Insight into Indonesia

A detail from Agus Suwage's Holy beer and friends 2003.

A sadfact reinforced by the Boxing Day tsunami is that our awareness of other cultures is often limited to their presence in world media headlines in times of strife.

It may take a major catastrophe to raise our awareness of certain parts of the globe, even in our own region, but much more than the statistics and politicking of news journalism, art can give us a deeper insight into the nuances of foreign cultures.

Rather than the usual focus on international art from Europe or America, the Govett Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth has taken a particular interest in establishing dialogue with New Zealand's geographical cousins in the Asia-Pacific region.

Last year's ambitious Japanese survey Mediarena would have been the envy of any larger institution, and later this year projects are planned with Asian luminaries On Kawara and Lee Bul.

Now on at the Govett is Transindonesia, which examines the diverse heritage of one of our nearest neighbours; a nation that boasts approximately 300 different ethnic groups.

"One of the things we wanted to achieve with the exhibition is to highlight the complexity and diversity of the cultural situation in Indonesia," says gallery director Greg Burke.

"In some ways the disaster has brought some of this to international media attention. It may now be better known that the Indonesian archipelago spans thousands of miles horizontally and that the epicentre of the tsunami was closer to India than eastern parts of Indonesia.

"Through the media coverage we have also learned there is a separatist movement in Aceh, as there is in other parts of Indonesia that were never considered Indonesian before Dutch colonisation."

One issue that becomes immediately apparent in the exhibition is that it is difficult to separate Indonesia's lively political history from its visual culture.

Influenced by nearby India and China, Indonesia had its roots in Hindu and Buddhist culture before the arrival of Islam in the 15th century.

Holland colonised Indonesia in the 1600s and so Indonesia's awareness of Western art, particularly early modernism, is with a Dutch perspective.

An emphasis in seeking a more indigenous national identity emerged towards the middle of the 20th century, which paralleled the political climate, and modern art in Indonesia has been closely associated with politics and power since, says Jakarta-based curator Rifky Effendy.

Revolution and then independence in the 60s resulted in only government-endorsed socialist art being allowed. With criticism becoming a dangerous stance, there was a rise in abstract work, which had previously been unpopular.