Jompet Kuswidananto After Voices

JOMPET KUSWIDANANTO AFTER VOICES SHERMAN CONTEMPORARY ART FOUNDATION

Jompet Kuswidananto After Voices Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation Sydney

JOMPET KUSWIDANANTO AFTER VOICES 24 June — 10 September 2016

SHERMAN CONTEMPORARY ART FOUNDATION

SCAF Project 32

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PREFACE GENE SHERMAN 15

TRAUMA AND HYSTERIA ALIA SWASTIKA 25

AN INTERVIEW WITH JOMPET KUSWIDANANTO EMILY ROLFE 79

AFTER VOICES 123

1ST OF MARCH 1949 RE-ENACTMENT 161

NODA / STAINS 183

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY 184

CONTRIBUTORS 186

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Preface Gene Sherman Chairman and Executive Director Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

Dadang Christanto Red Rain (Hujan Merah), 2003 Mixed media, including wool, paper, gold, ink, pigments 400 x 900 x 500 cm Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Gift of Gene and Brian Sherman, 2003

Jompet Kuswidananto’s work made a strong impression on me at first sight. I had been aware of his oeuvre within the context of his artistcolleagues’ practices, notably those of Dadang Christanto, Heri Dono and Eko Nugroho – each one of whom had been part of the Sherman Galleries (1986–2007) journey or The Gene & Brian Sherman Collection.

During the Sherman Galleries commercial days, Dadang Christanto was a treasured member of the intimate 27-artist group represented by the Gallery over many years with Dadang’s regular exhibitions starting in 2003. Public commissions were organised, catalogues published (in accordance with the Gallery’s longstanding template), works by Dadang acquired for the family collection, and the magnificent Red Rain (Hujan Merah) (2003) was purchased specifically in order to donate it to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Dadang was my entry point to Indonesia – as a country, as a culture, and as a political entity, enabling me to build on my earlier understanding of this impressively large population via my experience as Head of Modern Languages at Ascham School, where I was involved in facilitating the teaching of Indonesian to a considerable number of enthusiastic students.

Research on our significant near neighbour followed, with the biography of Herb Feith, From Vienna to Yogyakarta, by Jemma Purdey (UNSW Press, 2011) standing as a key work in deepening my understanding of the historical interaction between Australia and Indonesia. (Feith, a Jewish refugee from the horrors of mid-twentieth century Europe, dedicated fifty years of his professional and personal life to Indonesia, initially as a volunteer and later working side by side with locals as a civil servant, activist, teacher and researcher). Slowly, through one man’s inspirational story and other, somewhat drier academic accounts, I became, to some small degree, Indonesia-‘literate’, adding this key country to other cultures in the region with which I had long engaged.

Heri Dono’s Flying Angels (1996) was first shown at the second Asia Pacific Triennial in 1996. My first encounter with this remarkable body of whimsical moving-through-space sculptures took place in 2005 at the Gertrude Street exhibition and studio complex directed at the time by Alexie Glass (later to become Alexie Glass-Kantor, Director of Artspace in Sydney and respected curator of Encounters at Art Basel, Hong Kong).

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Heri was artist-in-residence at the time and I spent several hours in his studio fascinated by the flapping wings and tweeting sounds of his inthe-making Flying Angels (2006) series. After the studio visit, I found that a single buzzing and flying figure had been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 1999. When we showed Heri’s work in the last year of Sherman Galleries’ commercial operation (2007), Brian and I decided to add to Canberra’s mechanical cherub sitting in lonely isolation and donate a group of nine fellow figurines, Flying Angels (2006), to the national collection. These were the same figurines that were shown in the Sherman Galleries 2007 exhibition.

Heri’s work came into full focus for me thereafter.

Matthias Arndt, the highly energetic gallerist based in Berlin, organised a number of pop-up shows in Sydney during the final days of Sherman Galleries. He adroitly brought together key European artists with relatively unknown practitioners from South Asia, eventually setting up a permanent Arndt Gallery in our own region within Singapore’s Gillman Barracks complex. Matthias’s ongoing efforts, the formation of the Tate Asia-Pacific Acquisitions Committee (APAC) in 2007 – which I now co-chair with Hong Kong-based Alan Lau, and QAGOMA’S Asia Pacific Triennials, led to a strong focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Southeast Asia and Indonesia in particular soon became central to contemporary art creation and collection worldwide.

Eko Nugroho’s work followed Heri’s into our collection, as did a muchloved work by Agus Suwage, Dead Poet Society (2011). I should also mention FX Harsono, whose work we exhibited at Sherman Galleries in a group exhibition curated by Danielle Earp, née Johnson, called Text Me: An Exploration of Body Language (2005).

And now to Jompet, who was always in my sights but remained peripheral to a degree, given the relative lack of real-time contact with the artist and individual pieces. (As we know, even if the screen and printed catalogue offer excellent routes for exploration, nothing can compete with direct, visceral experience of an artist’s work).

Enter the Indonesian curator Alia Swastika whose essay sits at the core of this catalogue. Recommended to me by my longstanding friend Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator at Tokyo’s Mori Museum, Alia sits front and centre of Indonesia’s contemporary art world, a world based largely, but certainly not exclusively, in Yogyakarta. Alia was invited to Australia courtesy of SCAF and the Australia Council for the Arts in May 2014, to present an account of current practice in Indonesia and later came on a second research visit, this time with Jompet, in July 2015, to explore the SCAF site. Ambitions became

increasingly specific. A goal was finally articulated and Jompet was asked to create a newly commissioned work for SCAF to be exhibited in mid-2016.

In addition, and most importantly, two significant encounters occurred in parallel. The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) staged an exhibition, RALLY: Contemporary Indonesian Art – Jompet Kuswidananto & Eko Nugroho, in 2012, not long after the arrival of the institution’s extraordinary contemporary-art-and-design-focussed new Director, Tony Ellwood. The two-part show was presented in effect as two exhibitions by artists connected via culture and community but with widely different aesthetics and methodologies. Two artists, two impressive related, but separate, exhibitions. Jompet’s The Commoners (2012) was subsequently acquired by the NGV in 2013.

The Tate APAC research visit in November 2014 set the stage for my first onsite encounter with the Indonesian contemporary art scene.

Our intimate group of APAC committee members was led by Frances Morris – now Director of the Tate Modern, together with Sook Kyung Lee, Research Curator of Tate Research Centre: Asia. As we mixed and mingled with artists in their studios and homes, we discovered a collaborative spirit (last evident perhaps in Western contemporary art circles circa 1950s US). Artists, curators, writers and, in this case, artisans too, regularly gathered, sharing meals and conversations in a collegiate spirit. In Indonesia, mediums cross boundaries as a matter of course. Visual practice is interwoven with puppetry, music, technology, batik, embroidery, and textiles regularly embracing imagery drawn from folkloric traditions, comic books and popular culture at large. A fluid commitment to invention at all levels seems to form an integral part of seminal Indonesian artists’ work.

