Lisa Siregar

A motorcyclist stops to appreciate a sculpture. (JG Photo/Lisa Siregar)

Breathing Yogya’s Artistic Spirit

A man wearing a red shirt and shorts sits on the floor in front of a life-sized painting he is working on. He is applying a light gray color to a portrait of a girl, his eyes moving back and forth from the painting to a small photo he has taped on the canvas.

It is Thursday, the night of the soft opening of Yogyakarta’s 10th Biennale. This arts and culture festival is held every two years.

Melodia, the painter, is finishing his work at the Taman Budaya gallery, located at the city center. “I’ll finish it tonight so I can get good sleep,” Melodia said. “I’d like to finish this at home, but the organizers wouldn’t like to hear that,” he said with a laugh.

At the gallery, which is one of the biennale’s four main venues, visitors watch while he finishes the painting, part of an installation he is preparing for the festival.

Born and raised in Jakarta, Melodia has been living in Yogyakarta for 24 years, ever since he moved there to study at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. “I feel like this is the right place for me to live if I want to be a painter,” he said.

Strolling around Yogyakarta, it’s easy to see why Melodia believes that. Historical sites and traditions are preserved here. Old fashioned bike-taxis and horse carriages are common, giving a sense of a slow moving city where time and space are available to turn ideas into art.

Along the popular Jalan Malioboro — famous for its art and handicrafts shops — carved street lights, painted trees and puppet figures are everywhere. During events such as the biennale, art installations spring up in unexpected places.

In front of Bank Indonesia, there is a tall, bright yellow pole with a small toilet on top. It’s a creation by Eddi Prabandono, a regular participant in the biennale. Over by the March 1 Monument — which commemorates a battle for independence against the Dutch — a modern statue of two figures stands, draped with a banner asking, “How artsy are you today?”

Butet Kertaradjasa, the biennale’s director, said that through the festival, he and his crew want to ensure the city lives up to the vision of Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, who described Yogyakarta as the country’s capital city of art.

Butet added that Yogyakarta is a good place for artists to live and work together. “The society in Yogya is very supportive and open,” he said.

During the monthlong biennale, for example, city residents donate to the organizers, such as sachets of coffee and sugar, instant noodles or just money. “We call this gurun gunung , which means hajatan rame-rame [many hands make light work]. Local artists come here to support us,” Butet said.

The secretariat for the event at Taman Budaya, or the Culture Park, is busy and friendly, with artists coming and going until midnight. Everyone seems to know each other and people hang around for discussions about artworks or compare notes on their latest creations.

High appreciation of the arts is a characteristic of the city’s society, said Yulia Rustiyaningsih, from the local department of culture and tourism, which helps fund and promote the event.

“Even on weekdays, there are a lot of performances on the street corners of Yogya,” she said. “And on weekends there’s always something going on, from a wayang wong [human puppet] show to traditional dances.”

“Here, people are very friendly and welcoming about art works,” Melodia said. He added as a painter, he needs to meet other artists to get feedback and inspiration. This is difficult in other places such as Jakarta and Bali.

“In Jakarta, everything is so far away, you can’t go to several galleries in few hours and it’s a waste of time,” he said. “If you don’t have appointments or money interests, it’s almost impossible to meet other artists and hang out.”

As for Bali, the popularity of the Island of the Gods with tourists often leads painters to commercialize their work.

“I could have lived there and earned a lot of money, but then I would not be able to put myself on the map of visual art in Indonesia,” Melodia said.

To do this, he said he needs to constantly create paintings and participate in local exhibitions. “The challenge is how to create honest paintings and still make a living out of it.”

Although many residents in the city conform to Melodia’s non-commercial attitude, this doesn’t mean that Yogyakarta hasn’t produced internationally known artists. Djoko Pekik is in the forefront of Indonesian painters today. He spent the darkest period of his life in the city when imprisoned at the Vredeburg Fortress, under suspicion of being a communist during the political purges of the 1960s.

Popular with critics for his social commentary and depictions of Java’s cultural values in his paintings, Djoko is also known as the “billion-dollar painter.”

At a 1999 exhibition, one of his paintings, “Indonesia 1998 Berburu Celeng” (“Indonesia 1998 Hunting Boars”), sold for Rp 1 billion ($106,000), the first time an Indonesian painter had crossed that mark.

Eddi, the sculptor responsible for the bright yellow pole with the toilet on top, was recently awarded a residency by the Vermont Foundation to live in New York for three months next year and have his works exhibited at a gallery there.

The artistic vibe of Yogyakarta has also proven attractive to foreigners like Pipin, an American student who has been living there for about three months. She is learning Indonesian at the State University of Yogyakarta, as well as taking classes in batik painting and crafts.

For the biennale, Pipin joined a group of graphic designers who were involved in painting statues.

She said she came to Indonesia because she was attracted to the culture and the language and ended up in Yogyakarta, drawn by its vibrant art scene and friendly locals.

“I like art, that’s why I enjoy living here,” she said.

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