A Troubled Vernacular: Legibility and Presence in Indonesian Activist Art

Abstract

Activist art and political resistance became popular aesthetics in the work of Indonesian artists after the fall of the New Order in 1998. In subsequent years, more art alternatives have emerged in cities and small towns across Indonesia, including diverse and vernacular modes of artistry such as street art and community-based international festivals. Where artists formerly focused their energies on critiquing the state, present art initiatives have become far more diffuse, counter-establishment, and localized in their approach. Local artists started the Jogja mural movement to rebrand Yogyakarta as a city of murals, while Jatiwangi Art Factory, an arts collective founded in a semiindustrialized village in West Java, has become a haven for performance arts and community-based projects for Indonesians and foreign artists in residence. This article looks at such experiments of legibility and presence as a new means of redefining publics and broadening the domain of political participation in Indonesia.

Coastal Settlements and Javanese Vernacular Art: A Historical and Cultural Analysis of Damar Kurung Gresik in Indonesia

“…However, contemporary curators and academics now appreciate vernacular art for its aesthetic quality, authenticity, and cultural significance. To appreciate vernacular art is also to acknowledge the diversity and creativity of marginalized communities, as emphasized by Lee (2015).…”