Standing back from the Foundation’s programming, we can see that SCAF’s thirty-second project represents a return to the Asia Pacific.

Jompet’s After Voices stands in parallel to Vo Trong Nghia Architects’ Green Ladder as an Asia-Pacific commission. Jompet’s practice provides insight into the ancient Javanese culture, expanding the terrain to gently encompass the polito-cultural zeitgeist and fields beyond the strictly visual.

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How to adequately thank our ongoing supporters – those whose consistency and dedication to our vision never wavers?

Words never feel quite enough but in this context they represent the only and most appropriate channel. We try to add other marks of appreciation, via wall texts, room sheets, opening speeches, floral bouquets and personal notes.

SCAF’s core and heart is of course Brian Sherman. Brian is usually last on the acknowledgement list. This time I would like to put him first and foremost – making clear once and for all that without Brian’s financial expertise and, most importantly, his respect for culture, excellent eye and love of family, SCAF could not and would not have seen the light of day. His vision coincides almost seamlessly with mine – and SCAF, activated by me together with my exceptional team – has continued to flourish through his inimitable love and respect for what we do.

The Nelson Meers Foundation then springs immediately to mind and the more-than-special Sam Meers. Thank you Sam for being who you are and for understanding and supporting SCAF’s vision in addition to the many other educative and visual practices, and philanthropic endeavours to which your family foundation commits.

Our Patrons’ Circle continues to delight me in that they ask for so little and give so much. We are eternally grateful to each and every one of you.

You are – or are poked to become – art philanthropy shining stars.

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Trauma and Hysteria Alia Swastika

In 2008, Jompet Kuswidananto embarked on Java’s Machine: Phantasmagoria,1 a long-term project dealing with the tumult and fanfare that followed the government edict allowing freedom of expression in Indonesia. The work explores the celebratory euphoria of those days.

Jompet characterises the period as one of extreme outbursts with people erupting wildly in reaction to being silenced for so long. His 2016 project at SCAF also deals with euphoria, but takes a different approach: in After Voices, the euphoria has turned to hysteria.

Phantasmagoria is concerned with the realities of cultural diversity that shape identity in both Jompet’s native Java and Indonesia as a whole. By investigating how identity evolved within this context, Jompet was drawn to various archives and sites, as well as to artefacts and symbols from Java’s ‘glory days’. This historical approach came to define a field that the artist has mined through a variety of perspectives and possibilities. It has also allowed him to analyse a host of issues relating to the Indonesian people, an entity whose diversity he has always explored.

But where Phantasmagoria involved creating images of the ghosts of the past, a memory of the real and the imaginary, After Voices explores the way similar ghosts reveal the present picture – and does so with an urgency that is menacing, albeit within frameworks that may be quiet and subtle. The past remains at the heart of Jompet’s work largely because of his overriding interest in memory and history. In After Voices, however, with its focus on trauma and hysteria, questions of mass psychology are uppermost: for instance, how social and political groups, mass gatherings or ‘ordinary’ crowds function differently from those which operated during President Suharto’s 1966 New Order. The shift to this deeper level is also influenced by the influx of new elements. Propaganda methods have changed with the development of new technologies that distribute new ideas through social media and other platforms. The bonds between individuals have become more fluid as well as highly dependent on trends and user practices. The dynamics of mass movements have changed – both regarding collectives and in terms of the individuals involved.

To understand mass movements in Indonesia it is necessary to look very closely at the post-Independence period. Within that context, the student movement – which started more broadly with the youth movement – should 15

be seen as an important force in the struggle for Independence and has continued to play a key role ever since.

In 1972, historian and classicist Benedict Anderson wrote a seminal essay on the history of youth movements in Indonesia, and more particularly Java, during the Japanese occupation of 1944–1946.2 Anderson claims in this essay that youth groups played a greater role in politics at that time than did scholars or any other social group, and he called the upheavals of the period the ‘Youth Revolution’. The involvement of young people in the struggle to uphold the ideal of nationhood continued into the postIndependence period, when the student movement first took the lead as representative of that struggle. Working to bring about real change, the student movement has played a pivotal role in Indonesia’s changing political scene generally, and particularly during the tense standoffs that occurred during the riots of 1965, 1970, 1980 and 1998.3 Students have become a basic part of the political landscape, providing the impression of a coherent mass, taking to the streets and chanting together, as well as disseminating issues that focus on government corruption, economic reform, the right to freedom of activity, and the struggle for democracy.

Issues relating to succession have also been raised and disputed.

Jompet belongs to a generation that witnessed firsthand and actively engaged in movements that changed Indonesia’s social and political constellations. He studied at the University of Gadjah Mada, Indonesia’s oldest university and one that has played a vital role in the country’s socio-political dynamics since the early days of the Republic. In the 1990s, university students started coming together to disseminate prodemocracy ideas and simultaneously formed a guerilla movement. Their story was an inspiring narrative that promoted an infectious desire to overthrow the established order and the incredibly powerful dictatorship.

The students started to push for revolution, enlisting grassroots communities and garnering broad support from the oppressed; they then took to the streets to agitate for things considered taboo, taking substantial risks in doing so. Many were killed, kidnapped and/or tortured during interrogation.4 Jompet’s and my generation grew up with the collective memory of the students’ courage. These memories are critical in understanding Jompet’s vision for contemporary art. Jompet doesn’t just focus on a particular problem, adopting the topic as a theme of an artwork; he researches the complex issues surrounding his personal memories, incorporating those memories into his practice and defining his personal political ideology in relation to the topic at hand. His approach is both idiosyncratic and holistic.

Eighteen years on from the great revolution of 1998, the notion of mass movements has evolved, primarily because now the organisation of new groups and the militant activity they might engage in has become relatively simple. Previously, militant groups were mainly built up of people regarded as marginalised because their voices were not sufficiently heard, or heard at all, by the government; these groups included labour organisations, certain religious associations and minor political parties with a swinging supporter base.

After 1998, the student movement seemed to have run out of steam, with little room for manoeuvre in the ongoing political unrest of the nation.

The voice of the students seemed to have been absorbed into the noise of the masses, concentrated in public spaces. Open clashes between different civil groups generated fresh hysteria seeping out of the old trauma caused by past crackdowns, the suppression of freedom of speech and general subjugation of the majority. Trauma was experienced as a direct result of the systematic violence against civilians perpetrated by the state and the military. These individual traumas created a collective memory that is fundamental to all new social groupings.

After Phantasmagoria, Jompet decided to map the tensions between internalised personal and social trauma, and external displays of hysteria.

His exhibition spaces exuded the violent atmosphere of the struggle for control of public space by the masses. He showed the struggle consistently as hysterical. Using bodiless human figures scattered around the room, Jompet underscored the way social groups wrested control from the state by using a variety of tools. He represented the various groups symbolically through their flags and texts that include songs relevant to each group’s identity (as we see in Order and After, 2013).5 By transferring the texts onto flags, Jompet turned down the noise to a level close to silence, giving local audiences pause to explore how they feel about songs that often enter their minds unbidden and resound there like hymns. These songs were an important component in the propaganda of the New Order and especially in the governing model of totalitarian dictatorship. The texts also project the ideology and mission of the different groups which, when visualised in this way rather than heard, offer alternative possibilities of interpretation.

