Jakarta - S. Sudjojono (1913-1986) was Indonesia‘s first fine arts critic. This father of modern Indonesian fine arts once wrote in his seminal book, Painting, the Art and the Artists, (1946) that art critics should position themselves between the artists and the public.
S. Sudjojono then continued by saying that a critic must be able feel the soul of the painting or work created by the artist. Without this empathy, a critic would only confuse the public and slow down the development of arts in general. Sudjojono‘s career as a critic showed that he practiced what he preached.
Those who want to be art critics, Sudjojono said, have the right to lay fault with the techniques or idea of an artist only if they are able to directly point out where the mistakes lie and what could have been done to avoid those mistakes. Therefore, a critic must act independently because he does not represent any specific interest.
What Sudjojono was trying to make people realize was that the role of critics, as well as artists, was to help define a new kind of Indonesian art, a more modern kind, one that was still foreign to the way the public thought in the 1940s. The purpose of Sudjojono‘s awareness was to expand the configuration, to create new strategic arenas that would push for creation and innovation. Sudjojono realized that outsiders were needed to fill in the gaps. Critics then became a new modern necessity charged with the responsibility of placing meaning and worth in the new emerging arena of modern art. In Sudjojono‘s time, there was very little awareness of the need for critics to stand between the artist and the public. Back then, it could be said that the social arena of Indonesian fine arts was still very basic and in the process of being defined. Besides painting, it was then Sudjojono himself who filled the position of art critic. It was not until the 1950s that more people began to be art critics. *** There is one basic problem facing those who want to discuss art criticism in this country: the inconsistency in the usage of the term "critic", which in turn, begins to blur the meaning of the word. The symptoms began to appear in the 1980s. Replacing the term were various titles such as: fine arts observer, art spectator, art activist, independent curator, art motivator, art lover, art practitioner, art worker, art writer, art watcher, art reviewer etc.
When in 1988 Sudjoko suggested the term art critic be replaced with art reviewer and art criticism be replaced with art reviews, he argued that the Western term of critic had a different meaning in the Indonesian vernacular. Sudjoko believed the term "criticism" had an overtly threatening connotation to it. And that connotation is what caused the blurring and confusion of meaning when the term was used here.
Sudjoko‘s idea is worth appreciating even though it might not be too agreeable to some people. The transition from critic to reviewer gave birth to a certain passivity among critics. This passivity only served to widen the gap between the public and the artists. From this perspective it could be said that an art observer, reviewer, researcher watcher, or devourer stands from a far too distant vantage point. People with those titles no longer stood up front to welcome new phenomena in art, they simply sat and dissected it alone in a room somewhere. Critics, on the other hand, must be more active.
Efforts to find artistic terms that were not rooted in foreign languages did not stop with the term "critic". These efforts have touched the term of "art" itself. To me, the efforts to nationalize these western terms create a whole new unidentified area. It seems that in its more local transformation, the term "critic" excludes the person from being directly involved in matters of art. Maybe, it is the negative connotation contained in the term that makes critics seem reluctant to call themselves critics.
The pragmatic implication is that these replacement terms place the critics in a risk-free zone and help them to psychologically hide themselves from the public. By creating these replacement terms, the situation seems to make critics appear to be neutral, or free from judgment. When in reality, a critic must take the side of innovation and development in arts, and the side of truth itself. Critics who try to remain "neutral" by changing their monikers often tend to pussyfoot around and stay silent when polemics occur in the world of art. On the other hand, this neutrality allows the critic to be loyal to certain artists and galleries. And this is clearly unhealthy.
A critic must be ready to accept all risks, including being the opposition to market power, galleries, museums, or even to certain art institutes. In some cases, an art critic must be able to cast nationalism and local cultural tradition in order to create an entirely objective vantage point. This is what S. Sudjojono had been trying to plant into our minds since 1939.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com (23 Oktober 2007)
