Publications

Publication details [#50996]

Rath, Amanda Katherine. 2022. Constructions of ‘Indonesian-ness’ in Modern Art and Artistic Identity in a Politically Fraught Terrain during the 1950s. INContext 2 (1) : 141–166.
Publication type
Article in jnl/bk
Publication language
English

Abstract

After four years of physical struggle and diplomacy, Indonesia’s independence was officially recognized, and its sovereignty transferred on 27 December 1949. While protracted struggle and sacrifice to obtain independence had galvanised the people around an idea of Indonesia, this shared experience and political victory could not provide the sole points of reference for the social and cultural transformation necessary to engender national unity. This article engages three conflicting yet ultimately overlapping arguments and positions, each one positing a modern artistic subjectivity and perspectives of an Indonesian modern art. Regardless of their ideological differences, the positions discussed here share a common commitment to the nation and its future, and the conviction that the revolution remained incomplete — having achieved its political but not its social and cultural aims. Rath argues a construct of artistic subjectivity in which connotations of truth and authenticity are posited as aspects of a specific aesthetic identification within the discourse and construction of Indonesianness. Media and mediation played key roles in the dissemination of such arguments of modern artistic subjectivity.
Source : Based on abstract in journal