In addition to symbolic artefacts like the flags, Jompet also displays a variety of devices used in the mobilisation of supporters, such as megaphones and the accessories certain groups adopted including uniforms and motorbikes, which were hotted-up to intensify the roar of the motor and thereby underscore the rider’s status as a top dog, a ruler.

The roar of the machines also served to amplify the noise of the particular

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demonstration.6 This pinpoints the moment when the initial idea of a mass as an organised and identifiable group of people morphed into an anonymous crowd, less concerned, perhaps, about social issues and specific ideologies.

Jompet’s use of these devices signals the festive ‘carnival’ atmosphere found in his previous works. But the difference here is stark: while the earlier works celebrate the diversity of identity, the boisterous atmosphere of After Voices can easily be interpreted as chaos – a chaos created by each group having competing agendas, fighting one another for the podium and shouting so as to drown out all others. The crucial question is whether this chaotic atmosphere allows for negotiation, or is merely a show of hysteria and bid for power.

In contrast to the neater and more aesthetically balanced composition of previous works, After Voices seems randomly installed. The earlier neatness pointed to an order born of discipline, without reference to outside power. In the New Order era, disciplinary action became a routine feature of civilian life, and militarisation a keyword in the discourse of the pro-democracy movement. But a decade after reforms were instituted and military rule abolished, Indonesia’s civil-society movement underwent a power shift and recourse to disciplinary action was seen as failure. In everyday life, lack of discipline caused the political will of the protest movement to slacken.

By randomising the composition of the elements in After Voices, Jompet presents civil-society activists as operating ‘on autopilot’. Disagreement between various groups along a horizontal axis evolved into a new way of seeing democracy. The figures in After Voices wear the uniforms adopted by different groups, including political parties, and these uniforms are used to cover the figures’ faces: the individual is fused with the mass.

Hysteria seems to be a symptom of forgetting. It is endemic in a society that is constantly corrupted by the manipulation of historical ‘truth’ by the powers-that-be. When the curtain is raised on such manipulation, people resist the revelation and avert their gaze. Any genuine attempt at dialogue and at introducing other truth narratives is hampered. There may be awareness of those other truths, but in the end people choose to maintain the old truths in order to hold onto a safe place; history is repeated and the dominant group usually busies itself seeking to silence alternative truths.

The famous event of 1 March 1949 (marking a major military offensive during the National Indonesian Revolution against Dutch troops) was originally staged to create a heroic role for President Suharto, the second president of the Republic of Indonesia, in the struggle for Independence.

Jompet underscores and magnifies this manipulative process in the video

component of After Voices. For this, he filmed a group of young people re-staging an historic event, manipulated in such a way as to glorify a dictator, Suharto. The story of the ‘real’ 1 March event is endlessly retold, with annual re-enactments even today, to promote the idea that Suharto was instrumental in the revolution, while, at the same time, suppressing the role played by other figures considered less important in maintaining the stability of the New Order. Jompet has worked with Komunitas Djokjakarta 1945 (Yogyakarta 1945 Community), whose core activity is to re-enact significant historical events from 1940s Yogyakarta. Jompet has documented these re-enactments and included them in his video work. Using these events as cinematic narrative, Jompet reveals the way the forgotten history has become a political construct. Remembering or searching for the truth requires a struggle that might well be fruitless.

Jompet takes the notion of hysteria out of its psychological context and frees it of emotional connotations. In the literature of psychology, mass hysteria is often acknowledged as being linked to collective rage. Collective action here has been portrayed as a kind of trance-like state whereby people perform actions dictated by a common goal. In Jompet’s view, such hysteria is largely based on the notion that certain social bodies share a collective vision in relation to which collective action is taken in the public forum. Hysteria, in his view, results from the combination of emotional involvement in history and a lack of critical distance and perspective.

The video re-enactment in After Voices was made on sites where Suharto glorified himself by setting up commissioned monuments as well as a museum dedicated to the 1 March 1949 event. By using the same sites and the same narrative, Jompet not only challenges the political construction of the history and politics of memory, but also reveals the hidden meanings of such monuments and museums – rather than viewing them as simple icons of a city’s public space. By taking these icons out of their contexts as legendary or monumental, he exposes the way myths are invented.

Monuments, myths and narratives were invented to reconstruct collective memory, robbing citizens of their potential to critically understand history.

Jompet’s re-enactment reveals how the film’s subjects are able to see the event in a looser and more relaxed way: there is clearly a gap in the rigid notion of truth.

The Battle of Orgreave (2001) by British artist Jeremy Deller can be compared to Jompet’s re-enactment project, despite the artists having different starting points. Deller’s work began with the South Yorkshire coal miners’ strike of 1984–1985. During his lengthy research on site, Deller came across important historical archives (in the form of official

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government accounts and responses from the coal miners’ union) that illustrate how Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s policy at the time was to dismantle the trade union movement in the United Kingdom by breaking the coal industry. The many riots and prolonged clashes between miners and police ended in defeat for the miners. After studying Deller’s notes, the Birmingham academic Joan Gibbons observed that, years later, many miners had moved on from that particular experience and almost none wanted to talk about it since they were still deeply traumatised.7 Deller invited some of them to re-enact the moment, and that process produced the notion of reassembling history, with participants finding the reenactment a healing experience.

Both Jompet and Deller, within these different contexts, show how transformation of memory into a bodily experience allowed participants to be part of the unfinished and ongoing story. Their remoteness in time from the original experience created a space for reflection in which they developed different points of view from those they held at the time. Re-enactment not only protects against forgetting; it also offers an opportunity to effectively build a strategy for remembrance, to use Gibbons’s term.

Can we erase trauma this way, by tracing its history and including it in a certain narrative? Efforts to revive memory in the face of oblivion regarding a particular historical narrative, particularly memory of mass violence in the name of power, are in the end pointless if we lack the courage to face the trauma head-on. In Jompet’s eyes, if hysteria shows up externally in both individual acts and collective behaviour, trauma runs deep within. And so, he sets up a contrast between the noise of upheaval as a representation of hysteria, and sublimation as an image of trauma.

The analogy he uses is the wall, streaked by leaking water, as we see in a second video component of After Voices. Seepage metaphors define the work’s central poétique, suggesting emptiness: a wall that looks solid from the outside and yet contains deep wounds. While trauma is a consistent theme in contemporary art, we may wonder how the experience of engaging with art can help human beings heal their traumas. On that note, Australian academic and curator Jill Bennett claims that ‘trauma culture’ can be seen as more aesthetic than political.8 The figures in the After Voices exhibition space do indeed represent the traumatised as well as those long silenced by an authoritarian regime. When the body is made invisible, we are encouraged to imagine the mind. Jompet does not show the trauma; he engages in the different narratives that produced the trauma in the first place.

