Ambitious
Alignments

New Histories of
Southeast Asian Art,
1945–1990
Ambitious Alignments:
New Histories of Southeast Asian Art,
1945–1990
Edited by Stephen H Whiteman,
Sarena Abdullah, Yvonne Low
and Phoebe Scott
First published in Australia in 2018
by Power Publications and
National Gallery Singapore
Power Publications
Power Institute Foundation for
Art and Visual Culture
University of Sydney
NSW 2006 Australia
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© Power Publications and the
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Cover: Protest messages against
recommendations of the Wang Gungwu
Curriculum Review Committee, written
on the wall of Nanyang University
(Nantah) in Jurong, 22 November 1965.
Ministry of Information and the Arts
Collection, courtesy of National Archives
of Singapore.
Ambitious
Alignments
New Histories of
Southeast Asian Art,
1945–1990

Edited by
Stephen H Whiteman
Sarena Abdullah
Yvonne Low
Phoebe Scott

Power Publications and

National Gallery Singapore
 Contents
vi Notes to readers

1 Aligning New Histories of Southeast Asian Art

Phoebe Scott, Yvonne Low, Sarena Abdullah, and Stephen H Whiteman

Part 1 Art for the Nation

19 ‘The Work the Nation Depends On’:

Landscapes and Women in the Paintings of Nhek Dim
Roger Nelson
49 Strategic Modernism:
The Architecture of hsh Prince Vodhyakara Varavarn and
Modern Thailand in Transition, 1950s–1960s
Chomchon Fusinpaiboon

Part 2 Circulation and Internationalism

83 The Politics of Friendship:

Modern Art in Indonesia’s Cultural Diplomacy, 1950–65
Brigitta Isabella
107 Circulating Abstraction:
Exhibiting Hong Kong in Manila, 1961–82
Michelle Wong
 

Part 3 Contested Topographies

139 Place of Learning:

The Contested Cultural Topographies of Nanyang University
and The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Simon S Y Soon
165 Re-Establishing the Kingdom:
Anti-Communist Monuments in the Thai Highlands
Thanavi Chotpradit

Part 4 Trauma and Affect

199 Aesthetics of Silence:

Exploring Trauma and Indonesian Paintings After 1965
Wulan Dirgantoro
225 Embodied Subjectivities:
Accounts of Affect in Lani Maestro’s Site-Specific Work,
1970s–1990s
Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez

Part 5 Defining ‘Art’ in Southeast Asia

259 Beyond Reality:

Locating the Sur-Real in Thai Photography
Clare Veal
291 Painting Through the Cheroot Haze:
Censorship of Female Artists in Socialist Burma, 1962–88
Melissa Carlson

323 Acknowledgements

324 Contributors

326 Index
 Ambitious Alignments

Notes to readers

The diverse cultures and wide

geography represented in this anthology
necessitate a measured approach to
the inclusion of original languages.
Wherever possible, original languages
vi have been provided for the names of
artists and less historically prominent
figures, artistic movements, groups
and societies, institutions and key
terms. Romanisations follow Library of
Congress recommendations, with some
adjustments made for the preferred
spelling of names. Original language
has not been included for well-known
political and royal figures, or for the most
commonly known political movements
or organisations.
Non-English bibliographical sources
have been ordered by surname and are
accompanied by original languages in
their traditional orders to assist scholars
with future research. Given the number
of languages across the volume, sources
have been listed after individual essays
to ensure greater readability. Archival
sources are included in endnotes, but not
in bibliographies, and formal interviews
are noted in endnotes where relevant to
the scholarship presented.
Life dates of figures are provided
where known.
The Politics of Friendship:
Modern Art in Indonesia’s
Cultural Diplomacy, 1950–65
Brigitta Isabella

