At the first CP Biennale, an international contemporary art exhibition organized by CP Foundation in 2003, curator Jim Supangkat launched the concept of Art with an Accent.

Membuat Obama dan Perdamaian yang dibuat-buat (Making Obama and Faked Peace), an installation by Wilman Syahnur.

Now, seven years later, his idea has re-emerged as Contemporaneity in his curatorial discourse for the Biennale Indonesia Art Award, organized by the Indonesia Art Foundation.

In 2003, Supangkat coined the expression Art with an Accent to describe art that deviated from the usual canon, and moved away from art as perceived — and created — in the West. He compared it to English, which, although spoken with a different accent in countries outside of the UK, remains English.

In the same vein, the term Contemporaneity here is used in the Indonesian context with features leading up to the contemporary.

But as Supangkat remarked during the press conference preceding the opening of the award presentation, the concept was perhaps too confusing for artists to pay attention to it, so “they just did what they felt was right for them”.

Nevertheless, the jury members-cum-curators — Jim Supangkat, Asmudjo Jono Irianto, Suwarno Wisetrotomo,  Ritzky Zaelani, and Kuss Indarto — clearly chose to present awards and special mentions to artworks displaying the characteristics of the concept of contemporaneity described in their curatorials.

Out of 1,200 works, 94 were handpicked to be part of the exhibition, three were given “best” award, and another two earned a special mention. Yet, only a few were striking.

Among the three works earning the Award, no doubt the installation of the President Barack Obama sitting in a becak (pedicab) was the most conspicuous, not to say hilarious, especially as it was exacerbated by photo images of the US president falling from the cycle rickshaw, or bandaged and on his way to a Muhammadiyah hospital. .

While the installation by Wilman Syahnur — playfully titled Membuat Obama dan Perdamaian yang dibuat-buat, (Making Obama and Faked Peace) — depicts the first black American president who was “Indonesian” for a few years in his childhood, as well as alludes to the plight of the poor, religious matters, the fallacy of power and a host of other issues, it is also clearly humorous with a touch of ridicule.

The Good, the Bad and the Restless, by Erwin Windu Pranata.

In contrast, Erwin Windu Pranata work, The Good, The Bad and The Restless, consisting of two identical monitors shaped as capsules each displaying a picture of the artist, one very serious and the other broadly smiling — leave the viewer intrigued.

But it is Tatang Ramadhan Bouqie’s Theater dari Saluran 99’, a large 200 by 1,200 centimeter work of art consisting several panels, which brings painting to the forefront of the exhibition. Marked by theatrical chaos, the dramatic and a hotchpotch of styles, Bouqie’s work is steeped in sadness and confusion. Allegorical images of humans, semi-humans and small animals criss-crossing the canvas could have been likened to an inferno had the brush strokes and the imaging been bolder.

As for Ariswan Adithama’s paintings that were awarded with a Special Mention, it wasn’t their title, The Police Shoot Them, that drew the viewer’s attention, but rather the refined execution using print ink, acrylic paint on canvas, and a technique of hardboard-cut print, paint and stencil to depict commotion with an embedded aesthetic. The other work that earned a Special Mention was MG. Pringgotono’s Aman Suraman Smile.

Walking through the overwhelming number of works, one couldn’t help but notice three objects created by Khusna Hardianto. Featuring dresses made of barbed wire, his works reflected the almost forgotten but enduring issue of women as victims of violence.

Both Miranda Goeltom, who presides the Indonesia Art Foundation and Sri Astari, the chair of the exhibition’s organizing committee, highlighted the importance of the competition as a means to measure and advance the development of Indonesian art.

The Indonesia Art Award, which has evolved from its cooperation with the Philip Morris Art Award and is now a Biennale, will soon become an Open Biennale where entries are welcomed by proposal, as opposed to by invitation or special selection.

To give Indonesian contemporary art more exposure to the international art scene, selected works in this exhibition will be showcased in Singapore and Washington.

- Photos by Carla Bianpoen