

No less than 150 artists took part in the Biennale, including around 35 international artists. Events took place over six months, including music and theater performances as well as outdoor exhibits, culminating in the monthlong grand show at the National Gallery in Central Jakarta.

This year’s Biennale was the biggest yet to be handled by the coordinating Jakarta Arts Council (DKJ), and it showed in both its successes and shortcomings. Like its theme “Maximum City: Survive or Escape?” the organizers of the Biennale took their mission to extremes, for better or worse.

Grand designs

With a minimal budget and limited human resources at hand, the Biennale was an ambitious undertaking by any standard.

The six-month event started with a blues concert at the Central Jakarta cultural center Taman Ismail Marzuki in July, followed by a jam-packed schedule of book launches, exhibitions, film screenings, arts workshops and music festivals leading up to the opening of the main exhibition at the National Gallery in December. The budget for this arts extravaganza from the city government? Only Rp 3 billion ($330,000).

“We received additional support from private donors, but it was mainly in the form of supplies, not money,” said Dimas Fuady, head of communications for the DKJ. “We were given things like paint for the exhibition rooms and advertising space in the media.”

Faced with the costs of transporting and securing artworks, bringing in artists from overseas and finding the administrative personnel to coordinate the event, organizers soon found the budget stretched to the limits.

Translators, artists and administrators reported being promised a certain amount of pay from the DKJ, only to have the amount cut or canceled completely due to a lack of funds.

The stretched staff and budget was reflected in the presentation of the exhibition, where works were damaged in the absence of gallery guards, and artist’s names and works were misrepresented in the poorly edited signage.

Still, despite the financial and administrative constraints, the main show did go ahead on schedule in mid-December, with a crowd of hundreds pushing through the gallery’s main exhibition space on opening night.

Out and about 

One of the most successful aspects of the recent Biennale was its foray into the public realm. With exhibits set up at public parks, underpasses, train stations and malls, the Biennale was able to reach a record number of viewers in a city where even taxi drivers don’t know the location of the National Gallery.

Arts group Close Act Theater from the Netherlands attracted curious crowds and international media coverage with its dinosaur puppet performances at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, Dutch cultural center Erasmus Huis and other locations across the city.

Collective arts project Wedha’s Pop Art Portrait at Taman Ayodya in South Jakarta got the attention of local media with its large-scale portraits of public figures and everyday visitors to the park painted on giant cubes.

“We had a positive response from the public and media, especially for the outdoor exhibits,” Dimas said. “We counted no less than 400 media reports since the kick-off of the Biennale in July 2011.”

But not all of the planned outdoor exhibitions made it to the public eye.

“Many of our arts activities were canceled because of problems with permits,” curator Bambang Asrini Widjanarko said. “This was both on the side of the city government and due to weaknesses in the organizing committee of the Jakarta Biennale itself.”

Bambang suggested establishing an independent Biennale foundation so that the event would not have to rely so much on the city government in the future.

Going international 

The Biennale attracted a record number of international artists this time around, providing an opportunity for local artists to see what is happening globally in contemporary art, and to gain exposure for their own work.

Australian artist Julie Rrap was impressed by the variety of artists on show.

“I found a lot of the work in Jakarta to be really interesting and, in a sense, to reflect the work of artists who rarely get the opportunity to appear in other Biennales around the world,” she said.

Rrap added that despite a few mishaps in organization and exchanges muddled by translation issues, from her perspective, the Biennale was a success.

“I think the curators were understandably a bit overwhelmed by the scale of their Biennale — or that was my impression,” she said. “They should be congratulated for attempting something ambitious with quite a wide selection of international artists.”

New York-based Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal was impressed by what he saw in Jakarta, but wished more time had been allocated in the event’s schedule for local and international artists to meet face-to-face.

“[The local artists] had so many good pieces there, but we didn’t even get a chance to talk to them,” he said, suggesting that even something as simple as hosting an after-party on opening night would have allowed for more interaction.

Bilal also urged a greater focus on art from the nation’s leaders.

“Art is the face of any nation,” he said. “I hope the government of Indonesia will understand that and support the Biennale and the local artists.”