At the heart of the Cold War conflict were the competing worldviews held by the
two blocs—Soviet communism and American capitalism. In a cultural context, this
tension played out as an ideological competition between socialist realism from the
Soviet Union and abstract expressionism from the United States. Art functioned as a
means to demonstrate political and intellectual achievement, and as such both blocs
funded exhibitions, travel grants and scholarships for cultural practitioners in non-
aligned states as a means of soft power.1 This paper considers artistic and exhibition
outcomes of cultural diplomacy in Indonesia under that government’s astute policy of
‘friendship’, which allowed both the government and artists to engage with—and also
work outside—the bounds of cultural propaganda.
Cold War ideological competition in Southeast Asia intersected with a
wave of decolonisation in the region, and this affected the character of diplomacy
established by both blocs.2 Aggressive attempts to sway emerging postcolonial states
were at times suspected as the return of imperialism, thus the rhetoric for Cold
War ideological battles was disguised under the affectionate term of ‘friendship’.
International funding from Cold War blocs to develop the fields of education, culture,
economy and infrastructure in Indonesia was promoted under the guise of ‘friendship
aid’, as can be seen in the pages of state-funded diplomatic embassy magazines such
as Negeri Sovyet (Soviet country) and Aneka Amerika (American miscellany). It is quite
plausible that the use of the word ‘friendship’ was chosen to avoid the word ‘ally’, a
politically laden term due to the build-up of global Cold War rivalry.

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 Circulation and Internationalism

Much attention has been paid to these ideological influences at the expense
of evaluating their critical reception and the diverse nature of individual artistic
expression. If we look beyond the influence of the superpowers’ visual vocabularies
to consider their critical reception on the ground, it is apparent that some artists
found ways not only to operate outside this sphere of influence, but also at times to
84 work in opposition to it.3
The first part of this essay will outline the strategies of US and Soviet
cultural diplomacy in Indonesia during the Cold War years from 1950 to 1965. Rather
than work within the strict framework of Cold War bipolarity, however, I will
explore the reciprocity between nationalism and internationalism, and examine
how Indonesian artists transcended ideological divides. I will then look at the traffic
of cultural exchange between Indonesia and the world that operated outside of the
influence of Cold War geopolitics. My approach follows that of Indian historian
Dipesh Chakrabarty, who has attempted to deconstruct Western historiography
from a postcolonial perspective by ‘provincializing Europe’.4 By focusing on the
complexities of Indonesian ‘friendship’ with US and Soviet blocs, as well as its
activities beyond, I hope to add to the plurality of cultural narratives that operate in
multiple centres and margins.

The Indonesian Context:

From ‘Free and Active’ to ‘Guided Diplomacy’
From the perspective of international relations, the notion of public diplomacy
focuses on cooperation between countries as a way to influence specific policies
that would benefit the interests of the respective countries. Cultural diplomacy
is one part of public diplomacy, implemented through the use of soft power and
with the aim of building foundations of trust by planting seeds of ideas, ideals and
ideologies with certain national images.5 Cultural diplomacy is often interpreted as
a euphemism for the term ‘propaganda’; however, the terms are intersecting rather
than interchangeable. The operational strategy of cultural diplomacy is seen as less
manipulative than propaganda, with the latter used by politicians as a means to
control the behaviour of individuals and the former allowing for greater agency from
the target audience.6
In order to appreciate the level of agency possible between Indonesia and
the world during the Cold War era, it is necessary to apply a postcolonial framework
when discussing minor powers outside the superpower blocs.7 Indonesia at this time
was in fact able to manipulate the superpowers in its attempts to expel colonial power,
while at the same time securing foreign aid from the Soviet Union and the United
The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