By way of conclusion, I would like to turn to a question posed by Bennett: ‘How, then, might contemporary art engage trauma in a way that respects and contributes to its politics?’ She continues: ‘If trauma enters the representational arena as an expression of personal experience, it is always vulnerable to appropriation, to reduction, and to mimicry. Is it possible, then, to conceive of the art of trauma and conflict as something other than a deposit of primary experience?’9 After Voices underscores the interconnectedness of outside and inside, the point where trauma and hysteria meet. A dialogue between subjective narratives is suggested rather than an account of so-called objective history. As he once said to me in conversation, Jompet is not trying to demonstrate how our history has been manipulated, but, rather, how we can find a way to investigate our own beliefs and pass our stories on to others.

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1. Java’s Machine: Phantasmagoria, a series of installations, was exhibited across 2008–2013.

2. Benedict Anderson, Java in a Time of Revolution, Occupation and Resistance, 1944–1946, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972.

3. Students had agitated before 1965 over a variety of issues, ranging from conflict with Malaysia to demands for cheaper consumer goods. Student protest in the 1970s, when the New Order was relatively new, focussed on corruption at home, although student activism was officially banned in 1970. In the 1980s, the focus shifted to foreign policy.

In the 1990s, major issues contested included the transfer of power from the dictatorial regime and prosecution of prominent military figures.

4. The student movement of the mid-to-late 1990s was characterised by the setting up of networks with other groups, such as social activists, workers, associations of urban poor, and other collectives. Some of the older artists, like FX Harsano and Moelyono, were involved in political movements during this period, as were people like Marsinah, Widji Thukul, Munir and other significant names who went on to become ‘victims’ as well as ‘heroes’ of the democratic movement.

5. Order and After was shown at Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta, in December 2013, across three major installations: Words and Possible Movements (an installation of flags and motorbikes forming a kinetic machine), Staging Collectivism (human figures in the back of a truck), and Hamlet’s Dressing Room (a room with costumes and artefacts to do with mobilisation).

6. The soundscape created by the exhaust-modified motorbike campaign was also used as a theme in the Punkasila group’s work Rough Machine/Soft Power (2015) shown at the Biennale Jogja XIII. Unlike Jompet, who transforms sound into other artforms, Punkasila used exhaust noise to create sound performances.

7. Joan Gibbons, Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance, London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007, pp. 115–117.

8. Jill Bennett, Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.

9. ibid., p. 6.

Interview with Jompet Kuswidananto Emily Rolfe

Emily Rolfe: You studied Communications at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta; are a trained musician – producing records and playing in bands for many years; and you are part of a contemporary theatre group in Yogyakarta – Teater Garasi. This training is evident in your work, and varied influences such as these are customary in Indonesian contemporary art, where artists work well beyond the remit of conventional visual arts and are heavily influenced by local traditions. Music, theatre, film, embroidery, weaving, wayang and batik, are prevalent in the unique scene.

Indonesian contemporary art is continuing to declare its ‘collectability’ – the number of auction houses, commercial galleries, private collectors and private museums are steadily growing; a national pavilion has been re-established at the Venice Biennale; and Indonesian artists’ works are now part of major collections worldwide. How has this commercial success influenced the artist community in Yogyakarta? And how has it changed artists’ practice – do you believe local traditions will continue to be such a large influence?

Jompet Kuswidananto: I see many artists in Yogyakarta who are happy to work locally, both in terms of their artistic content and the production network – some think that the local success is like a fertile paddy field which makes them stay in Yogyakarta and keeps them busy. It is very possible to work this way since the local environment provides enough nutrition, and most importantly there is a need for art that considers local issues using the local artistic language. Other artists are excited to have a dialogue with the international scene through their artworks. Both have contributed to the shape of today’s well-known Yogyakarta art scene, and have given considerable commercial success to the artists. But the clear common problem of working in Yogyakarta is that it is ‘too comfortable’: cheap production, cheap accommodation, a humble art community, a huge number of spectators and a relatively lively local market.

Over the past several years I have witnessed lots of new art spaces created by successful artists, both commercial and non-commercial, and together they draw more and more of an audience, making the local scene more alive. They also fill the void left by the government.

The local traditions are like a wrecked ship’s treasure. They have been marginalised by dictatorship for some decades in the past, and by 25

the panicked pace of modern living today. They will still be relevant to work with for the next while.

Yogyakarta – which has a population of approximately 400,000 people (Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, has a population of approximately ten million people) – is commonly referred to as the ‘capital’ of Indonesia’s art scene. National and international visitors to Yogyakarta enthuse about the city’s vibrant artistic community and countless artist collectives. What do you think is in store for Yogyakarta’s future? Will it continue to be a leader in the Southeast-Asian region?

Thanks to the current Indonesian political climate which allows artists to voice their critical thoughts, crowds keep gathering and the desire for more new artists keeps burning. But I think every country in Southeast Asia has unique colour in contemporary life which gives rise to the birth of strong new artists and fosters a healthy arts scene. We can learn a lot from how contemporary art survives through different political and economic challenges in SoutheastAsian countries. In the near future, I think the whole of Southeast Asia will be more interesting and lively, and Yogyakarta is just part of this phenomenon.

How much support do Indonesian artists have from the government?

Very little, in my experience. For a while the artists have not been too worried about this since they receive quite generous support from private individuals, but they need to be aware that such support is usually not designed as a long-term cultural project. I think that a cultural project has to be long term, so government participation is urgently required. The new government has started to invest more and put the right people in this field, so I’m quite happy to see that.

The post-Reformation generation of artists (of which you are part) contrasts with the highly political generation before. Your generation is commonly preoccupied with more varied issues, and the occasional focus on political issues is fuelled by interest instead of anger.

I have noticed that when you are writing or talking about your work you avoid speaking explicitly about the politics of Indonesia, even though the politics are very much tied up with the historical, social and cultural issues you explore. How heavily do you consider the politics of Indonesia in your art making?

After eighteen years of democracy, Indonesians are well trained in expressing and performing their political views. I think over these years Indonesia has been at the first stage of democracy, which provides a platform for political voices. But the Indonesian soundscape has degenerated into a cacophony where a voice has been devaluated into a meaningless noise, and I think it’s important to distance oneself from that cacophany. Not voicing things as black and white is one way to open a deeper discussion and keep the quality of the voice.

Considering more than fifty per cent of Indonesia’s population is under thirty, how do you feel Indonesia’s tumultuous history is viewed by the younger generation? Are they very conscious of it?

I think every generation has their own way of facing history, constructed by different situations through the ages. In the case of Indonesia, there are now many efforts to reveal the hidden narratives in the history and to educate younger generations about the subversive stories.

Using technology and social media, a lot of young people create different platforms to learn about the critical points in history, and over time this has awoken a new awareness among the younger generation.

Their different approach, which might be more innovative compared to my generation, provides the opportunity for consciousness to turn viral.

In 2011 the Biennale Jogja (established in 1988) announced a new, globally focussed direction – partnering with one country or region in the equatorial zone for each biennale – with the aim of building networks among practitioners. How has the Biennale Jogja changed things for you, and for local artists?

