Reflections on Art Jakarta 2018

Art Jakarta 2018 ran from August 2, 2018 to August 5, 2018 at the Ritz-Carlton Jakarta. This edition marked the ten year anniversary of the art fair, which has actively contributed to the exposure and promotion of Indonesian art dramatically since its inception. Art Jakarta first began in 2009, and since then has grown to be one of the largest art fairs in Southeast Asia. The fair has upheld their commitment to showcasing a majority of works from artists living and working in Southeast Asia.

The fair serves Indonesia by putting contemporary art on view from domestic and international artists and galleries. Effectively, it has become a center for exchange of art and culture, and has gathered an international audience of artists, galleries, collectors and general public to the Art Fair events. Some of the participating galleries for Art Jakarta 2018 came from: Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Colombia, Spain, France and Russia. Art Jakarta programming is realized by a committee of directors, consultants, deputy, press and more. Together they work to showcase some of the more exciting artists from the past and present.

This years program consisted of a wide range of interdisciplinary art projects, which included: performance, painting, photography, drawing, sculpture and installation, among others. There were also panel discussions and talks given by professionals with diverse knowledge and experience in their fields.

Some of the topics of talks included: the rise of new media art, Indonesian music, and challenges faced by emerging artists and collectors on the art market. The talks serve the local and international arts communities by providing a platform to discuss the important and challenging issues around art making, arts related employment positions such as curatorial and collections, among others. By providing the space for these ideas to be shared, the interconnectivity between the artistic process of realizing works and the more logistical concerns of artist representation, sustainability and ultimately survival are raised.

Art Jakarta provided diverse representations of a range of artistic mediums from notable artists and galleries from Asia and Europe. One of the works on view was from the artist Kemal Ezedine who participated in “10 for 10” which was a curated section of the fair. This was a space dedicated to the display of 10 Indonesian artists. In the work of Ezedine, multiple mediums were utilized, installed in an organic, larger than life scale, with vibrant coloring meshed with a range of muted tones. Because of the juxtaposition of the colors, the work is evocative of cycles between life and death, and how what existed once before can have an impact on what comes next. The organic flow of the work is reminiscent of a river or a timeline.

Another work "Strategy no. 5, Wall of Memories" by artist Meliantha Muliawan provides another glimpse into contemplation on time and life itself. The painting compositionally has dimensionality created through the application of a rippled fabric affixed on the left side of the work, giving it an air of whimsy. The draped fabric is evocative of a curtain, which equally reveals and conceals spaces and circumstances. On the right half of the composition are indentations. Inside these spaces are small objects. Upon closer examination of these miniature spaces, a beverage bottle, a cartoon bird, and red sphere object can be identified.

For more information including archival materials, press releases for the 2018 edition, and lists of artists and galleries that participated in Art Jakarta 2018, click here.