States to finance its own nation-building programs. The period from 1950 to 1965
in Indonesia was thus an important moment for the establishment of cultural links
between Indonesia and the international community. Indonesian artists were not
only creating what they imagined to be modern art, but they were also searching for
the best way to convey an image of their own national culture to the rest of the world.
This era reflected an intimate relationship between art, politics and nationalism; it
additionally coloured Indonesia’s experimentation with democracy, its economic
decline, regional separation, political factionalism and Cold War intervention.
Historians have often divided this period into two segments. The first,
1950–57, coincided with Indonesia’s constitutional democracy and a degree of political
freedom: a spirit of decolonisation, a desire for modernity and a will to build a new
nation formed the basis of Indonesian domestic and international politics.8 For
example, in April 1955, Indonesia hosted the Asian–African Conference (Konferensi
Asia Afrika [KAA], also known as the Bandung Conference). Sukarno (1901–1970),
Indonesia’s first president (1945–67), was very vocal in expressing the Asian and
African states’ collective commitment to remaining independent, openly stating
their refusal to take sides or join either bloc. The principle underlying Indonesia’s
foreign diplomacy was described as politik bebas aktif (free and active politics), which
advocated independence from the control of an international system of power and
an active engagement in global affairs.9 However, the ideal of a ‘free and active’
politics began to shift, particularly in the mid-1950s with the escalation of the dispute
over Western New Guinea (Papua) between Indonesia and its former coloniser, the
Netherlands. In 1956, for example, Indonesia was very much dependent on Soviet
aid for financing military operations in the territory. Indonesia’s inclination towards
the Soviet bloc became stronger when the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was
caught red-handed supporting the Universal Struggle Charter (Piagam Perjuangan
Semesta, or Permesta) rebellion in East Indonesia (1957–61).10 Suspicion and hostility
towards the United States peaked at this time; any artistic or cultural support from the
US government was construed as a mask for neo-imperialism.
During the second period (1959–65) Sukarno enforced demokrasi terpimpin
(guided democracy) as part of Indonesia’s political system, in an effort to stabilise
political factionalism among the army, and communist and Islamic groups. These
conflicts and tensions ended abruptly, however, on the night of 30 September 1965,
when six military generals were assassinated in an attempted coup. The Indonesian
Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, hereafter cited as PKI) was considered
fully responsible by the military, and their actions were countered by anti-communist
military forces led by General Suharto (1921–2008), who succeeded as the Indonesian
president in 1967. In the months that followed, a brutal massacre of communist and
leftist sympathisers took place in many areas of Indonesia.11 Artists and intellectuals

85
 Circulation and Internationalism

with leftist connections—perceived or actual—were hunted down, executed or

imprisoned without trial, in essence eliminating an entire generation of Indonesia’s
creative community and silencing the body of political imagination in art. Such a
devastating disruption to Indonesian art history overshadows the nuanced political
assertiveness that took place previously at both government and individual levels.
86 The United States was also viewed as responsible in part for this turn of events.12
Although 1965 was certainly an important watershed in Indonesian politics,
to see it as representing the peak of all conflict during the period has the danger of
simplifying the complexity of the country’s ideological struggles. In addressing this
issue, cultural historian Jennifer Lindsay writes that it is necessary

… to look at the tensions and conflicts of the 1950–1965 period not

backwards, from when they violently exploded in late 1965, but at the
time, or more precisely at various times over that 15-year period,
when people were looking forward, not backward.13

Lindsay argues that the period between 1950 and the early 1960s should be studied
on its own terms, and not retrospectively from a 1965 standpoint, so as to avoid a
scholarly bias regarding the ideological conflict of the era. This approach is necessary
if we are to move away from the portrayal of the entire 1950–65 period as a polarised
conflict of ‘Left’ versus ‘Right’. Within a cultural context, the dispute between the
signatories of the Cultural Manifesto (Manifes Kebudayaan, abbreviated as Manikebu)
and the leftist artists of the People’s Culture Organisation (Lembaga Kebudayaan
Rakyat, also known as LEKRA) was taken as the ultimate symbol of this battle between
the Left and Right.14 Such categorisations of the Manikebu versus LEKRA, Left versus
Right, pro-Soviet versus pro-American, might well be grouped together under the
label of Zhdanovism, a cultural policy formulated by Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov
(1896–1948) and enacted during the Cold War era as a means to govern all aspects of
artistic (literature, visual arts, etc.) production.15 Under the shroud of Zhdanovism,
ideologies stem from a Cold War hegemony that fails to consider the significance
of the creative energy of local forces. Zhdanovism typically framed the politics of
cultural expressions during the Cold War as deterministically polar and controlled
by superpower blocs, rather than as dialectical and stimulating debates relating to
national and modern cultural identity.
The effect of the Cold War therefore plays a significant role in our
understanding of the politics of culture among Indonesian artists and intellectuals,
not only from 1950 to 1965 but also after 1965. The imposition of a post-1965 lens
to the period under discussion here has led scholars to overestimate Cold War
intervention in the development of cultural debates in Indonesia. This viewpoint
 The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