It definitely offers a new awareness and contextualises my practice within the equatorial region, so it has opened lots of new possibilities. But after the 2015 Biennale Jogja I still see too many organisational issues that significantly impact the quality of all the elements of the biennale.

Support for the Yogyakarta Sultanate appears to be very strong throughout the community. What are your thoughts on the Sultan’s position in society? Do you think the younger generation have much of an opinion on his position?

The Sultanate is the pride of its citizens, its history is glorified and seen as a representation of the identity that distinguishes Yogyakarta from any other place in Indonesia. The royal family receives huge political benefit from this romanticism. Three years ago the majority agreed to let the seat for the head of the province be held permanently by

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the reigning Sultan. I think the majority of people, mostly the younger generation, will change their minds very soon.

reclaimed their freedom of expression the line is no longer clear. Every Indonesian is required to draw a new line to define what freedom is by exploring how far one can go with their freedom without tresspassing on that of others. Everyone has had to explore this – including artists.

Then we found that limitation and oppression no longer came vertically from the government, but horizontally from other community members who disagree or feel they are being offended. There have been some cases of direct intimidation and violence by dissenting community groups, like the attacks on Shia, Ahmadi, LGBT activists and many other groups, including some artists. It seems that horizontal conflict is caused by the malfunction and the absence of the government – but in many cases the government takes political advantage of the existence of the aggressive groups, so we need to see that the absence of the government is an active form of the government’s presence.

In terms of the state’s participation in violence, I still see lots of similarity between the different regimes.

Contemporary Indonesia is a complex and diverse nation – heavily influenced by the large number of cultures that have either travelled through or lived there. How do you see Indonesians negotiating similar influences today with the influx of a globalised culture? Are they still able to hold onto traditional cultures and customs?

I don’t have a simple answer to that, but I often relate this to the limited function of the state. In this kind of state Indonesians have to be creative in order to solve their own problems and sometimes the traditional culture provides a helpful system, so such aspects of the culture will be kept by the society. In other cases, traditional customs cost too much, so the society tries to modify them, or even just abandon them. Some people live pragmatically, others live beyond that.

Alia Swastika – the curator of this project at SCAF, and former Director of Biennale Jogja – has been working in the Yogyakarta art scene for over fifteen years. Can you tell us about your relationship with Alia and how she has assisted with your practice?

We met and worked together for the first time in about 1997 – when I was a musician performing in a gig she organised – and we discovered that we were in the same faculty at Gadjah Mada University. We became closer around 2002–2003, when she began to research Teater Garasi, a creative collective that I still belong to. We began to work in the same field in about 2005 when she started working at Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta, and I was starting to focus more on visual art. We began working together professionally in 2009 through Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta.

Working with Alia is very motivating as she has an edgy vision of visual arts and art management.

Can you tell me about the research process behind After Voices?

This project is actually the continuation of what I’ve been questioning over the past few years: What is Indonesia after the hysteria of democracy? I started to collect clues from different places such as forms of staged democracy, the narratives of crowds, mobilisation of people, and mass action. Then I was interested in seeing how individuals experience mass action, especially the kind that leads to violence.

For research I mostly work collectively with Teater Garasi, the collective that I have been working with since 1998. We work for a relatively long term on one big theme. For instance, this post-1998 theme was started in 2008. Since then, lots of work has been produced both collectively and individually by members of the collective, and in very diverse mediums.

Your current practice retraces recent Indonesian political history; I am interested in how this history resonates in your community, and in contemporary Indonesian society more widely. To what extent do you feel the different regimes have changed the context in which artists can work?

Was there a level of oppression before and does one exist today?

I mainly focus on the experience of my generation who have been through two different political situations. I think it was quite easy to understand how to live under a dictatorship. There was a clear boundary line showing what one could and could not do. Now that people have

In your initial proposal for SCAF you write that you are interested in seeing how ‘mass hysteria elaborates an event’, and how ‘memory is shaped accordingly’. How do you think mass hysteria affects memories and recorded history in Indonesia?

After Voices points to both the over-excitement and excessive violence caused by the mass hysteria that has been repeatedly experienced in Indonesian history. Written history mostly sparks controversy as it is written subjectively. I think that is the nature of hysteria in Indonesian history; as Alia has written: it’s a symptom of ‘forgetting’.

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Indonesia is a society that is constantly defined by the manipulation of history, where most of our understanding of what is considered true is constructed not only by the great powers, but also by mass ecstasy itself. When this manipulation of truth is confronted it is ignored or hysterically resisted.

Your proposal describes After Voices as an ‘image of the aftermath of hysteria, and as a pause between hysterias’. How has your analysis of mass hysteria around the rise and fall of Indonesian regimes, and the snapshot you have created for SCAF, shaped your views about the future of Indonesia? Do you anticipate future hysteria?

Indonesia has been in a long period of transition after the New Order, which saw excessive mass hysteria, and also trauma. But we have now achieved a state of freedom of expression that you might not find in many other countries, and I think this is an important aspect that needs to be maintained. I realise that there are many voices and a lot of potential for social conflict – but this must be risked in order to grow as a democratic nation. At the moment, there is still hysteria – but there is also a process of negotiation around making society more progressive and tolerant.

A carnival theme has been used throughout many of your large kinetic installations, and is employed again in After Voices at SCAF. Can you tell us about this recurring carnivalesque parade of ghost figures?

My earlier carnivalesque ghost figures have three different forms and points of focus: the royal army parade refers to the elite’s cultural negotiations; the community parade refers to the common people’s cultural negotiations; and the mob/demonstrator parade refers to the post-1998 sonic blast of democracy. Unlike my earlier carnivalesque installations, After Voices does not refer to one particular moment or event in time. Instead, it displays fragments of incomplete memories and different interpretations of historical events.

Your initial proposal lists ‘images of excessive euphoria, ecstatic crowds, gruesome mass violence’ as starting points for this work. Tell us about the events that inspired the creation of the different ghost figures in After Voices. How did the work develop from this?

After Voices shines a spotlight on the aftermath of the sonic blast. The sonic blast of Indonesian democracy has been created by the conflict between hundreds of new mass organisations, dozens of new political parties, and the individual’s freedom of expression. It has drawn new 30

boundary lines separating you from me, us from them, and self from others. In many cases, the boundary lines are drawn bold, hard and strong and materialise as violence. There has been a trend in violence initiated by groups of people, both organised and as a spontaneous reaction. Crowds can be easily moved to hysteria by a simple trigger (such as a common fear, a common goal), and hysterical people do hysterical things and then often deny them afterwards.

I researched the history of mass violence in Indonesia throughout different periods of time where violence has been denied or manipulated later on, and how it takes part in the rise and fall of the regime. The installation at SCAF deals with the complexity of mass action and its aftermath.

The issues explored in your practice are predominantly Indonesian. What do you hope an international audience can take away from this work?

