‘Beyond the Dutch’ opens in Utrecht

The Jakarta Post, Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Utrecht | Thu, 10/15/2009 9:44 AM

The exhibition “Beyond the Dutch” is a retrospective designed to give an insight into the influence of Dutch culture on Indonesian visual arts and vice versa.

Curated by Meta Knol with the assistance of Enin Supryanto, the exhibition focuses on three periods, beginning with the colonial period around 1900, the period of decolonization and independence around 1950 and the present time, from about 2000.

Every period is represented by a selection of works, amounting to 40 artists, including Raden Saleh, Abdullah Suriosubroto, Jan Toorop, Isaac Israels, Affandi, Hendra Gunawan, Sudjojoni, Piet Ouborg, Charles Sayers, Heri Dono, Agus Suwage, Mella Jaarsma, Eko Nugroho, Jompet, Prilla Tania, Tintin Wulia and many more.

Raden Sarief Bastaman Saleh (1811-1880), self portrait. (Courtesy of Centraal Museum Utrecht)

Meta Knol explains the intention is not to provide a comprehensive art-historical survey of the developments in Indonesian and/or Dutch art since 1900. Rather, she said, the works selected relate specifically to the exhibition’s three chosen periods and their related themes.

This is, of course, not without consequences, and various important periods, such as the period of the New Art Group in the 1970s, are not covered. But one may be reassured to know that an important protagonist of that period, FX Harsono, is among the artists whose work is included in the exhibition.

Meta Knol revealed that the exhibition will be particularly important for the Dutch people who tend to overestimate the continuation of Dutch influence to the present time.

As Ade Dermawan from Ruang Rupa exclaimed, “We are beyond the Dutch!” Ade’s exclamation became the title of the exhibition, as well as of the book that includes interesting essays by Indonesian and Dutch authors, written in Dutch and English and edited by Prof. Dr. Kitty Zijlmans, Dr. Remco Raben and Meta Knol.

To infuse the public with awareness of the state of affairs, the exhibition has been designed so that visitors must exit the same way they enter, thus encouraging them to see the works from a new perspective.

Meta Knol further explained that, just as Dutch artists in Indonesia in the 1900s were strongly influenced by an Orientalism that was inextricably tied to the prevailing colonial viewpoint, Indonesian visual art around the 1950s was largely informed by independence and the subsequent development of a nationalist cultural policy.

A central point in the exhibition will be the space between the Dutch-influenced works and the contemporary Indonesian artists. This space has been allocated to Mella Jaarsma, the Dutch-born, Yogyakarta-residing artist who, together with her husband Nindityo Adipurnomo, has played an important mediating role in the relations and interactions between Dutch and Indonesian artists, and in bringing Indonesian artists to the attention of the Dutch and vice versa.

Also among the participants are an Indonesian-born Dutch artist and Dutch artists with links or ties to Indonesia. It will be interesting to see how such artists — Miriam Burer, Hadassah Emmerich, Tiong Ang, Fiona Tan and others — differ or show similarities with Indonesian contemporary artists such as Heri Dono, Eko Nugroho or any of the other Indonesian participants. It will be most interesting to see how the Dutch public reacts.

The curator of the exhibition, Meta Knol, was the curator of modern and contemporary Art at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, until she was appointed director of Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden where she started working last August.

She has curated several exhibitions, including “This is America: Visions of the American Dream” (2006). From 2005 onwards, she curated the mobile exhibition pavilion “Pleinmuseum”, which was on show at the Venice Biennial 2007.

Together with Edwin Jacobs and Stijn Huijts, Meta Knol published the Manifesto for an Enfranchised Museum (December 2006), which raised a huge debate in the Dutch museum world.

Co-curator Enin Supriyanto is an independent curator from Indonesia who has helped various young artists to exhibitions of significance. He is an academic adviser for the Asia Art Archive Hong Kong.