additionally tends to assume sponsorship from superpowers as a form of hegemony

and leaves no room for the consideration of the agency of cultural players. In other
words, it assumes that artists were merely the puppets of the Eastern or Western
blocs.16 In order to move away from the bipolarity of the Cold War and the post-1965
lens when examining the cultural diplomacy between Indonesia and the outside world,
it is necessary to look more closely at the dynamic relationship between the actors
(the artists) involved and institutions that played roles in the ‘politics of friendship’.

The Politics of Friendship:

Indonesia’s Cultural Diplomacy with
the United States and the Soviet Union
Indonesia and the United States

As part of its program of art and cultural subsidies to Indonesia, the US government
gave major support to one of Indonesia’s most prominent artists, the self-taught
painter Affandi (1907–1990). The artist was officially invited to the United States three
times between 1958 and 1967: once as a student to study art education, and twice as
an honorary visiting lecturer.17 This was not Affandi’s first international exposure,
however; his works were widely appraised following a scholarship from the Indian
government in 1950.
Affandi, who was from Cirebon in West Java, painted a number of
landscapes during his visits to the United States, including Grand Canyon I (1958,
fig. 1), that clearly referred to abstract expressionism. It would be misleading
to suggest that Affandi’s artistic shift from the realism characterising his early
paintings, such as Mother (Ibu, 1940, collection of Art Directorate of Republic of
Indonesia), to a more abstract expressionist style was entirely due to his experiences
in the United States and Europe, however. In the early 1950s, even before
Affandi went to Europe, his works exhibited elements of abstract expressionism.
Nevertheless, Affandi’s artistic shift appeared to make him an ideal figure for
promoting US cultural ideology: an anonymous writer of Affandi’s profile in a 1962
issue of Aneka Amerika described the artist’s realist works as ‘traditional’, and his
development of expressionist techniques as a ‘movement toward freedom’.18 Yet
Affandi was also a member of the aforementioned leftist LEKRA art group, which
had affiliations with the PKI. In 1955 Affandi was nominated by the PKI as a non-
party representative in a constituent election, and although he won a place he
did not appear to relish this political position.19 Affandi’s seeming lack of interest

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88

in politics and his expressionist painting mode were a great combination for the
Western bloc, which sought to construct him as a personification of its ideology,
representing it against the Eastern bloc.
While an American audience may have interpreted Affandi’s expressionist
paintings as original discoveries of Indonesian painting, the same could not said of
the abstract paintings by artists from Bandung in West Java. In 1958 the American
Association, a social group catering to American expatriates living in Indonesia,
held an exhibition of twelve Bandung artists in Jakarta. One of the artists, the cubist
painter Ahmad Sadali (b. 1924), visited the United States in 1956 with the support
of the Rockefeller Foundation to study at the Department of Fine Arts at Iowa
State University and later at the Art Students League of New York in 1957.20 His
work Manhattan (1957, fig. 2), possibly painted after the artist’s trip to New York,
was included in the show. Depicting the skyscrapers of Manhattan in cubist style,
Sadali’s work would raise issues of identity, particularly in regard to an Indonesian
postcolonial setting—that is, could a landscape (cityscape) of an American theme in
an ‘American style’ painted by an Indonesian painter be considered an example of
Indonesian national modern art? What counted as Indonesian national modern art?
A review of the show in Aneka Amerika described Bandung artists as still
finding their style in modern art, yet to fully break free from the tendency to mimic
Western styles. The writer of the review described the cubist and pointillist paintings
by Popo Iskandar (1926–2000) as heavily influenced by the Swiss-German artist Paul

Fig. 1 Affandi, Grand Canyon I, 1958.