I always think that what happens locally does not occur in isolation – it is always related to external movements and affects the outside world – so it is good to share with the world how this country deals with its issues.

You have said before that in Indonesia knowledge from the past is not really transferred from generation to generation, and you relate this lack of passing down knowledge to the absence of family names in Indonesian culture. Can you tell us how Indonesian names are structured and how you think this affects the culture more widely?

I analyse this in a simple and random way with minimum research.

The family name structure is not applied in most of Indonesia, but it is generally applied by the descendants of wealthy families. Among the new middle class that has blossomed over the past few decades the family name is mostly not applied. In the new way of naming there is a trend to use names that stress religious identity, or names that are exotic and full of positive meaning. There is also a belief that a name is a prayer. So, possibly, through new name structures, the Indonesians are hoping to turn to a brand-new page of life that is better than ‘the past’, which in local terms and sayings is always related to the ‘hard times’ – a time to forget. A name also stresses the uniqueness/individuality that distinguishes one from the other. At the same time, a name creates a gap between one and the other, and between one and the past.

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Pages 33–37: Jompet Kuswidananto Cortege of The Third Realm #2, 2012 Installation view, Grand Parade, Tropenmusuem, Amsterdam, 2014 Weathered corrugated iron, leather, painted metal, metal, hessian, drums, guitars, cotton, silk, metallic thread, metal, rope, wood, polyester, horse hair, electrical cord, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, digital sound Dimensions variable Photos courtesy the artist

Jompet Kuswidananto Java’s Machine: Crevasses, 2014 and Java, War of Ghosts, 2009 Installation view, Grand Parade, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, 2014 Costumes, musical instruments, video, digital sound Dimensions variable Photo courtesy the artist

Jompet Kuswidananto Java’s Machine: Crevasses, 2014 Installation view, Grand Parade, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, 2014 Costumes, musical instruments, video, digital sound Dimensions variable Photo courtesy the artist

Pages 42–47: Jompet Kuswidananto The Commoners, 2012 and Words and Possible Movements, 2013 Cotton on fibreglass, canvas, rubber, polyvinyl chloride, polyester, drums, electrical cord, metal, wood, shovels, electric fans, CRT television, megaphones, speakers, spotlights, motorcycles, flags Installation view, Grand Parade, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, 2014 Dimensions variable Photos courtesy the artist

Pages 48–55: Jompet Kuswidananto Words and Possible Movements, 2013 Installation view, Grand Parade, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, 2014 Motorcycles, flags Dimensions variable Photos courtesy the artist

Pages 56–59: Jompet Kuswidananto Order and After #2, 2014 Installation view, Grand Parade, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, 2014 Fabric, resin, latex, mechanical system, motorcycle headlights, shoes Dimensions variable Photos courtesy the artist

Jompet Kuswidananto Poem of Voices, 2014 Installation view, ArtJog 7, Taman Budaya Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, 2014 Flags, mechanical system Dimensions variable Photo courtesy Artjog

Jompet Kuswidananto Cortege of The Third Realm, 2010 Installation view, Asia Art Award, SOMA Museum of Art, Seoul, 2010 Costumes, musical instruments, video Dimensions variable Photo courtesy the artist

Pages 64–67: Jompet Kuswidananto Staging Collectivism, 2013 Installation view, Order and After, Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta, 2013 Truck container, clothes, mechanical objects Dimensions variable Photos courtesy the artist

Jompet Kuswidananto Hamlet’s Dressing Room, 2013 Installation view, Order and After, Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta, 2013 Public demonstration artefacts, costumes, sound system, drums, flags Dimensions variable Photo courtesy Ark Galerie and Irvin Domi

Jompet Kuswidananto Third Realm, 2011 Installation view, Third Realm, Gervasuti Foundation, Venice, 2011 Costumes, musical instruments, video Dimensions variable Photo courtesy the artist

Jompet Kuswidananto Family Chronicles #1, 2010 C-type print 100 x 80 cm Photo courtesy the artist

Jompet Kuswidananto Family Chronicles #2, 2010 C-type print 100 x 80 cm Photo courtesy the artist

Pages 73–74: Teater Garasi Tubuh Ketiga / Third Bodies, 2010 Theatre performance Photos courtesy Teater Garasi and Amin Mohamad

AFTER VOICES Pages 81–118:

AFTER VOICES, 2016 STUDIO DOCUMENTATION PHOTOS COURTESY THE ARTIST

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Anthem of Forum Betawi Rempug Betawi Rempug, Long live FBR, If One hassles, we will beat them up. Jakarta we seize.

Who doesn’t know us? They tremble just by seeing us Don’t look for trouble because if you sell then we buy Ondel ondel is our mascot.

We must preserve it Don’t let it happen to our culture, that it vanishes into thin air Refrain: We must obey our faith. Because that is already our slogan. If we proceed pray Bismillah. Asking God’s attestation.

Don’t be afraid of the outsiders, if they don’t want to work together, if they don’t like us tell them to go home. Let the Betawi people rule Jakarta. When it prospers we will distribute it fairly.

Don’t forget to give for the poor.

Betawi Rempug Betawi Rempug Betawi Rempug Long live FBR If one hassles, we will beat them up Jakarta we seize

Hymne of the Islamic Defenders Front We are fighters of the Front Only Allah is my God Only Allah is my God Only Allah is my God Muhammad is our Prophet We are the FPI fighters All righteousness we accomplish All things sinful we repel In search of Allah’s Blessing Allah is my God Muhammad our Prophet Allah is Our God And Islam is my religion Muhammad is our Prophet Moslems are our brothers Only Allah is my God Muhammad is my Prophet

Anthem of Indonesian Islamic State (NII) Long Live NII! Independent NII! Seventh of August Nineteen Forty Nine Was the proclamation day of Indonesia Islamic State Strong Foundation of Allah’s Blessings Implement a Country A gift of the one and only Allah Where people Unite Greatness and Glory Justice spread evenly Throughout the Nation

March of the Bonek We are the Bonek Mania We always support Persebaya Wherever they are We will be present Because we are the Bonek Mania We are the Bonek Mania We always support Persebaya Wherever they are We will be present Because we are the Bonek Mania Buddy, I’m coming Persebaya let’s win Kicking the ball here and there Don’t be long Hurry and score It’s better, it’s better We must win Unite your endeavour to achieve prestige Advance Persebaya Here Boneks are supporting you My Persebaya My Persebaya We are proud to support you My Persebaya My Persebaya

Order And After #2, 2014 (detail) Fabric, resin, latex, mechanical system, motorcycle headlights, shoes 300 Ă— 400 Ă— 200 cm Image courtesy the artist Photo: Jompet Kuswidananto, 2015

1ST OF MARCH 1949 RE-ENACTMENT Pages 125–156:

