Heidi Leanne Arbuckle (2001)

 Why have there been no great Indonesian women art critics?

Heidi Leanne Arbuckle

In 1973, set amit the height of second wave feminism, renown feminist artist and scholar, Linda Nochlin, proffered the question;’Why have there been no great women artist?’¹ Her question, which intended to spark debate rather than bemoan the apparent lack of ‘great’ women artist, is often considered the precedent for the genesis of feminist art history in America. Nochlin, although not the first to look at art from a political and historical perspective, offered a different theoretical approach to the feminist before her. Consecuently, Nochlin identified that part of the reason why there had been no ‘great’ women artist was not necessarily located in women’s artwork itself, but rather, in art history discourse, and the criteria it precludes. Thus Nochlin concluded that the ‘great’ artist could only be a white, middle-class. Male subject.

In Indonesia today, it would be farcical to pose the same question Nochlin did same thirty years ago. Aside from the fact that we are stilling battling to include the ‘other’ in reconstructing what might define a ‘great’ artist, it is evident that Indonesian women have had distinguished careers as artist. Dolorosa Sinaga’s two-decade retrospective exhibition is testimony to this achievement. My aim here, however, is not to prove and hence defend the possibility of ‘great’ women artist in Indonesia. Rather, it is one that oscillates between women artistic practice and theory. I am interested in how Indonesuan women are being written into art historical discourse, by whom, and in what context. So my question, like Nochlin’s, assumes the position of devil’s advocate, but asks never the less; ‘why have there been no great Indonesian women art critics?’

As ‘authenticity in academic writing has come under fire more recently, I feel obliged to attempt to justify my own position in relation to the subject of this paper. By this I mean, how can I, as a middle-class women of European descent, expect to write critically about Indonesian women artists and discourse? As I can already hear alarm bells ringing in people’s ears as they read the opening paragraph in this paper; quoting an American feminist and events that essentially refer to the particular and more privileged circumstances of the development of American feminist art history. So before I go any further, I want to acknowledge a body of literature that critiques the pereceived hegemony of ‘western’ feminist theory (and its presumed first world, heterosexual, white, middle-class subject), but argue against binary distinction between first-world/ third-world, or western/ Asian feminism.

In fact the purpose of this paper, in many ways, is to argue against any feminism that constructs essentialist notions of women, or gender separatism. I don’t claim, as many feminists do, that my position as a woman provides me with the legitimacy to speak on other women’s behalf – a position that might be arguably more advantageous than a number of Indonesian male ‘pemerhati perempuan’ and feminis laki-laki.² Nor would I want draw some sort of trans-national class solidarity with other Indonesian women artist – a majority of whom, like myself, are middle-class. Similiary, I do pretend to be an authority on Indonesian art discourse or history. Rather, as Edward Said has claimed (in his context the unforced exile), I hope that my own ‘outsider’ position can simply offer an ‘originality of vision’.³ I this sense, I hope that the merits (rather than the weaknesses) of critical distance can contribute to the existing body of art critical and historical writing about women and Indonesian art discourse. This is, I think my only salvation in order to rescue myself from the coffers of what could potentially be accusations of post-colonial bias, or even worse, feminist delusion.

This brings me back to my own question of ‘great’ Indonesian women art critics. As I mentioned earlier, I am not basing my proposition on any kind or relative absence (in contrast to male art critics) of contributions by Indonesian women to art critical discourse. Although, one could easily mount this kind of argument – using some of the regional (and perhaps international) art exhibitions, and the art critical contributions which have accompanied them. As an as anecdote only, I will refer to just one instance, the more recent Text and Subtext Contemporary Art and Asian Women, perhaps one of the most comperehensif exhibitions in its field to date. Text and Subtext presented a diverse array of women’s artwork from Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Australia, Japan, England, Indonesia, India, and Singapore, with an equally substantial collection of art critical discourse in the catalogue that complemented the exhibition. Each participating country had up to or three women artists, academics, and historians contribute to this emerging (and by every means questionable) discourse on Asian women’s contemporary art practice, Indonesia (and India) was the only exception to this, and was represented by one of its renowned male art critics as the prime contributor to this ‘women-centred’ discourse.⁴

But the seeming absence of art critical contributions by Indonesian women can be deceiving. In the case of India, the lack of a female voice in this particular catalogue says nothing about the place of women’s critical writing in that country. Indeed, India has a number of qualified female art historians and critics who publish internationally, such as Geeta Kapur and Gayatri Sinha. And in Indonesia, we might offer a similar conclusion. Of my own limited reading in this area I could name a number of Indonesian women whose art critical and art historical writings I have enjoyed – Setianingsih Purnomo, Carla Bianpoen, Hilda Soemantri and Omi Intan Naomi are among them – and of course there are others.

