A Year of Puzzling Art
A year ago, Rizki Zaelani, a curator, coined the new term ‘a discourse market’ (TEMPO, May 17, 1999). This phrase marked the hustle and bustle of fine arts and cultural discourse in coloring the development of fine arts in Indonesia. Last October, Suwarno Wisetrotomo, a critic, introduced another term, ‘a market discourse,’ when commenting on a story in TEMPO’s October 17, 2000 edition on a network of painting forgeries, price mark-ups through auction centers and so-called ‘BMW artists.’ After their separate developments over a decade, the two ‘markets’ showed signs of contact in 2000.
December 26, 2000
In February and March 2000, the discourse market was highlighted by two events in Jakarta: Outward Bound, American Art at The Brink of The Twenty First Century, an exhibition held at the Taman Ismail Marzuki, and The Jakarta International Performance Art Festival (JIPAF) at Theater Utan Kayu.
Outward Bound was a US art exhibition that traveled to a number of Asian countries and was handled by noted curator Eric Gibson, while Japanese artist Seij
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