Cempaka Culture and Tourism: Jakarta print exhibition out of this world

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Jakarta print exhibition out of this world

Eilish Kidd, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As beautiful as etchings are, they have only recently been taken seriously in Indonesia.

Disturbed by a lack of opportunities to see the fine art of Jakartan printmakers, curator Jim Supangkat and Art Sociates director Ibu Andonwati were determined to mount an exhibition of prints at South Jakarta's Ark Gallery, displaying their richness and power to challenge oils and watercolors.

What unfolded was an exhibition showcasing four print artists: Tisna Sanjaya, Christine Ay Tjoe, Nicolas de Jesus and Jochen Kohn.

Both Tisna and Christine graduated from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)'s School of Art and Design, majoring in printmaking. Christine's name may ring a bell for her paintings and installations, and for her pulling power with buyers and collectors.

Tisna is a popular lecturer at the ITB and a natural-born performance artist.

The other two participants, de Jesus and Kohn, live in the United States and Germany, respectively, though de Jesus is an ethnic Mexican.

Andonowati, who represents the artists in the exhibit, said Monday at the "International Print Talk: From the Dark Background of Etchings" forum that de Jesus and Kohn initially didn't take her seriously when she invited them to exhibit in Jakarta.

"Kohn said to me, 'will five prints be enough?'. I think he thought I was pulling his leg."

Kohn delineates the heart shapes of plants -- fronds, ferns, dandelion leaves, tiny flowers -- in his etchings and aquatints.

Clumps of shrubbery and dry grass -- dense and mysterious, and revealing the peak of Kohn's draftsmanship and the fine line detail characteristic of the medium -- are encircled by graffiti. These scratches, or personal symbols -- a coiled snake, toothpaste squeezed onto a brush, cherries, a slingshot -- make sense of the tangled nests within.

In the catalog essay, Kohn speaks of facing the metallic printing plate, slathered with ink, as like facing a dark secretive world.

"The dark plane makes it virtually impossible for me to see anything".

Tisna produces his etchings and aquatints with the spontaneity of drawing. Hand and footprints demarcate the boundaries of his compositions, bursting with zany faces and loopy scrawl, in a rough-and-tumble expressionism.

His painting-size prints, titled Gariah Jiwa (Passionate Soul), show bodies stretched out, as though on a rack, in a woodsy setting. Parts of the bodies are concealed with hands.

"When you encounter rough spots in life, you feel sympathy rather than a desire to be revolutionary," Tisna said at the artists' talk Monday afternoon. In another work, Matahari di Atas Asia, the sun over Asia is a coppery yin and yang. Dressed in a John Lennon "Imagine" T-shirt and jeans, Tisna talked long and hard about Islam, Christianity and the spirituality of the art-making process at Ark, arguing that the printmaker was a humble (misinterpreted) soul among artists.

Bringing forth the remaining ash of his pictures, apparently burned by the police last year, he requested that de Jesus plant his hands on a gluey/plastery canvas.

He then poured the ashes over the obliging de Jesus' hands, which were then lifted to reveal the white impression on the canvas. A work of art had been made and de Jesus spent the rest of the talk grimy from hand to wrist -- like a miner who had stumbled into the white world of Ark.

De Jesus' etchings showcase the velvety embossed quality of etchings and aquatints, suggesting it is inappropriate perhaps to think of the two as separate processes.

He was exposed to printmaking at an early age, and his technical skills pay testimony to this.

Color, the earthiness of clay and rust and gold, is important to de Jesus' prints. They are gorgeous to look at. In what was traditionally a black and white medium, de Jesus brings fresh effects to printmaking.

Christine's photo etchings of scrappy little dolls -- seemingly turned inside out, their unraveled padding showing -- have snap and sparkle, though they lack the fiery luster of de Jesus' works.

But is seems churlish to complain about a show of such quality. "From the Dark Background of Etchings" rescues printmaking from dusty archives and puts Ark firmly on the map of serious art. With only three days to go, this is not a show to miss.

"From the Dark Background of Etchings" until Feb. 20

Ark Gallery
Jl. Senopati Raya No. 92. (Also home to Bakoel Koffie)
Phone: (021) 7254934

windi@artgalerie.com