A first inter-Asian version of 40+4 is being produced in Indonesia with a focus on two cities (Jakarta and Yojyakarta) by Alia Swastika and Lothar Spree (camera).

The Indonesia project will be connected to the Shanghai original project but will be produced with local partners. Alia Swastika acts as the curatorial supervisor of the project. Lothar Spree has done the camera work and will also train local cameramen to assist Alia on the project. IVAA (Indonesian Visual Art Archive) and Farah Vardani act as co-producer to this project.

A feedback from Alia

The project has been held in Yogyakarta and Jakarta from 13th to 18th June 2008.

There are some changes from what had been planned before, particularly on the artists  we finally had interview with. We planned to interview 40 artisst from Yogyakarta, Bandung, and Jakarta. But, due to the limitation of time, we only managed to start with a conspicuous number of 29 artists from Jakarta and Yogyakarta. We will interview artists from Bandung in a second phase. For artists list please click here

How we choose the artists

In our list, we had very different background of the artists, in term of the medium they used, their political point of views, their “taste” and aesthetical vision, and also by their popularity. By spreading out these differences, we hope that we could portray different answers, which could be more interesting. In the end, after we did all the interview, we found out that these differences helped us so much to understand the reason of each answer given by the artists. We do really enjoy the outcome of our interviews, even if was done in a very condensed time because we realized that most of the answers given by the artists are they seem to us the most genuine and honest statements we ever heard from an artist for a long time.

The various subject brought by all of the questions are something that mostly never come up in every day life conversation in Indonesia. (for questions list please click here.)

Some of the artists were very surprised by the questions, some of them were confused, and some of them were taking a quite long time to think before finally they answered to the questions. Some questions, like, “do you think an artist is powerful? Do you like to be so?”, most artists answered this question in a safe way, to demonstrate that they have the power in term of their position as artist but don’t have the power to control other people. Or, the questions,  “do you think being an artists need loyalty?”. For this question, most of all the artists answered yes, except one artist who said no, because he believes that his artistic practice is only a way to find his main goal as human being, so that if this biggest goal has been reached, he doesn’t need to do his artistic practice anymore. It is also interesting to see how the artists answered the questions about the current art market situation. Most of the “successful” artists had shown an interesting contradiction—a pessimistic tone in one hand and optimistic spirit in the other hand—on all the questions regarding art market. Different the attitude of younger artists: they had not been so cynical about this. For other general questions, like the relationship between art and politics, art and ethic, art and culture, each artists’ point of view was reflected in his/her own representation of his/her own artistic practice. The majority of the established artists had given very strong and interesting statements about those questions, and, in a way, I could relate his/her opinion to the nature of her/his works: in fact by examining those answer, actually, we can trace all the conceptual idea behind the artworks created by each of the artists.

Most of the artists were grateful and happy to be involved in this project. They discovered that all the questions asked are not very easy or evident, but are actually challenging questions. These questions had opened up things that never come to their mind, or, usually just being in their mind as something very abstract and unidentified. In a way, by facing with these kinds of question, they have to build the bridge of their personal experience and their general perspective of the world.

Sometimes we could not do conduct the interviews in artist’s studio (some were conducted in a gallery, in  a cafe or in  an art space)  but we had to admit that the result of the interviews in studios carried a special “effect”, more intimate and in a way effective. Even in Yogyakarta, the concept of artist’s studio is something quite new, but most of the establish artists have their own “space” now to carry on their artistic practice (most of these studios are part of their living house). Being in the studio, they felt that they are in their own territory, that’s why they shown more confidence and autonomy in answering to the questions.

Last but not least, unfortunately, we only succeed to interview three female artists in this project. Finding female artists, like it seems everywhere, is not very easy in Indonesia, particularly to choose artists who have interesting background, strong works and independent perspective about the world. And, for us, surprisingly, those three artists we interviewed, who represent three different generation of women/artists, had given a very interesting answer and genuine statement about their artistic practice and the way they perceive the world (of art).

The transcribes will be ready soon and posted on this page.

 The project is realized by Alia Swastika in co-operation with Farah Wardani and IVAA and supported by Arthub.