So the answer to the question I am posing (if indeed there is an answer) is not necessarily located specifically within women’s critical writing. It seems feasible then, to suggest that any reasonable analysis of women’s artistic practice and critique in Indonesia, needs to engage the construction of dominant (and predominately malestream) art history discourse in Indonesia and elsewhere. Of course, to attempt this in any satisfactory way exceeds the parameters of this short catalogue paper, but never the less, I would like to review some of the current theoretical contributions, persued by both men and women writers and scholars, which from part of an Indonesian body of literature. I will focus on literature that exemplifies a women-centred approach, and try and show how they demonstrate two broad paradigms that have been central to feminist theory historically, that is, the paradigms of ‘equality’ and ‘difference’.

The paradigm of ‘equality’ was an approach persued by early feminists. It is exemplified in part by French feminist Simone de Beauvoir, who said that women’s main political objective is the demand for equality. Thus she advocated emancipation for women from a social and cultural perspective, so that women could gain the status of the first sex. Within paradigm of equality, early feminist studies aimed at recovering the histories of women, and rescuing individual women from obscurity by ‘adding them to the existing canon’. In Indonesia, the recovery of the histories of individual women is evident in the work of a number of scholars, and has culminated in important accounts of historical women artists such as Emiria Soenassa and Siti Roelijati Soewarjono.⁵

The paradigm of equality has another dimension, which finds it roots in radical feminist theory, and draws attention to the question of gender as an interpretative factor in determining what is desirable, valuable, or ‘true’. One of the most influential advocates of this approach was Kate Millet, who in 1970 authored Sexual Politics, her most frequently citied text which launched a critique of the representation of women in the (literary and visual) images produced by men. While I don’t with to categorise Indonesian literature on par with radical feminist theory that originate in oteher parts of the world, there are a number of Indoneisan texts that advocate a ‘woman-centred’ content approach because of what is perceived as a ‘male-centred’ history of art.

Among Indonesian literature, art historians and scholars such as Supangkat and Joedawinata 1998; Dermawan T. 1999; Marianto 2000; Auwy 2001,­⁶ have made inroads at attempting to reconcile a biased historical record, and acknowledge the work of Indonesian women artists. Marianto (2000: 145) states ‘it is important to write about Indonesian women artists in order to address the imbalance of Indonesian’s  written art history’, and Supangkat & Joedawinata (1998: 25) reconfirm ‘it is not easy for female artists (wherever they are) to be acknowledged because the paradigm of developments that take place in the male art world’. Dermawan T (1999: 17), goes even further to remind us of how this malestream artistic tradition (world-wide) has constructed women as an object of desire, and cities Basoeki Abdullah to characterize the Indonesian situation earlier in the 20^th century whereby, ‘perempuan itu lebih cocok untuk dilukis daripada sebagai pelukis’.

The afore mentioned Indonesian literature are valuable because of the contributions they make to recovering a history for women artists. Never the less there seems to be insufficient discussion about how the work of these women should be situated historically. In this sense , should the recovery of women’s work be posited within the canon of dominant art history discourse, or as a separate women’s history? On this point, my own ‘outsider’ position is an obstacle to knowing whether there has been any significant discussion about this, and thus I can only infer from individual texts I have citied. Thus Marianto (2000: 139) opens with, ‘This article presents a version of Indonesian modern art history. That is, the history of woman artists’. And Supangkat and Joedawinata 91998: 25-26) state:

‘The gathering together of women artists consciously ignores the paradigm of the development in Indonesian art and also the paradigm of the development of art elsewhere. Because of that, it is irrelevant, for example, to ask if this exhibit(ion) is a modern or contemporary art exhibit(ion). It is also irrelevant to ask if this exhibit(ion) shows a certain development of Indonesian art or not… it is as if all of the tendencies in this exhibition have cut off relations with artistic discourse everywhere and have changed to become a tool of communications for the expression of feelings, representations and opinions concerning the spiritual life and experiences of women, which are not always specifivally Indonesian, because many women’s issues are universal in character.’

Evidently, both these analyses tend to separate women’s artistic practice from the dominant male tradition (or from the second example – the development of all art elsewhere), and instead, focus on the work of individual women artists. This approach resembles the work of difference-minded feminists who devote their energies to the writing of a women’s history of art, and the nostalgic reassertion of an essential ‘feminine’ identity. Inadvertently, the ‘feminine’ signifies a kind of universal spiritualism that assigns an innate value to women’s bodies and claims that women possess a privileged affinity to nature and peace. Similiary, there is the assumption that a ‘feminine’ consciousness is the only means of saving society from masculine rationality and aggression. Thus Supangkat and Joedawinata (1998: 41) conclude their article with ‘perhaps femininity will save the earth from the destruction of the environment and civilization after wiping out male ideology and the trail of Genghis Khan’.

The point here however, is that by failing to question the relation between gender and the mechanisms of women’s exclusion from the canon, malestream art history is left largely undisputed (and in other cases has led the construction of a separate female canon). The importance of attributing causality is emphasised in the work of feminist historian Joan Scott (1986)⁷ who states ‘it has not been enough for historians of womens to prove either that women had a history or that women participated in major political upheavals. In the case of women’s history, the response of most non-feminist historians has been acknowledgement and then separation or dismissal (‘women had a history separate from men’s, therefore let feminists do women’s history, which need not concern us”)’.

