PROVOCATIVE BODIES
Mochtar Apin & Teguh S. Priyono
September 22 - October 14, 2004
CP ARTSPACE, JAKARTA
Provocative Bodies
This exhibition is an extraordinary one. The exhibition showcases works of a living artist, and another artist who has already become a part of the history of Indonesian art. The two artists are the late Mochtar Apin (1923 - 1994), a pioneer of modern art in Indonesia, and Teguh S. Priyono, a sculptor who was born in 1964.
It is the similarity between the works of these two artists - the art of the nudes - that brought them to this joint exhibition. In terms of the outward appearances, such similarity, coming from two artists from different generations, brought up questions.
In terms of the outward appearances of the works, the public may have the impression that the paintings of Mochtar Apin and the sculptures of Teguh S. Priyono presented in this exhibition are conventional arts, which have been regarded as obsolete or out-of-date in the development of the contemporary art.
Mochtar Apin's paintings mostly resemble drawings rather than paintings, and give the impression of being exercises in model drawings - exercises that are usually given to art students in their freshman year. When some of these works were exhibited in 1993/1994, the audience wondered why Mochtar Apin, a painter well known as an expert in the teaching of model drawings, suddenly went back to matters of arts that he had mastered so well.
Teguh S. Priyono's sculptures, too, give similar impression. His nude sculptures also resemble sculptural studies in a first-year education of sculptural arts. The works show detailed exploration of realistic forms, which resemble studies in anatomy. Furthermore, his sculptures are bronze sculptures, one of the most ancient tendencies in sculptural art.
Questions that might arise are: Can there still be matters to be discussed in the works of the two artists, which give the impression of denying the actualities in the art development? Do the similarities in the uses of the old media and idioms betray the two artists' return to the beginning of the development of modern art; and thus show that the exhibition is re-analyzing the history of art?
The answer of these questions are, behind the similarities in the works of the two artist - which give the impression of breaking through the boundaries of generational tendencies - there is a contemporary matter that has been overlooked in the development of the contemporary art in Indonesia. This is a matter with a long history; a matter that has been long suppressed by history and existing below the surface as a subversive force. The historical exploration of that matter makes the usage of old media and idioms in the works of the two artists form deconstructions-involved analyses instead of celebrations.
The exhibition is related to the study on the works of Mochtar Apin that I did a year ago, which will be published the coming November as a book titled "Provocative Bodies." The title of the exhibition is also taken from the book. The focus of my study is Mochtar Apin's works that he did between 1990 and 1993. When he was still alive, these works had provoked many questions. Such questions remained unanswered and unresolved for years, due to Mochtar Apin's death while his controversial works were still being exhibited at the Cemara 6 Café Gallery in Jakarta.
According to my reading, Mochtar Apin works that he created between 1990 and 1993 are important as they showed radical changes in Apin's beliefs. In these paintings, Mochtar Apin, who had been known as a modernist, and who was even a pioneer in Indonesian modern art, left almost all his beliefs as modernists, and explored the thinking that was more inclined to the contemporary art thoughts.
Apin's thoughts and explorations in the works that he created in 1990 - 1993 did not seem to have the goal of seeking a new breakthrough; instead, Apin did the exact opposite: returning to the old idioms. The thoughts and explorations betrayed in these works were more inclined to the assessment the communication level of the various art idioms. However, Mochtar Apin was not conducting aesthetic analyses. Such assessment was merely a means for Mochtar Apin and based on his efforts to understand a reality that he felt as phenomenal.
Mochtar Apin was not a philosopher. Therefore, he discovered the reality in life that triggered his thoughts as a visual symptom; and he found this symptom due to his sensitivity as an artist. The reality that had bothered him was the matter of the women behind the portrayals of naked women. In the art discourse, the matter is known as the matter of the nude paintings. In everyday life, it is known as the matter of pornography.
Mochtar Apin tried to draw a line between the matters with these different contexts. He explored a way that was surprising and never thought-of before. Apin did not explore the social dimension of the two matters. Instead, he conducted a more personal exploration. Mochtar Apin tried to link the portrayal of the female nudes with the women whose nakedness was exposed. He attempted to build a perception that saw the female nude models as subjects instead of objects.
Through such perception, Mochtar Apin observed the poses, gestures, movements, and attitudes of the nude models-not with the aesthetic and art consideration. Instead, he saw the poses, gestures, movements, and attitudes of the female nude models as the body language of the models. This way, Mochtar Apin seemed to build dialogues with the models [read: the women] and to ask them about what they thought of their exposed nakedness. In Mochtar Apin's paintings, the answers of the models [read: the women] appeared through their body languages.
