One question endures since the beginning of humanity’s journey to try to understand reality: Is the exteriority of reality parallel with its interiority? It turns out that there has never been any certain answer to the question and in this exhibition Entang Wiharso is still dwelling on the question.

Early on, when painters were still passionately creating landscape paintings, experts on aesthetics were sure the beauty of the landscape was a symptom of reality’s exteriority. Should beauty create some transcendental experience, it would then open the “window” to the interiority of reality. This glimpse of the interiority would enable human consciousness to find the order of nature which would eventually show the greatness of the Creator. Such a belief maintained that there were parallels between the exteriority and the interiority of reality; “inside” a beautiful and ideally formed body there was vitality or the energy that propels humankind’s willingness to live.

People started to question such beliefs when further analysis on human beings showed that not all dimensions of human life followed this order of nature. Psychiatry found out, for example, that behind the persona (or the social face, which is the exterior we use in order to communicate) there was the personality, which contained anti-social characteristics. Personality is influenced by impulses from the human subconscious and these impulses are an animal trait that has been suppressed by traditions and moral norms.

The belief in the parallels between the exteriority and the interiority of reality was further corroded when observed reality included social reality. Behind the glamorous life of the bourgeoisie during the nineteenth century, for example—the time when art was given the frame of High Art—a corrupt morality turned out to be flourishing. It is common knowledge today that behind celebrations of democracy, there lurk some corrupt political traditions.

Since last year, Entang Wiharso has been re-analyzing the relationship between the exteriority and interiority of reality. Certainly he does not believe that the exteriority of reality simply runs parallel with its interiority. The question that bothers him is, if there is no parallel between the two, is there any contradiction—and if the relationship shows no contradictions, what, then, does the relationship show?

Through his paintings, Entang Wiharso questions the reality of the chaos that he believes is a symptom on the exteriority of reality. It is no coincidence that he refers to reality’s exterior as “landscape.” He consciously returns to the philosophy of the past where the parallel between the exteriority and the interiority of reality was still intensively questioned.

Entang Wiharso is a painter who, during the early days of his career, questioned the psychological clash between the personal urges he experienced and communal norms, particularly traditional and religious norms. In the early nineties, Entang changed his artistic explorations. Like many other Indonesian artists at the time, Entang felt the urge to question the social reality and the political condition of Indonesia under Soeharto’s regime, which had been in power for more than thirty years.

Entang watched how the politics of repression were put into practice. He observed Indonesia’s chaotic social life where corruption was the norm and democracy an outcast. He saw how skyscrapers stood side-by-side with slums and shanties made up of discarded materials and cardboard. He became a part of an urban life where the rich and the extremely rich lived in the same space with the dirt-poor grassroots. Along with many other Indonesian artists, he wondered what kind of order was represented by such social reality.

Entang’s paintings did not go as far as putting forward social commentary. They did, however, show provocative expressions of emotions. Entang is a painter with the ability to record the chaos and terror of reality and represent it with almost the same intensity of terror.

Eventually a change took place. In the mid nineties, Entang Wiharso lived and worked in the United States. All of a sudden, he faced an entirely different social reality. This social reality seemed to demonstrate an order that valued tidiness, fairness and even prosperity. Faced with such a situation, Entang wondered whether this order was due to a balanced individual and social consciousness.

This question then lead to another question: Is there any group life in the United States of America? Naturally, the question arose under the influence of stereotypical images of the US in the non-Western world, which portrays Western society as highly individualistic.

In his efforts to understand American group life, Entang turned to communication iconography. He particularly observed superheroes such as Superman and also antiheroes broadcast on TV, such as Bart Simpson. It was not difficult for him to find communication theories that describe and talk about various reflections of American society in the stories of the superheroes and antiheroes on television.

The paintings he made during his stay in the U.S. in Providence, Rhode Island reveal his efforts comparing the two different societies: his own, in Indonesia and American society. In this endeavor, he used his memories about social reality in Indonesia. He took icons from the various myths and traditional beliefs in Indonesia and arranged them side-by-side with the superheroes he was watching on American television.

Entang returned to Indonesia at the end of the nineties, close to the fall of the Soeharto’s regime in May 1998. Entang watched how the political reforms were implemented and how they immediately affected various aspects of life. Like most Indonesians, he hoped that political reform would bring changes on social, economic and political levels. He was not alone when hoping that some order in Indonesian group life would come to be, the kind of order he had seen in the U.S. He was not alone, again, when he was disappointed.

