Duka Seni Lukis Kita (The Grievances of Our Painting)

Tedja Suminar · 1993-05-15T00:00:00Z

A commentary from Tedja Suminar, an artist from Ngawi, East Java. Suminar responded on a text published in Tempo 28 March 1993 about the reception of an exhibition of works by young Indonesian artists in the Netherlands. This text is also a response to a comment by an unnamed Dutch curator on the exhibition in the Netherlands, saying that all of the works exhibited are of surrealist style and are outdated. Suminar stated that while the young painters chosen to exhibit in KIAS (Kebudayaan Indonesia di Amerika Serikat/Indonesian Arts in America) and in the Netherlands were ‘usual suspects’ - they have potential and should be appreciated by the public in the West. He stated that while Indonesian painting is ‘outdated’ by Western art history standard, “the development of our painting reasonably coincide with the arts and culture we have around us.” Suminar also illustrated this point using the example of blank canvases exhibited at Tate Gallery London reminding us of Danarto’s blank canvases that were exhibited at TIM (Taman Ismail Marzuki)