Mochtar Apin's efforts to develop a new perception and dialogues that had almost always been overlooked were not easy. He could not avoid the perception about portrayals of naked women and the discourses in the nude paintings that had been influencing him for 50 years. He tried to fight these perceptions by tracing back the history of nude paintings, discovered that the perceptions behind this history had only been a myth. The values that had been discussed throughout the century, and believed to contain absolute truth, turned out to be attached with the male perception about sexuality that put female nudity as sex object.
This discovery triggered Mochtar Apin to doubt all the artistic concepts that had been his guide for 50 years. That was why, when he explored the matter of the nude portrayal during 1990 - 1993, he deconstructed most of the artistic concepts he had once believed in.
The complex art problems in his exploration were the integral part of Mochtar Apin's search for the poses, gestures, movements, and attitude that betrayed the female body language. It is therefore impossible to understand his efforts to recognize the female body language without delving into his complex artistic explorations. Such complicated art explorations formed the foundation for Apin to reveal the long-ignored female nudity problems.
These long-ignored problems were the problems of the female nude portrayals that had been dominated by the male perceptions about sexuality. This predicament cannot be separated from gender problems and is a sign that confirms the culture of humans as one showing the domination of men.
In the book titled Les Femmes, La Pornographie, L'Erotisme, both of its authors, Marie-Françoise Hans and Gilles Lapounge, interviewed women and posed the question: "What do women think about pornography?" The basic answer they received is that "Pornography is not pleasing at all; nor is it meant for women."1
The answer betrays the tendency of women to get out of all problems of pornography and of portrayal of naked women, something that cannot be removed from discourses on sexuality that are dominated by male perception. The women try to get out not simply because they feel that pornography and portrayal of naked women have no use for them. The more fundamental reason for this attitude is that they reject their given position as sex object; not only in pornography, but also in drawings of naked female, including the naked women in the tradition of nude paintings.
In "Ways of Seeing Women" in his book Ways of Seeing, aesthetician John Berger stated the often-quoted sentence:" Women see to be seen, men see to see." Such comment, according to John Berger, showed the absolute male position in determining the appearances of women. The male is the outside and inside surveyor of the female. When women are arranging their appearances, the perceptions they consider are the male perceptions. Such reality shows that both men and women situate the female beings as an object when it comes to their appearances.2
Still in "Ways of Seeing Women," John Berger reads such tendency in the traditions of the nude paintings in the West. John Berger examined the background of the famous female nude paintings since 17th century, including the models' backgrounds and he came to the conclusion that female nude paintings currently on display in the grand museums and whose aesthetic value have been celebrated, actually carry a simple problem: sexuality.
The sexuality in these paintings is only male sexuality. They do not show the female sexuality at all. Considering the many symbolisms in the European cultures, John Berger stood by his opinion. The women in these paintings appeared as objects—sex objects to be exact. The expressions, gestures, and poses betray an attitude as if the women were owned. Such attitude makes the expressions, gestures, and poses in these nude paintings irrelevant to female sexuality.
John Berger observes that such tendency does not appear in the portrayal of naked women in the non-European cultures, such as in India, Persia, Africa, and pre-Columbus American culture. Berger finds that nude portrayal, be it female or male, in the non-European traditions, shows love, energy, and vitality in which both female and male sexuality are active.
The results of Marie-Françoise Hans and Gilles Aponte's interviews, and John Berger's analysis, can be used to understand Mochtar Apin's explorations. As I have mentioned before, in the nude paintings that he created in 1990 – 1993, Mochtar Apin tried to present naked females as the subject instead of object. His goal was to seek a form of female sexuality that had not existed in nude paintings and pornography.
However, Mochtar Apin's efforts to bring up the women up in nude paintings had not been easy to understand, since in his efforts he did not change the women's given position in nude paintings. In terms of their appearance, these paintings are not different from the conventional nude paintings. The female nudes in Mochtar Apin's paintings still appear as sex objects serving the sexual taste of men.
The presence of female as subjects in Mochtar Apin's nude paintings is the key to understanding his quest. Existing as subjects, the women in these paintings were aware that their nudity could become sex object serving male sexual desire. Such awareness made their appearance not be based on their willingness to become helpless sex objects. The women in the paintings were not changing their given position. But they knew for sure, intuitively, that female sexuality behind the nudity though served as sex object, had power that can tear male dominance forever.
