DADANG CHRISTANTO: Testimonies of Trees
OCTOBER 15 - NOVEMBER 13, 2005
CP ARTSPACE, JAKARTA

Dadang and the Indonesian Contemporary Art
By Jim Supangkat

Amid the development of the Indonesian arts, Dadang Christanto is noted as one of the first Indonesian artists to enter the international art world in the early 1990s. The opening-up of the relationship between the Indonesian art world and the international art was an important sign marking the emergence of the contemporary art in Indonesia, which had previously shown its signs albeit only vaguely.

In the early 1990s, there was a current of thought arising in Japan and Australia that wished to explicate and clarify the image of Asian arts. At the time, the developments of the arts in Japan and Australia have paralleled the developments of the European and North American arts. These included also the development of the contemporary art.

Numerous changes happening amid the developments of the international art world, whose signs had arisen in Europe and North America, made Japan and Australia feel as if residing in an in-between space. Japan and Australia exist in Asia geographically, but they feel that they cannot represent Asia. Meanwhile, there was a strong political willingness from their side to be a part of the developments of the art in Asia.

In the effort to observe the developments of the art in Asia, the position of the Southeast Asia became highly important. Therefore, in late 1980, Japan and Australia started to hold regional exhibitions involving artists from Southeast Asia. They also invited Southeast Asia artists to work in Japan and Australia.

Dadang was one of the first Indonesian artists to receive such invitation. In 1991, he was the artist-inresidence at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. At the end of the program, he exhibited the works that he had made there.

Albeit having no full understanding of the contemporary art discourse at that time, Dadang nonetheless succeeded to amaze the Australian public, as his works could be perceived as contemporary art works. Such symptom was not coincidental, as Dadang had been closely using new media since late 1980s. This tendency, at that time in Indonesia, was viewed as an experimental tendency.

In 1987, Dadang was involved in holding the "Pasaraya Dunia Fantasi" exhibition (which literally means "’ÄúFantasy World Supermarket"), displaying a sole collaborative work that turned the exhibition space into a supermarket space. The exhibition took the theme of urban and metropolitan lives, and was held at the Ismail Marzuki Art Center, Jakarta. The exhibition could be categorized as a contemporary art exhibition and was supported by artists, graphic designers, interior designers, graphic artists, cartoonists, cineastes, art critics, and fashion designers.

Upon his return from Australia, Dadang was chosen in 1992 to take part in the New Art from Southeast Asia exhibition, together with Heri Dono and Teguh. This was the first time that Indonesian artists were invited to join a regional exhibition. The exhibition traveled to several major cities in Japan; first at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, then at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, then at the Kirin Plaza, Osaka, and finally at the City Museum Project in Fukuoka.

In 1993, Dadang, Heri Dono, and a number of other Indonesian artists joined an important event that put Southeast Asian artists to the fore. This was the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia. In this triennial event, Southeast Asian artists came together in Brisbane and communicate with other Asian artists, and with the art critics, art historians, and art curators coming from all over the world. During this event, the discourse of the contemporary art started to develop amid Indonesian artists.

Dadang also took part in three other important exhibitions marking the emergence of Southeast Asian artists. These were the Havana Biennale 1994 in Cuba, the 4^th Asian Art Show - which was subsequently known as the Fukuoka Triennale - at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in 1995, and "Tradition/Tension: Contemporary Art in Asia," held in Asia Society Galleries, New York, in 1996. This last exhibition was the first Asian exhibition to garner recognition from the art world in the United States.

Like most other contemporary Indonesian art works displayed in such important exhibitions, Dadang's works also betrayed strong tendency to provide social commentaries. Such inclination can be perceived as the sign of the development in the Indonesian contemporary art during the 1990s, and took root from the practices of repressive politics in Indonesia that were becoming increasingly obvious. Such practices ran parallel to the consolidation of power and the spreading corruptions among business people, which resulted in the proliferation of myriad social injustices.

In 1999, Dadang was invited to lecture at the School of Art and Design, Northern Territory University, in Darwin, Australia. So far, he still works at the art education institution, while continuing his career as an artist. In Australia, his works betray some new developments. As can be seen in this exhibition, his works become more contemplative. The aspect of social commentaries of his works, which had previously been ferocious, grows into a poetic meditation about the injustice and violence encountered in human lives.

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Further reading:
Testimony of The Trees, Dadang Christanto's Eulogy and Path of Healing, by Farah Wardani