Collecting the artistic voices of Indonesia

The National Gallery has been collecting the arts of Indonesia since the 1960s. Now the most comprehensive public collection of Indonesian art in Australia, it includes historical and contemporary sculpture, video, installation, textiles, painting and jewellery. The Indonesian archipelago is home to hundreds of ethnic groups, who have developed a vastly diverse range of expressive forms over the centuries. Highlights of the gallery’s collection include the arts of Java, Nusa Tenggara, Sumatra, Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sulawesi.

One of the jewels of the collection is over 1,200 Indonesian textiles, one of the most important holdings of its kind outside Indonesia. Textiles became an acquisition focus for the Indonesian collection from 1979, acknowledging the medium’s importance in Indonesia and wider Southeast Asia, and with the recognition of textiles as significant works of art worldwide. The Gallery was among the first art museums in the world to consider Indonesian textiles as one of the greatest Asian art forms.

Today the Indonesian textile collection is internationally recognised for its outstanding quality, breadth and depth, and includes key works in the Indonesian textile canon. Across the Indonesian archipelago, splendid textiles are created out of a range of techniques and materials for everyday and ceremonial occasions. They display a range of political, mythological and historical imagery, both contemporary topics and ancient symbols, including motifs resulting from trade and the influence of imported religious ideas. The collection includes renowned forms such as intricate Javanese hand-drawn batik textiles, and less familiar styles including huge, bold, tie-dyed ikat hangings made by the Toraja people of Sulawesi, songket brocades, bark cloths and embroideries.

Another strength of the Indonesian collection is a significant group of sculptures and metalwork relating to diverse beliefs and practices. These include wood, stone and metal carvings of ancestral figures and guardians for buildings, tombs and villages; shamanic ceremonial objects linked to ancient cosmological beliefs and rites ensuring abundance and renewal; and elaborate gold earrings, headdresses and chest ornaments that serve as status symbols and heirlooms.

The Gallery’s collection of Indonesian paintings includes a group of 28 exemplary late 19th – early 20th century Kamasan-style paintings [RS1] from Bali which depict scenes and characters from the Hindu epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. Shown in the wayang (puppet theatre) style of flattened, profile views, the narrative temple hangings are vividly coloured and meticulously detailed. The wayang perspective is also used in two fine palm leaf manuscripts (lontar) in the collection, which illustrate the Adiparwa, the first book of the Mahabharata, and a Javanese poem, Smara Dahana.

More recently, significant works of contemporary Indonesian art have been acquired, many through the 2019 exhibition Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia. Encompassing painting, sculpture, installation, video, photography, textile, and performance, many of the works address social and political issues in post-Reformasi Indonesia following the fall of President Suharto in 1998. Recurrent through the works is the use of comic and street art styles and found objects, along with references to traditional forms.

Pioneering contemporary Indonesian artists who are represented in the collection include Dadang Christanto and Heri Dono. Their respective installations, Heads from the North, 2004, and the kinetic Flying Angels, 2006, illustrate the diverse sources of their works and each artist’s commitment to social and political commentary. Dono draws on Flash Gordon comics and American robots from the 1950s to create symbols of freedom and hope, and Christanto’s installation is a memorial to those affected by government reprisals following a failed coup in 1965.

Collective practice is an important feature of Indonesian contemporary art, which is represented in works by two important collectives, Taring Padi and Tromarama. Taring Padi have been operating in Yogyakarta since 1998 and the gallery’s collection of their woodblock prints exemplifies a commitment to social activism and community collaboration. The Bandung-based collective Tromarama’s humorous explorations of how technology filters and shapes our perception of the world are seen in three video works.

Works by Melati Suryodarmo and Duto Hardono show the important role of performance art in contemporary Indonesia. Suryodarmo’s Transaction of Hollows 2016 is a durational solo performance that draws on the artist’s training in Javanese archery and Japanese butoh dance, and with performance artist Marina Abramović. The audience participates in the work, shifting to avoid the arrow’s path when the bow is drawn and aimed. The result is a slow choreography in sync with Suryodarmo’s movements, a call for disciplined ‘presentness’ which the artist proposes as a strategy for life. Duto Hardono’s Variation & Improvisation for ‘In Harmonia Progressio’ 2016–17 explores interpersonal relationships through sound. Three groups of volunteer choristers move through the gallery, vocalising in a spontaneous call and response pattern that fills the space.

As one of Australia’s closest neighbours, the world’s largest Muslim nation, and the fourth most populous country on earth, it is crucial that we build our appreciation of Indonesia’s extraordinarily rich arts and culture. The Gallery’s Indonesian collection will continue to grow into the future, to ensure that it continues to represent important tendencies and developments in Indonesian art through a selection of the finest works from across the archipelago.

This story has been published as part of the National Gallery's 40th Anniversary. For more visit 40 Years.