Amid the atmosphere of reform, Entang found many facts that showed how chaos would simply not end. He watched the tyranny of the masses, which brought not only courage for the people to stand up for their rights through demonstrations, but also mass violence, as revealed in the killings of pickpockets caught in the markets. Entang watched, too, the unsavory practices and political squabbles used to get hold of power. All the while, the law remained limp. Even in this atmosphere of reform, the law could not touch the fallen regime, which made use of the bloody chaos to remain in power.

Entang was shattered and had the impression that the social-political reality of his land revealed chaos. In this shattered condition, Entang Wiharso was moved to try to understand reality by asking what lay beyond this reality. Is it true that behind chaos there also lurks a chaotic soul? The question then led him to the search for the relationship between the exteriority and interiority of reality.

Entang did not try to enter the chaotic interior of the social-political reality. Instead he took an interesting route. He felt that his life, which had been dominated by the power of the Soeharto’s regime, was a part of the chaotic reality. Thus, he was also a reflection of the reality’s exterior that he was observing. He was therefore sure that by entering his personal world, he could also enter the interiority of the reality that he had been observing. In this way, Entang felt he could examine the relationship between the exteriority and interiority of reality.

The decision resulted in works that show personal matters, revealed through personal symbols. These symbols contain the signs, icons and metaphors that Entang believes link his personal symbols with social and political reality. Although he doesn’t say explicitly how the link is to be viewed, explained and read, Entang hopes that his personal symbols will also carry some social meaning.

His solo exhibition at the National Gallery in Jakarta in May 2001 revealed this tendency. The exegesis of the various critiques and reviews of the show in Jakarta reveal that his exhibition entitled "Nusa Amuk" (A Nation in Amok) is seen as Entang Wiharso’s endeavor to represent social and political reality in his land. Some of the critiques and reviews even called his images “social commentary.”

What the critiques and reviews ignored was the fact that Entang did not want to represent specifically the Indonesian social reality. His images were not a social commentary. Entang’s motivation to distrust the reality of his country moved him to try to place the social-political reality on some abstract level. His personal symbols did not reveal a relationship between “him” and Indonesian social reality, but between “him” and “social reality” as an ontological symptom.

Therefore, representations in his work theoretically reveal some decontextualizing processes. Entang tries to assert that the substance of social reality is everywhere the same. The difference lies only on the exterior while in its interior all social reality contains not only order, but also chaos and domination—ideas behind Cultural Studies which believe that domination and repression exist everywhere and are linked with one-another.

This belief — although it was never revealed as some explicit consciousness — was obvious in Entang’s works prepared for his solo exhibition in 2003 in the United States.

As an artist who had once worked in Providence, Entang was invited by the Rhode Island Foundation to exhibit work at the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery in January 2003. In the work prepared for this exhibition, it was apparent that Entang was trying to explore his personal world, which he believed to be the interiority of Indonesian social-political reality. The efforts moved him to use even more personal symbols, many of which were based on some highly personal matters, although he used signs and icons to express them.

When the works were about to be exhibited at the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery under the theme of Hurting Landscape: Between Two Lines, Entang encountered a problem. One of his painting, Portrait in the Gold Rain (2003) was called into question and then censored. The painting depicted a squatting figure with a white circle surrounded by blood-red color under the figure’s buttocks. This was thought to be vulgar and carry some sexual meaning.

The censorship was surprising as it was unusual in the U.S. A local news weekly, The Providence Phoenix¹, wrote, “After growing up in the repressive climate of Indonesia, internationally exhibited painter Entang Wiharso never expected to encounter an episode of censorship in Rhode Island.” Entang refused to be censored and with the urging of various parties in the Rhode Island art community, Entang cancelled his exhibition at the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery.

Some curators and artists who also opposed the censorship took Entang’s exhibition to Monohasset Mills, an exhibition space located not far from the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery. The exhibition Hurting Landscape: Between Two Lines eventually took place in this space in February 2003.

During the exhibition, a discussion was held on the topic of why censorship happens. Other American artists who had also encountered episodes of censorship came to the discussion. The question was naturally raised as to why Entang’s painting, Portrait in the Gold Rain was censored. No conclusions could be reached however about why the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery refused to exhibit the work, particularly because the reason for the censorship seemed to be irrational.

Entang Wiharso’s exhibition, "Sublime Tunnel", at CP Artspace in Jakarta in August 2004 tries, in part, to answer the question raised in that discussion. The exhibition showcases new works by Entang Wiharso created after the Providence incident. The work reveals Entang’s reflections over the course of more than one year.

The exhibition "Sublime Tunnel" does not seek any sure answer as to why Entang’s exhibition at the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery was censored as there might also be other reasons behind the censorship aside from the reasons that can be read within the artistic discourse. The exhibition "Sublime Tunnel" tries to analyze some aspects of Entang Wiharso’s work that might not be understood and thus have caused the censorship.

