Gajah Galley is proud to present an exhibition highlighting the development of painting in Indonesia over the past 70 years. Based on 5 years of research by curator Aminudin Siregar, the show highlights the historical contributions by both artists and writers to painting in Indonesia.
Through the perspective of paintings, the exhibition endeavors to shift our view from the search for unifying themes such as periods, chronicles and centuries, towards the phenomenon of “cracks” (ruptures) and discontinuities. This is paramount for the continuity of history as there must be “interruptions” on irregular intervals, which used to be elusive and difficult to understand.
The artists selected for this exhibition have contributed significantly to the “field of history” and this in turn is an effect of history itself. By looking at it as a discontinuity, the exhibition hopes to determine the differences in various domains, while realizing that these domains can exist only through a comparison with one another. Because of this, the artists who represent layers of history in this exhibition are presented in a comparative framework. The exhibition aims to express our critical view by highlighting the development of Indonesian art that is underlined with Indonesia’s unique factors, such as culture and language.
Most importantly, through the paintings, SEEING PAINTINGS: CONVERSATIONS BEFORE THE END OF HISTORY hopes to show a more accurate history of Indonesian art as a mode of discourse that consists of an intricate journey due to the process of acculturation and enculturation in the form of vocabulary, speech, criticism, polemics, writings, doctrine, bureaucracy, schools, social institutions, and so on.