It is interesting to note how difference minded theory manifests at the level of praxis. As mentioned previously, feminist difference theorists sought to retrace a specifically women’s history, and attempted to define a feminine/ist aesthetics. At a praxis level, this included the establishment of women’s artistic groups and caucuses, training programs, artistic media and publications, and exhibition/performance spaces. In Indonesia, I aware of variable debate on at least one of these issues, in particular, the issue of exclusive spaces for the exhibition of women’s artwork. While I cannot elaborate on the origins of such debate, I want to refer to a discussion topic that emerged from an artist-run gallery in Yogyakarta, July 2001. The accompanying exhibition titled ‘HERstory’, (a term which emulates many of the assumptions made by difference –minded feminists), offered the discussion topic: ‘Do we need a Women’s Gallery?’ Consequently, the press release for this discussion suggests ‘in various developed countries, galleries for women are known to the public, and even in Bali this kind of gallery already exists’ (Rain Rosidi 2001).

I cannot report on the outcome of this discussion as I did not attend it. However what is of interest here are the reasons motivating the proposed need (or not) for a women’s gallery. In this sense, does this proposition emerge from a feeling of disenchantment among women towards their access to galleries (or any other artistic infrastructure) ini Indonesia? Or is it because, as quoted, Bali an ‘various developed countries’ have them? I can only make two points based on first , my own discussions with Indonesian women artists, and second, my understanding of the experiences of women in ‘various developed countries’, because I think they reveal two very different outcomes.

Of my own limited discussion with women artists in Indonesia, there is little, if any, feeling of marginalisation from artistic infrastructure. On the contrary, a number of women studying and practicing art in Yogyakarta refer to the practice whereby women are included in an exhibition as a token gesture to signify ‘gender awareness’ or what they metaphorically referred to as making an exhibition ‘harum’ (which could consequently refer to a different kind of gender discrimination). Never the less, this might not be the case for Indonesian women in other artistic centres, and it may not be the experience of women who are not recognized artists.

Similiary, in regard to the various movements in ‘developed countries’ to establish all women’s galleries, this has been in practice from the 1970s up until now. Groups such as the Guerilla Girls in the United States have engaged a variety of agit-prop tactics to try and reverse what they see as ongoing, not only gender, but racial and class discrimination in the curatorial practices of mainstream galleries and museums throughout the United States. However I think it is important to remember that their grievances are based on their own historical circumstances, which find their roots in the more specific development of modernism inAmerican artistic discourse, rather than any perceived Indonesian reality.

This paper, deliberately, has raised more questions and assumptions than it has attended to answering. In part, this is because I feel that I am not in a position to accomplish this, and also because I think there is room for further debate. Of course, the question of why have there been no great Indonesian women art critics was not intended literary. Rather, I hoped that it could provide a useful starting point to emphasise the need to unmask and expose the romantic, elitist, individual-glorifying, malestream tendencies of art historical discourse. But in order to do this, we need to go further than simply trying women through descriptive or essentialist analyses, and start to analyse what role gender plays in the construction of historical significance.

¹Nochlin, Linda (1973) ‘Why have there been no great women artists?’ in V.Gornick an B.Moran (eds) Women in Sexiest Society: Studies in Power and Powerlessness, New York.

²i find these terms intriguing not because I doubt that men can be feminists, or that I am advocating the exclusion of males from women’s issues. Rather, I think it is more useful to think of these terms not directly in regard to what they infer about men, but rather in the context of what they tell us about women.

³Said, E. (1984) ‘Reflections on Exile’ in Granta vol.13 Autumn.

⁴M. Dwi Marianto (2000) ‘Recognising New Pillars in the Indonesian Art World’ Text and Subtext: Contemporary Art and Asian Women, Lasalle-Sia: Singapore.

⁵Soemantri, H. ‘Emiria Soenassa: Mother of Indonesian’s Female Modern Artists’ in Dari Mooi Indie hingga Persagi: Universitas Pelita Harapan, pp.47-48 and Soedarsono, SP (2000) ‘Gaung Gender di Balik Karya Seni Perempuan: Kasus Seni Rupa’ in Ekspresi: Dari Bias Lelaki Menuju Kesetaraan Gender, Edisi 1, Tahun 1, Lembaga Penelitian, ISI Yogyakarta, pp.83-91.

⁶Supangkat, J, and Joedawinata, S.A. (1998) ‘Curatorial Introduction: To a Goddess Unknown’, in Women in the Realm of Spirituality: Art Exhibition by Sixteen Indonesian Women Artists, National Gallery Jakarta & Pontifical University, Rome; Marianto, D. (2000) ‘Recognising New Pillars in the Indonesian Art World’, in Binghui Huangfu (ed.), Text & Subtext: Contemporary Art and Asian Women, Singapore: Lasalle-Sia College of the Arts; Dermawan T,A. (1999) ‘Kreasi Wanita dalam Manifestasi Anita’ in Perspectif Perempuan 9999, Taman Budaya Taman Budaya Yogyakarta, 9-15 September 1999.

⁷Scott, J. (1986) ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’ in American Historical Review, 91 (4): 1053-75.