Problematis of public as a particular tendency

In the last years – well, at last we will reach the beginning span, graphical phases where the ideas began and ended up into a frozen form of narrative as the only tradition which is believed to empower the value of creating work – there has been a repeated continuation of art intended to be impersonal: not only in the implied utilization on the collective ownership with various kinds of labeling such as participation, involvement, or partisantship, but also in the individual works of art as well as beautification of pretending feeling of solidarity senses in the form of emotional perceptions and associations and of the kinda between the individual and the public, just before their art works. The first one, the idea of ‘engaged art’, among others was so strong and in purpose incorporate visual elements and its moments with which the idea of ‘engaged art’ projected the concepts on the actual area of problem. The second one, this idea indirectly affected a praxis but paid more roles of intuitive affected a praxis but paid more roles of intuitive enlighten including standard norms of recognition that shall be applicable to both sides.

As a matter of fact, those two idead, certainly, in its historical authentication, were never really like that although they certainly continue to cover the implementation of cerain praxis, but here I am committed to interpret the existing stages of arts development, where on the real situation it has to be called ‘praxis of aesthetic’ and ‘praxis of technical’ to which the relations between these two things are simultaneously different from reality praxis – such as political activities, by which power the arts works were going to be presented as the main and valid representative in reaching the actual reality, which become the only attitude geared toward the most final goal of complete knowledge about life. In part as imprinted on, if one of them has applied its affiliated practice with one political power together with all aspects and details of actions and concept to assure the statement for the intended change, then it become a power take-over like revolution. At this point, arts might have a totally idiomatic liberation, but in historical happening, it remains unable to completely destroy the representational practice in its restricted observation which is already under pressure. From here, public potential was imagined for the purposes of understanding artistic activities. No matter how far the imagination could be concreted, the limit in time and real moment could never be broken. If the idea in involving the previous art works was cinsidered to have stopped only at caritas manner due to the technical barrier, then the removal of concrete objects into representative spaces as the functional way to realize the idea closest to the trully authenticity in welcoming awareness as atrigger of change still could not answer the question of how the reliable, actual and authentic reality in changing couerse is similiar to the mental and physical responses in observation. Tehcnically, it reveals all curtains covering the creation of art as it changed imaginative art works into the tangible ones. But we have to keep in mind that even when the genesis began – let’s carefully look at its history-art creation has never been necessary to be so easy especially considering its form of construction that made it seen and understandable. For centuries, it has been massively changing in a complicated manner in the context of revolutionary changes which mainly in the conquest and sicovery of the right position of the world’s vie by human. It will be very nice to concider that the stream of modern art be understood in its pragmatic condition as far as its historical background yet according to the view that we always feel secured if we continue to worry our ‘self-politic’ existence while ignoring the ‘set-build’ value of art creation. After the debate between ‘visible soul’ and ‘artificial aesthetic’ and after the Resobowo’s ‘functional realism’ stake over Trisno Sumardjo’s ‘humanistic post-realism’, that made things existent based on the life of compositional order that was being aware of the returned and most possible role within itself, either two dimensional or three dimensional areas as the autonomous messenger of meaning and comprehension. Even though in the difficult times and moments the pronunciation and commemoration of the non-appropriate and appropriate things, our art history has taught: the work in the period 1959-1965, no matter how strong the dictums were applied on art as planned its active role is to maintain the objective of power dictatorship, at last in silence it was found out as aesthetuc praxis. That there were some justifications on implementation beyond the work of art creation, it was absolutely a political decision in the name of culture and art. In mid 1980’s awareness of concept on the importance of direct involvement and participation between art and actual problems occured (it was always connected to the socio-political conditions, from which stand by itself first together with a reason to melt into physical contemplation and then performing realistic actions against imagination) by breaking the connecting bridge between the observed objects considered as a reflective means of a link controlling interpretation, and utilization of art work which was destined to be placed in its conventional judgement, lastly driven by spirit, initiation, esthetic ground liberation movement, namely deaqth and renewal of the symbolic disfunction of elemental structure of art. Realizing that symbolic disfunction required eliminations of old element structure and also its subjective digesting behaviour, such spirit needed to be kept in mind in its capacity as a limit between the real actions and the imaginary ones. Imagine this, the issue claimed for art in cultural scope as ‘national character’ – this has been assured since The First Cultural Congress – definitely could not be performed in the practice of creative imagination altough a set of its normative tools has been legislated, and then the systematic repression on sublimation in creation that suddenly appeared as a fort only to let the continuity of historical malpractice in the forms ever experimented, let’s say since 1936, 1947/49, 1959, 1974 together with law of power , while art did not produce anything. It remained unsolved until the time when art creation had to transfer its own tragedy was taking place, namely the approaches to handle the difficulties in the impossible chances on the esthetic treatments to become the findings to form new order and formulation. No matter how it got along well with the political power that assuring its power together with recent tradition of observation over shape details and mainly the charateristic of direct immediate situations as basic substances, in searching for its ideological charateristic, in its contradiction over art artificialities that degraded into stylistic and deformative ones, blocked permanently in front of understroyed gap from any perfect effort to obtain a sirt of direct and right solution, not in its false charateristic as the effects of its concept application.