The matter that immediately comes up in relation to the censorship episode are the barriers which codes and context can create and that can turn out to be impenetrable. In Entang’s case, the strong linkage of his personal symbols with an Indonesian context and with codes of Indonesian society and traditions clearly had an impact. The curator of the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery was faced with an inability to decode and understand Entang’s symbols.

The belief that art works are an open text (a belief that is often written about and discussed) means the symbols in Entang’s works were eventually read. This reading could not escape the influence of the background, perception and even the application of the American context onto the paintings, as Entang was viewed as an Indonesian artist who had worked in the United States. This resulted in a changed meaning, and, inescapably, the interpretations opened up various possibilities for the meaning of the work. These meanings broke free from Entang Wiharso’s works and entered a “space” that was very much influenced by its conditions.

The readings of Entang’s work created tension as Entang used icons with obvious meanings in the US, in order to represent his personal symbols. He used, among others, the teddy bear—an icon which in the United States was created based on the story of President Theodore Roosevelt’s effort to save a bear from the threat of a forest fire. The reading of Entang’s personal symbols, therefore, could not escape the iconography that is popularly known in the U.S. Accidents thus happened: the meaning of Entang’s personal symbols were then read as offensive.

The tension became high due to the provocative emotional expressions (images) in Entang’s work. The expressions intensified the misreading. The emotional expressions, in fact, were actually based on some entirely different matters; the challenges of Entang’s journey searching for the relationship between the exteriority and interiority of reality.

The relationship between Entang’s personal symbols and social reality in Indonesia makes the representations in Entang’s work reveal restless and provocative emotions. The expression of emotion depicted in Entang’s work is the last trace of Entang’s commitment to talk about social reality. This relationship between his personal symbols and Indonesian social reality make it impossible for Entang’s work to be fully read as an open text.

It turns out that not all of Entang Wiharso’s work in the exhibition "Hurting Landscape: Between Two Lines" reveal provocative expressions. Some of the work shows sublime expressions. This is what the Rhode Island Foundation Gallery did not consider when judging Entang’s work. The discussion questioning the censorship of Entang’s Portrait in the Gold Rain also failed to examine this tendency, and thus was trapped in discussing art politics.

Entang’s work in the exhibition "Hurting Landscape: Between Two Lines" shows two types of expression: sublime expression and provocative expression of emotion—no matter which symbols he uses. The two types of expression are the poles of tensions that surface from Entang’s efforts in searching for the relationship between the exteriority and interiority of reality.²

In aesthetic theories, sublimation is believed to be an effort of “the self” to erase the traces of having been terrorized by the repressing reality outside. In the aesthetic theories, sublimation is said to give birth to an expression that turns pain not into a pleasant feeling, but into a pain that loses its ability to terrorize.

In Entang’s case, efforts to erase the traces of having been terrorized by reality can be seen in his attitude when facing the “bombardment” of the oppressing chaos. His work shows more of the expression of emotions that are restless and provocative, signifying that he does not erase the traces of the chaos but instead use these signs as an idiom by deconstructing their images and structures. It is in the deconstructing process that sublime expression arises.

In the "Sublime Tunnel" exhibition, Entang Wiharso consciously tries to develop his sublime expressions. In the past, provocative emotional expressions and sublime expressions surfaced equally strongly, as in his works where Entang consciously wanted to portray social reality. Therefore, he limited the sublime process that actually took place and pushed strongly forward as he was working. Now Entang realizes that by letting the sublime process take place in his creative process, the social reality, the bitterness and the pain in his work are not lost.

Entang’s work in "Sublime Tunnel" — paintings and large-scale sculptures, spatial sculptures and video art—show that he has succeeded in developing his sublime expressions. The works with sublime expressions not only show an artistic breakthrough, they also reveal Entang’s reflections and meditations on the controversy he experienced in the U.S. The problems he experienced helped him to fight the destructive process on “the self” and this allowed the images in his work to become less forceful and provocative in portraying terrors.

Entang finally finds the relationship between the exteriority and the interiority of reality that he has been looking for. The search for this intricate relationship is none other than a reflection of the reality inside and outside the self. There is a “window” to the interiority of reality that Entang has found by exploring inside himself. This window is the “spiritual window.” By seeing reality through this window, Entang manages to feel a sublime process. When he depicts this feeling in his work, he feels he must stop seeking order.

Jim Supangkat
Curator

¹ The Providence Phoenix, January 17, 2003.
² Sarah Agniel in the foreword of the exhibition catalogue of Hurting Landscape: Between Two Lines actually mentioned this possibility.

back to top ^