The break down of men due to female sexual enchantment is not a new symptom. It is not hard to find such symptom in the various events in our day-to-day lives - everybody has encountered such symptom. The human history also has numbers of notes showing great events that took place due to such symptom. However, this symptom has invariably been viewed as something negative. The identification of the symptom betrays a patriarchal perception—whether it is in the application of the exhibitionism concept, which in psychology is regarded as sexual perversion, or in the use of morality standards that view such symptom as signs of the moral corruption of women. Mochtar Apin tried to get out of such judgments. Therefore, his paintings can be read in terms of the gender problems.
Until now, the attempt to bring up the problem in gender shows two kinds of tendencies. When the matter of gender was first introduced to the public sphere, radical efforts surfaced in the form of a social movement under the label of Woman's Liberation. This movement tried to change radically the male dominated life structures through defiance.
When the radical movement faced various harsh criticisms even from women, a novel, more gentle approach turned up. This approach was more popular and based on the development of thoughts. It was making feminism discourses possible. The aim was to change male dominated life structure fundamentally through understandings; for example by inviting men to enter the feminism discourses in order to consider the need for change.
Reading Mochtar Apin's paintings through both tendencies, the women in his works are categorized as bringing up the gender dilemma radically. They knew, as other women did, that nude drawings and pornography were not not at all pleasant, nor were they meant for women. However, such knowledge did not make them walk out of this kind of world and struggle instead in the structure that is dominated by the male perception. These strong women did not change the given position of women. They chose instead to stay within the structure in order to fight.
In Mochtar Apin's paintings, the power behind this fight is expressed through the natural female sexuality. He was not trying to portray it as an ideology. Nevertheless the reading could make this small note of Mochtar Apin's as a high probability. Once the mass political awareness dawn on women, every paradigm in the male dominated structure will be reviewed, whether we like it or not.
Judith Belladona, a feminist that has been interviewed by Marie-Françoise Hans and Gilles Lapounge, has articulated the awareness explicitly. Belladona, who is also a psychoanalyst, has had a unique experience. She was once a strip dancer and knows very well about provocative female sexual power. She says, "I feel as if I can do something to destroy the undisturbed power."
Teguh S. Priyono, who accompanies Mochtar Apin in this exhibition, is also trying to find female sexuality in his works. It seems as if he is continuing the quest of Mochtar Apin and supporting Mochtar Apin's prediction from ten years ago. Teguh also strengthen the notion that the dilemma behind Mochtar Apin's work is the dilemma of the contemporary arts.
As a contemporary artist, Teguh now lives in an era where the boundaries of pornography should be reviewed. The term pornography originates from two words, pornê and graphos. The word pornê means prostitution and graphos means writing or drawing. Subsequently pornography is image drawing or writing that has something to do with sexual pleasure and inclined to prostitution activities.
Nowadays when the pornography has entered the Internet, changes has occurred. In the Internet, pornography industry does not come alone. Myriad of images and motion pictures with no brands creep in amongst the products of the pornographic industry. The unbranded pornography is not looking for benefits, nor is it a form of exploitation. This kind of pornography shows personal pictures in the nude with provocative poses. The pornography is self-produced with digital camera, created in personal spaces, and sent to cyber world. The pictures are not only of women, but also of men, transsexuals, and homosexual men.
Although some of the personal pictures were forged, and commercialized by the pornography industry, the distribution of the personal pornography has undeniably formed sex communication networks between personals, between personals and groups, and between the personal and the public. Such dimension of pornography makes the term of pornography originating from the words pornê and graphos, obsolete. These pictures cannot be further away to prostitution practices.
Teguh not only is representing the female awareness about their sexual power; he is also illustrating women's reaction to negative efforts to use female sexuality as a suppressive means. In one of his works, he shows the eccentric singer Madonna, who does not mind the label immoral that came with her way of exploiting her sexuality. Faced with this kind of label, Madonna, as well as Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears, stuck out their tongue and continue with their provocative ways, if not more becoming even more provocative—unlike our own celebrities who would become a mess in trying to keep their ‘good' image, when facing the terrors of infotainment reporters. "So what?" these tough women say instead.
Jim Supangkat
Curator
Jl. Bukit Golf, Sektor VI, Blok C/71, BSD City, Tangerang Selatan 15320, Banten, Indonesia
By Appointment Only +62 21 538 7972 | info@cp-art.org | www.cp-art.org