Oil on canvas, 53.5 × 85.5 cm.
Photograph courtesy of Museum Affandi, Yogyakarta.
The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

Klee (1879–1940). The expressionist works by Angkama Setjadipradja (1913–1994)

were described as ‘à la’ the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), while the
work of Balinese artist I Nyoman Tusan (1933–2002), who studied in Bandung, was
thought to exhibit a Cézanne-like aesthetic and elements of cubism.21 This Western-
centric view of the art critic in Aneka Amerika—describing these works based on the
modes of Western artists and as Western influenced—is similar to what art historian
David Raven condemns as a false evaluation of abstract expressionism, in which
some American critics, such as Clement Greenberg (1909–1994), saw a reflection of
the superiority of North American art.22 In the context of postcolonialism, the search
for artistic innnovation was also inevitably concerned with anti-colonial subjection
and nationalistic self-determination. When seen from this vantage point, Indonesian
artists would always occupy a relatively weak position, as terms such as ‘originality’
and ‘influence’ imply that they could only follow the Western development of modern
art, rather than creating their own definition of it.
This discomforting position for Indonesian artists became a central issue for
Trisno Sumardjo (1916–1969) in his criticism of the works of Bandung artists, which
he considered to be mere copies of Western art.23 Sadali initially embraced cubism, as
seen in the paintings displayed in the American Association exhibition, but shifted his
approach following criticism in the Aneka Amerika profile and by Sumardjo. Perhaps
in search of a distinctive style, Sadali would focus on the theme of Javanese-Islamic
spirituality in his later abstract paintings, strongly referencing the shadow-puppet
form of the gunungan, a term derived from gunung, or ‘mountain’, its triangular shape
a symbol of cosmic order.
Sadali’s artistic style involved the appropriation of modern art to assert an
imagined national identity; though this was never explicitly articulated, the story of
Sadali’s student, the Acehnese painter Abdul Djalil (A D) Pirous (b. 1932) supports a
similar conclusion. Like his teacher, in his early works Pirous adhered to the abstract
modernism of the Bandung school, so named to include abstract expressionist modes
that were most practised by Bandung painters. Anthropologist Kenneth George
writes that Pirous became fascinated with the aesthetics of Islamic art during a two-
year Rockefeller scholarship at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York
State. Feeling alienated in the United States, Pirous wished to be recognised both
as an Indonesian and as a Muslim. George spoke with Pirous extensively about his
experiences and concluded that:

… [Pirous] must have felt tricked: The West had given Pirous and
other Asian artists a new and supposedly universal visual language of
modernism, but did not want to listen when these artists used it to join
in the conversation.24

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 Circulation and Internationalism