1ST OF MARCH 1949 YOGYAKARTA GENERAL OFFENSIVE RE-ENACTMENT

BY KOMUNITAS DJOKJAKARTA 1945 VIDEO STILLS SINGLE CHANNEL DIGITAL VIDEO, 16MIN, LOOP PART OF AFTER VOICES, 2016

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In a rubber garden I ran to Captain in a green beret To platoon commanders To Revolutionary Council Midnight briefing to foil the planned coup Council of Generals to be captured dead or alive In a small hamlet of rubber garden Council of Generals stood up facing the hole Then shot Fell I did sleep a little Right there in the woods of rubber garden I never sleep again since That night is bright forever Song lyrics adapted from an interview by Benedict Anderson with Sergeant-Major Bungkus, a military soldier who took part in the kidnapping and killing of high ranking Generals in 1965

Verified evidences Military act In May 98 Violence To women My deepest remorse On behalf of the state government I condemn On behalf of all Indonesians I condemn Song lyrics adapted from President B.J. Habibie’s apology for violence in 1998

Late afternoon Hospital bus stop Grey Toyota A gunman pushed me in I was vanished Months and months Punches and electrocutes Endless Interrogation For I wanted the regime to fall The regime fell soon after for his sins Sins soon to be forgotten Song lyrics adapted from the testimony of Pius Lustrilanang, a student activist during the 1998 pro-democratic movement, who was kidnapped and tortured for his dissident actions

09.26 Police warns But we will stay Ahmadi said 10.31 Mob marching Across the bridge In hurry Looks angry 10.36 Give a way Police off No infidel In Pandeglang 10.37 Hundreds attack Seventeen defend Cameras roll Bodies fall 11.14 Cameras roll On angry mob On poor defender Cameras roll Soon forgotten Song lyrics adapted from the Human Rights Commission report on the attack of the Ahmadiyya religious minority group in 2011

NODA / STAINS Pages 163–180:

NODA / STAINS VIDEO STILLS SINGLE CHANNEL DIGITAL VIDEO, 12MIN PART OF AFTER VOICES, 2016

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Selected Biography

Jompet Kuswidananto was born in Yogyakarta on the island of Java, Indonesia in 1976, and currently lives and works there.

He studied Communications at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. Originally trained as a musician, Jompet turned to the visual arts and went on to work within the local Yogyakata art community as a self-taught artist. In 1998, he joined Teater Garasi, a multidisciplinary art collective, and is still involved with them today.

Jompet works across a diverse range of mediums including installation, video, sound, performance and theatre. Using musical instruments, video projections, mechanical elements, costumes and found objects, Jompet creates works that explore Indonesia’s history and the complexities of contemporary life in a globalised world. His practice focuses on issues of politics, colonialism, power and mass mobilisation in the context of post-Reformation Indonesia.

In 2014, Jompet garnered a major award for emerging Asian artists, the Prudential Eye Award, for his installation work.

Jompet has taken part in significant national and international exhibitions, including the Yokohama Triennale (2008); Beyond the Dutch, Centraal Museum Utrecht (2009); the 10th Lyon Biennale (2009); Indonesian – Eye, Saatchi Gallery, London (2011); Phantoms of Asia, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (2012); Taboo, Museum of Contemporary

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Art, Sydney (2012); RALLY: Contemporary Indonesian Art –­Jompet Kuswidananto & Eko Nugroho, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2012); Taipei Biennale (2012); Asian Anarchy Alliance, Tokyo Wonder Site, Tokyo (2012); Asian Art Biennale, Taiwan (2015); and Sonica Festival, Glasgow (2015).

Solo shows include Java’s Machine: Phantasmagoria, Osage Gallery, Singapore and Hong Kong (2009 and 2010); Third Realm, Para-site Art Space, Hong Kong (2010); Third Realm, a site-specific project for the Gervasuti Foundation, at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); On Asphalt, Nanzuka Underground, Tokyo and Project Fulfil Art Space, Taipei (2012); and Grand Parade, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam (2014).

Contributors

Dr Gene Sherman AM is Chairman and Executive Director of Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation.

She was formerly Director and Proprietor of Sherman Galleries, representing major artists across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region (1986–2007). She is Adjunct Professor, UNSW Art & Design (formerly COFA); inaugural patron of the MAAS Centre for Fashion; a board member of the Australian Institute of Art History (2013); and a member of the Sydney Contemporary Advisory Council (2014). Dr Sherman is Co-Chair of the Tate Asia-Pacific Acquisitions Committee and a member of the Tate International Council; a member of the International Association of Art Critics; and an Asialink Asia Literacy Ambassador. Dr Sherman’s awards include the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003), Doctorate of Letters honoris causa (University of Sydney, 2008), Member of the Order of Australia (2010) and the B’nai B’rith award (2014).

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Alia Swastika has worked as Program Director for Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta, Indonesia since 2008 and has been actively involved as a curator, project manager and writer on a number of international exhibitions.

With Suman Gopinath, she was the co-curator of the Biennale Jogja XI, Shadow Lines: Indonesia Meets India (2011), and was one of the co-artistic directors for the Gwangju Biennale IX: Roundtable (2012). She also participated as the curator of a special exhibition of Indonesian artists in the 2012 edition of Art Dubai.

Throughout her career, Alia has worked with many significant Indonesian artists, including Eko Nugroho, Tintin Wulia, Wimo Ambala Bayang and Jompet Kuswidananto.

Alia was a research fellow at the National Art Gallery, Singapore, funded by Singapore International Foundation (2009). She has participated in a curatorial residency in BizArt, Shanghai (2008), and in 2006 she participated in a Kelola Foundation fellowship programme funded by the Asian Cultural Council. In 2005 she was awarded a grant from the Asia–Europe Foundation.

Alia was the Director of Biennale Jogja 2015, is a member of the International Biennale Association Board, and she recently founded ‘Study on Art Practices’, a platform for research into contemporary art in Indonesia.

Emily Rolfe is Assistant Curator at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Paddington, Sydney.

Her interests lie in the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on digital media. Emily also assists with administration at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre in Gymea, Sydney, and creates films as educational components to exhibitions. She studied media and art history at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

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Acknowledgements

SCAF thanks our exhibiting artist Jompet Kuswidananto, who has been a delight to work with.

His dedication to the project has resulted in a truly magnificent outcome, both visually engaging and conceptually challenging.

We are thrilled with the essay by Alia Swastika, which expertly contexualises Jompet’s important work within contemporary Indonesian sociopolitical history.

Emily Rolfe, SCAF’s dedicated Assistant Curator prepared a spot-on interview with in-depth questions that both provide context for Jompet’s work and shine a light on individual pieces.

We are incredibly grateful to Sam Meers and the Nelson Meers Foundation for their longstanding support of SCAF’s Culture+Ideas programme. Their passion and resolve to support excellence in art is an inspiration to us all.

Hearfelt thanks to the Patrons’ Circle whose curiosity and interest, risk-taking and generous support enable the realisation of SCAF’s vision.

Joni Waka, dear friend and confidante, supplies SCAF with enormous assistance and great humour throughout our busy programme. Thank you, Joni, for your energy and continuing commitment.

Warmest thanks to Barry Sechos who graciously and efficiently continues to provide the Sherman family with expert legal counsel and top-tier professional advice.