The whole terms mentioned above wish to explain a ‘public’ ideology process which intentionally or not, vary in political conception: the initial and frequent use of the word ‘people’ for one or more reference. Here, I would not discuss the contextual art-ism relating to that issue, consequently, postponing for a while some corrections upon the misunderstanding and misinterpretations that require appropriate observation.

Indeed, the trend of contemporary themes in order to achieve the communicative language of arts in its broades sense of meaning without reinterpretation, has been so common that there is almost no new meaning in art’s communicative tradition, which has been started by Sudjojono, that the esthetic things are not always the truth, while the truth is always the aesthetic one. This ambiguous intersection could be seen as a sentence that justified technical praxis manners of an idea of involved-art, which was trying to present real things as visual elements in sided-ness concept and participation by leaving behind questions about the space and time which should be authentic and actual. The truth and esthetic here have become a way in applying reality, and therefore removed the concept of realism in art because of destroying the possibility of illusive dimension through opinion about non-covered authenticity without drawing all possibilities that made reality be seen in its sublimation, such as, the disappearing of symbolic aspects and methapot in utilizing elements that allowed methapor symptoms in the interpretation of artworks that should influence the development of visual history.

If then I have to use the term of realism to review the problematical ‘public’ as a particular tendency afecting art structure and form, this mainly because of the factor of historical support since our modern art – by painting – stood straight in its struggle into political goals. In art, ‘people’ should be seen as an abstract form unless they are taken into collective awareness that was free from and has nothing to do with numbers. This realism was not meant to be an exact and standard art-sim – but it included its variant and deformative, so that what seemed irrelevant to view other arts beyond its perception, could be overcome provide that it had to be the reason why the concept of reality was given meaning and implemented for art.

Our modern art, after its genial beginning and afterwards due to the busyness in searching for identity, does not sufficiently contain theoretical forming pattern in applied aspects that created works. Besides the most general symbols and signs that can be easily recognized, we never applied compositional thought as the most possible search to get the essential things, that’s because it was still too human: this could be easly seen from the reality, that whatever is be transformed into creation, can be considered as the truth that needs no verification through the behavior turn-over reality, parody, and even tragedy as the subtitutes of symbols, and we did not see the ‘event’ except the ‘morale message’. It was proved that up to now our art has not been enriched withexploration of ‘inner area’ rather that visual facts in order to change the visual structure for differences and changes in the interest of picturing and responding act.




Ugeng T. Moetidjo is a writer and painter. He was an editor at the Karbon Journal until 2002 and is now often involved in the writing of theatrical plays in Jakarta, Indonesia.


Notes
Basuki Resobowo, an artists, scriptwriter, former editor of ‘Seniman’, the first art journal, he died in exile in Netherland 1998.
S. Sudjojono (1913-1986), an artist and former editor of ‘Seniman’ who was very active for establishment of Indonesian Modern Art.
Trisno Sumardjo (1916-1969), an artist and art critic, former editor of ‘Seniman’ and founder of Jakarta Art Center (TIM)