90

Although the notion that the language of modernism was ‘given’ by the West is debatable,
George’s encounter with Pirous reveals differing narratives of modernism that do not
submit to the ideology of North American abstract expressionism. This is despite the
fact that Pirous’s travel to the United States was underwritten by an American sponsor.
Sponsorship from a foreign source does not necessarily mean that an artist
conforms to the ideological hegemony of that source and its country. In 1961, for
example, four young artists with close links to LEKRA—Ng Sembiring, the Sumbawan
Isa Hasanda (b. 1940), Subana and Misbach Tamrin (b. 1941)—were invited to hold
an exhibition at the Jefferson Library, the US ‘cultural embassy’ in Yogyakarta. These
young artists accepted the offer, despite it being an invitation from a US institution
that was perceived by figures such as Amrus Natalsya (b. 1933), a member of Sanggar
Bumi Tarung, an art organisation closely linked to LEKRA, to be an ‘enemy’ of
the Left who, in Natalsya’s words, ‘wanted to hook the four ASRI [Akademi Seni
Republik Indonesia, or Indonesian Arts Academy, Yogyakarta, est. 1950] painters to
enter the orbit of US grand scenario and turn them from LEKRA’s socialist realism’.25
Natalsya (b. 1933) further noted that although the young artists held an exhibition
at the Jefferson Library, they were not ‘seduced’ by the ‘sponsor’s message’ and still
displayed their socialist realist paintings.26 Such an exhibition of socialist realist pieces
in an American library sent a bold message to the US sponsor that it did not have
leverage over Yogyakarta artists and serves as a demonstration that sometimes the
ideology of the funding body and the artists involved were not always aligned.

Fig. 2 Ahmad Sadali, Manhattan, 1957.

Oil on canvas, 47 × 75 cm.
Collection and courtesy of National Gallery Singapore.
The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

Indonesia and the Soviet Union

The United States supported artists with scholarships and exhibition grants on an
individual basis, and in this regard its relationship with the Indonesian government
was of a less formal nature. That between Indonesia and the Soviet Union was more
official, operating from state to state or party to party. Significant cooperation between
the two nations was spurred by Sukarno’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1956, which
resulted in a commitment to trade partnership. This in turn led to the development of
collaboration in other fields, such as the military, education and culture.
In 1960 200 Indonesian students went to the University of the People’s
Friendship of Russia in Moscow, which opened in February of that year, and this
number grew in 1961.27 There was no faculty of art at the university and therefore no
record exists of the Indonesian artists sent there to study. However, in 1961 it appears
that there were frequent exchanges of artist delegations between the two countries,
most probably because in May that year Indonesia and the Soviet Union agreed to sign
a cultural cooperation agreement to enhance exchanges between the two countries.28
The majority of the Indonesian artists who visited the Soviet Union were LEKRA
members, since it was clear that the Soviet Union could easily form an ideological
‘friendship’ with a leftist art group that had close links to the PKI. LEKRA had wide-
ranging international communist networks, participating in and organising overseas
cultural exchanges with China, and then with East Germany and Czechoslovakia.
State-to-state or party-to-party exchanges were usually held under the
auspices of national visits, and were of course dictated by the constraints of official
state discourse. For example, when delegates from LEKRA visited the Soviet Union
for three weeks in 1963, the itinerary typically included visits to the Maxim Gorky
Museum House, the Leo Tolstoy Museum, and enormous monuments in the city, as
well as meetings with official Soviet artists such as Aleksei Krivolapov and Aleksei
Borodin (1915–2004).29 A photograph from Negeri Sovyet magazine (fig. 3) shows a
LEKRA delegation during a visit to the Central Lenin Museum, Moscow, in 1962, no
doubt meant to underline the ideological message behind their gathering and to
represent a party-to-party interaction. This type of guided official tour was unlike the
trips sponsored by the United States, which usually gave artists opportunities to study
at its universities, enjoy student life and experience America for a longer period.30
The friendship between states was also symbolically represented through gift
exchange. Among the Soviet artists of this era, it was the prominent sculptor Matvey
Genrikhovich Manizer (1891–1966) who perhaps had the most intimate connection
with Indonesia. He visited Indonesia for the first time in 1961, meeting the renowned
painter Sindusudarsono Sudjojono (1913–1986) in his studio in Jakarta and members of
the People’s Painters (Pelukis Rakyat) group in Yogyakarta. Manizer gave a sculpture of

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92

a sportswoman (now in the collection of the Presidential Palace in Bogor) to President

