Indonesian National Art Gallery Highlights





Museums in Jakarta are finally open, after many have been closed during the pandemic. One of the museums I've been eager to visit is the National Art Gallery. It's an excellent museum with a fine permanent collection.  Please understand it's nothing on a massive scale like the Louvre or other European national galleries--remember that Indonesia is a place where colonial interests extracted cultural resources over time.  

Additionally, one should also consider that the National Gallery houses formal works of "the academy" and really doesn't include "folk art," which is the category of art under which the majority of Indonesia's treasures are usually classified.  "Academic Art" (or perhaps the better term is "formal art") that is displayed in this museum really didn't get started in Indonesia until the 19th Century.  On the other hand, artifacts like puppets, which are an incredibly important and beautiful element of Indonesian cultural and artistic history, extending for centuries into the past, aren't displayed in the National Gallery.  The Wayang Museum is a separate institution in Jakarta that houses an extraordinary range of puppetry.  So, to get a full sense of the depth of Indonesian art, a person must visit a wide range of museums that display the immense variety of Indonesian artistic heritage.

I am certainly not an expert in art, but let me share a few highlights of the National Gallery to give you a general sense of the collection.




This is a work by Raden Saleh (1811-1880).  He was the first Indonesian artist to receive training in Europe and he is considered the first classical Indonesian artist, whose work extended beyond traditional folk art.  The National Gallery's collection begins with Saleh and contains several of his most important works.




This piece (My Wife Sewing) is from 1944, by Sudjojono, another classically trained Indonesian artist who emulated Western approaches to art.





This is a powerful political painting by Agus Djaya, called Dunia Anjing, in English it means "The World of Dogs."  It was painted in 1965 during the middle of Indonesia's horrifying social disorder of that era. It shows a violent fight between the "red dogs" and the "black dogs" symbolizing the two main societal factions clashing at that time. The painting is a metaphor for the social disintegration that was occurring in Indonesia.




This painting and the one above it are representative of the Indonesian Surrealism Movement of the 1980s and 1990s that emerged from Yogyakarta, a Javan city that is a mecca for the arts.  The Gallery's collection of Surrealistic works is impressive and visually arresting.





This painting, The Flare Up of Reformation (1998) by Hening Purnamawati, depicts another tumultuous era in Indonesian history.  This work is based on the artist's impression of this period and represents how people come together to break free from oppression toward freedom.






Fathoming Cosmos (2011) by I Nyoman Erawan.




These works are among the 163 that the French government gave to Indonesia in the late 1950s to help the emerging nation form a permanent collection of modern art.  Among the prominent artists represented were Wassily Kandinsky, Sonia Delaunay, and Hans Hartung.





Another substantial component of the permanent exhibition is the collection of contemporary art from "Southern Countries" that was curated in 1995.  The exhibition was an effort to highlight issues in society and art important to "non-Western" nations and to emphasize the diversity of contemporary international art.  This work is by Abdul Aziz Asyur from Saudi Arabia.





Another piece from the "Southern Countries" Exhibition Collection:  A depiction of Angkor Wat by a Cambodian artist.


For me it was a perfect museum visit, as the collection can easily be viewed in two hours or less and is not overwhelming in size.  Yet, it has a diversity of wonderful artwork that can provide the visitor with an enhanced understanding of Indonesian art, culture, and history.









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