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

Gene and the SCAF staff express their sincere thanks to Brian Sherman for his tireless support of SCAF’s projects. Thank you mille fois.

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) was established in April 2008 as a not-for-profit organisation to champion research, education and exhibitions of significant and innovative contemporary art primarily from Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. SCAF works closely with creative practitioners in commissioning new work and developing exhibitions that energise and respond to the gallery’s four-part complex comprising a large exhibition area, mini ‘out-site’ space, versatile theatre annexe and Courtyard garden. Extensive projects are developed through partnerships with public art institutions at a regional, state and national level while broad public engagement with contemporary art is fostered through publishing and forum programmes.

In addition, Sherman Visual Arts Residency (SVAR), located directly across the road from the gallery, offers a supportive environment and accommodation for visiting artists, filmmakers, architects, writers, curators and scholars. The experience of developing Sherman Galleries (1986–2007) as a respected commercial and educational enterprise within the international art world underpins the Foundation at both a conceptual and practical level. Dr Gene Sherman AM, SCAF Chairman and Executive Director, drew on her extensive international networks to establish the Foundation, and initiates and guides its activities in collaboration with an advisory board of respected peers: Andrew Cameron AM, John Kaldor AM, Sam Meers, Akira Nakayama, Tomoko Nakayama, Dr Claire Roberts and Michael Whitworth. SCAF is a member of CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art.

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The artist wishes to thank Nur Kholis, Ragil Binsar, Habib Syaifullah, Sarwoto Kotot, Danang Luthfi, Richardus Ardita, Arsita Iswardhani, Rizky Sasono, MN Qomaruddin, Komunitas Djokjakarta 1945, Ark Galerie Yogyakarta, CCA Singapore Residencies Programme and Teater Garasi / Garasi Performance Institute.

Exhibition History

2008

2013

Project 27

Project 1

Project 16

Ai Weiwei: Under Construction In partnership with Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney

Fugitive Structures 2013 / Andrew Burns: Crescent House In association with BVN Donovan Hill Olafur Eliasson: The cubic structural evolution project, 2004 Collection: Queensland Art Gallery

Fugitive Structures 2015 / Sack and Reicher + Muller with Eyal Zur: Sway In association with BVN Architecture

Project 2

Jonathan Jones: untitled (the tyranny of distance) Project 3

Project 28

Hugo Moline and Heidi Axelsen: Owner Occupy Project 29

Project 17

Collection+: Christian Thompson Curated by Alana Kushnir

Collection+: Chiharu Shiota Curated by Doug Hall AM

2016

The View from Elsewhere In partnership with Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

Project 18

Project 30

Feel & Think: A New Era of Tokyo Fashion In association with National Art School, Sydney

Mikhael Subotzky: WYE

Project 5

Project 19

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA

Collection+: Sopheap Pich Curated by SCAF and Erin Gleeson

Fugitive Structures 2016 / Vo Trong Nghia Architects: Green Ladder In association with BVN Architecture

Jitish Kallat: Aquasaurus 2009 Project 4

Project 6

Charwei Tsai: Water, Earth and Air

Project 32

2014 2010

Project 20

Project 7

Fiona Tan: Coming Home In association with National Art School, Sydney

Fugitive Structures 2014 / AR-MA: Trifolium In association with BVN Donovan Hill

Project 8

Project 21

Brook Andrew: The Cell In association with Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane

Fugitive Structures 2014 / Tomahawk // Archer Breakspear: Poly In association with BVN Donovan Hill

Project 9

Contemporary Art for Contemporary Kids In partnership with Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

Project 31

Jompet Kuswidananto: After Voices Curated by Alia Swastika For project details and touring schedule, visit sherman-scaf.org.au

Project 22

HOME: Chien-Chi Chang and Chen Chieh-jen In association with National Art School, Sydney Project 23

2011 Project 10

Collection+: Pinaree Sanpitak Curated by Jasmin Stephens

Yang Fudong: No Snow on the Broken Bridge Project 11

2015

Dinh Q. Lê: Erasure

Project 24

Project 12

Shaun Gladwell: The Lacrima Chair

Tokujin Yoshioka: Waterfall

Project 25

2012 Project 13

Collection+: Shaun Gladwell Curated by Dr Barbara Polla and Prof. Paul Ardenne In association with UNSW Galleries

Janet Laurence: After Eden

Project 26

Project 14

Yang Zhichao: Chinese Bible Curated by Dr Claire Roberts as part of Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection Curated by Suhanya Raffel In partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Alfredo Juan Aquilizan and Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan In-Habit: Project Another Country Project 15

Go Figure! Contemporary Chinese Portraiture In partnership with National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

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Jompet Kuswidananto: After Voices Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation 24 June – 10 September 2016 SCAF Project 32 Published by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation 16–20 Goodhope Street Paddington NSW 2021 ABN 25 122 280 200 sherman-scaf.org.au © 2016 Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation Copyright in the text is held by the authors.

Copyright in the images is held by the artist unless otherwise indicated.

The material in this publication is under copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation. Where applicable, every effort has been made to contact copyright holders and acknowledge the source material. Errors or omissions are unintentional.

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation providing a platform for innovative visual artists primarily from Asia, Australia and the Pacific Rim. All donations over $2 are tax deductible and will support our exhibition, educational, public and artist-inresidence programmes.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Jompet Kuswidananto: After Voices; Alia Swastika (essayist); Gene Sherman (contributor); Emily Rolfe (interviewer).

ISBN: 9780994417428 (hardback) Subjects: Kuswidananto, Jompet.

Teater Garasi–Exhibitions.

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation–Exhibitions.

Installations (Art)–Australia–Exhibitions.

Art, Indonesian–21st century–Exhibitions.

Art, Australian–21st century–Exhibitions.

Sound in art–Exhibitions.

Other Creators/Contributors: Sherman, Gene; Swastika, Alia; Rolfe, Emily.

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation.

Dewey Number: 708.994 Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation Chairman, Executive Director Dr Gene Sherman AM General Manager Danielle Devery Exhibitions Manager Michael Moran Communications and Events Manager Sophie Holvast Assistant Curator Emily Rolfe Coordinator – Programmes and Publications Rebecca McLean-Chan Executive Assistant to Gene Sherman Hannah Brunskill Collections Manager Aaron de Souza Collections Manager Alison Renwick Gallery Archivist Laura Brandon Exhibition and catalogue management Danielle Devery and Michael Moran Advisory Board Andrew Cameron AM, John Kaldor AM, Sam Meers, Akira Nakayama, Tomoko Nakayama, Dr Claire Roberts, Michael Whitworth Media Consultancy [art]iculate Digital Media Consultant Ross Colebatch Partnerships Consultant Bambi Blumberg Design Mark Gowing Studio Editor Julie Rose Proofreader Laura Murray Cree Printed in Australia by Ligare

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation 16–20 Goodhope Street, Paddington Sydney NSW 2021 Australia ABN 25 122 280 200 sherman-scaf.org.au

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