Sukarno on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.31 This piece was an apt reminder of
the Soviet government’s funding in the late 1960s that enabled the construction of a
sports stadium in Jakarta. Known today as the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, it stood as
a ‘monument to the friendship’ between Indonesia and the Soviet Union.32 Such statues,
monuments and buildings were an important aspect of Sukarno’s nation-building
project, which aimed at constructing a new national space that differed from that of
colonial spatial configurations, which were organised through the domination of a
colonial gaze. In 1963 President Sukarno commissioned Manizer to design a monument
as a sign of Indonesian liberation; the artist’s bronze statue, now called Tugu Tani
(Monument to Farmers), is still located in Jakarta’s central Menteng district.33
Sukarno, for his part, often presented art to the Soviets. In July 1961 he
commissioned the painter Rd Omar to create a portrait of Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968)
for the Soviet Embassy in Jakarta.34 The next year a painting by Tarmizi (1939–2001)
depicting a meeting of the Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Stepanovich Titov (1935–
2000) with PKI politburo Dipa Nusantara Aidit (1923–1965) and Amir Anwar Sanusi

Fig. 3 LEKRA delegation at the Lenin Museum,

from the inside front cover of magazine Negeri Sovyet, 1962.
The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

at the Kremlin in Moscow (fig. 4) followed. This work was given to Titov by the
Soviet Ambassador in Jakarta, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Michailov (1906–1982), who
commented that:

The picture is painted in the realist style and is not just a well-executed
painting but also one that seems really alive. This painting is a good
demonstration that realist art is stronger than abstract art, which
destroys not only form but colour.35

All of these gifts were painted in a strict Soviet socialist realist manner, which is a
representational art form showcasing the heroic portrayal of factory or agricultural
workers. Most LEKRA artists, whose work was more stylistically diverse, did
not rigidly follow this formula. For instance, the paintings by the Bandung-born,
Yogyakarta-based artist Hendra Gunawan (1918–1983) or the Sumatran Batara Lubis
(1927–1986) clearly did not subscribe to a Soviet socialist realist mode. Gunawan’s art
is recognised as expressionist, while Lubis is mainly known for his decorative style
drawn from Batak ornamentation. However, Prijono (1905–1969),36 the Indonesian
Minister for Education, Teaching and Culture from 1957 to 1966 and a recipient of the
Stalin Peace Prize in 1954, pushed for an artistic alignment (or ‘friendship’) with the
Soviet Union. He declared that: ‘Our style is the same as our brothers’, our feelings
are the same as those of our brothers and what we need are the right hands to
manifest that desire’.37 The propagandistic implications of this statement would have
been obvious to all.
In the 1960s Soviet art treatises such as Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality
(1853) by Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1828–1989) and Art and Social Life (1912) by Georgi
Plekhanov (1856–1918) were translated by LEKRA member Oey Hay Djoen (also
known as Samandjaja, 1929–2008). The contribution of Marxist thought to LEKRA’s
aesthetic principles surfaced in the report of its annual meetings: Mukaddimah
LEKRA 1950 and Mukaddimah LEKRA 1959 included the ideas that art is a scientific
tool for understanding the objective reality of class division in society, and that art
can capture the emotions of the people and produce the revolutionary spirit required
to achieve a socialist future. The contributions of LEKRA’s prominent art and literary
critics, including Buyung Saleh (1923–1989), Jubar Ayub (1926–1996) and artist Basuki
Resobowo (1916–1999), to the PKI’s newspaper Harian Rakjat reveal a degree of
adherence to a Marxist-Leninist framework.38
In addition to LEKRA’s apparent adoption of Marxist-Leninist ideology,
observed literary historian Keith Foulcher, LEKRA’s working principles also
resembled concepts of socialist realism disseminated by Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
such as turba (turun ke bawah, going down to the people), meluas dan meninggi

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(wider and higher) and politik adalah panglima (politics as a commander).39 In

theory, the language of LEKRA was similar to the official Soviet aesthetic or Mao’s
romantic revolutionary realism.40 Yet Mao’s realist socialist theory and Marxist-
Leninist thought were not the only influences on LEKRA artists, since in practice
they interpreted socialist realism loosely, without any homogenous artistic formula.
94 It should be noted that LEKRA had no official statement that strictly rejected modern
art or abstract expressionism. Instead, subjective artistic exploration was encouraged
by the group, as noted in the group’s Mukaddimah LEKRA 1959:

LEKRA encourages creative initiatives, encourages creative bravery, and

LEKRA approves of every kind of shape and style, as long as it is faithful
to truth and as long as it strives to create the highest artistic beauty.

LEKRA mendorong inisiatif jang kreatif, mendorong keberanian kreatif,

dan LEKRA menyetujui setiap bentuk, gaja, selama ia setia pada kebenaran
dan selama ia mengusahakan keindahan artistik setinggi-tingginya.41

In the consequent gap between theory and practice there was room for LEKRA
artists to investigate divergent artistic styles. This ambivalent situation surfaced in
part because of the state of Indonesian art education. Compared to China, which
assimilated Soviet realism into a pedagogical system that trained Chinese artists
according to generalised rules of Soviet realism,42 Indonesian art educational
institutions, in Yogyakarta and somewhat less in Bandung, did not experience such
intervention. While LEKRA appears to have followed a system that adopted a Maoist
aesthetic, the work of most LEKRA painters differed from either a Soviet or Chinese
form of realism. Ideology did not work as a hegemonic procedure, because there were
different interpretations among LEKRA’s artists of how to practise revolutionary arts.

The Indonesian Government’s Orbit of

International Cultural Exchange
The prevailing views of the United States and the Soviet Union during this period
divided the world into two ideological blocs, with both countries intent on securing
more allies than the other. However, as noted above, the participants of the 1955
Asian–African Conference—twenty-nine states that proclaimed themselves as the
‘Third World’—refused to take sides in the battle between the Eastern and Western
blocs. The Indonesian government’s policy of cultural exchange during the Cold War
settled instead on the idea of ‘friendship’ rather than ‘political alignment’.
 The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

Under the guise of friendship, Indonesia developed flexible mutual

relationships with both blocs, taking advantage of both and at the same time
remaining unallied. For example, when the relationship between Indonesia and the
United States worsened because of the CIA’s support of the aforementioned Permesta
rebellion in 1958, the Indonesian government did not ban or restrict its artists from
accepting US scholarships. In fact, Sukarno was able to exploit the rivalry between
the United States and the Soviet Union, ultimately obtaining a huge amount of aid for
Indonesia from both sides.
As the relationship between Indonesia and America weakened, that between
Indonesia and the Soviet Union strengthened. Of the many cultural exchanges that
took place between Indonesia and the Eastern bloc, most involved LEKRA members,
particularly from Java. Following its annual national congress in Solo in 1959, LEKRA
published a general resolution demanding that the government ‘guarantee freedom
of cultural exchange between nations in the spirit of the decisions in Bandung, Cairo
and Tashkent’,43 the three locations of the 1958 Afro–Asian Writers’ Conferences. The
publication also emphasised that LEKRA’s working plans for the future included the
provision to implement overseas artistic and cultural exchanges.
The spirit of internationalism was institutionalised through various lembaga
persahabatan (friendship organisations) between Indonesia and socialist countries,
which were principally chaired by LEKRA members. The Indonesia–China Friendship
Organisation, for example, was chaired by Prijono, with prominent LEKRA member

Fig. 4 Tarmizi beside his painting of the Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov (centre)
with PKI members D N Aidit (right) and A Sanusi (left) during a visit to the Kremlin
in Moscow in 1962. Negeri Sovyet, 15 February 1962, p. 13.

95
 Circulation and Internationalism

and Manado-born, Chinese–Indonesian painter Henk Ngantung (1921–1991) serving

as secretary. The Indonesia–Czechoslovakia Friendship Organisation, established
the same year, was chaired by Basuki Resobowo; other well-known LEKRA members,
including the writers Pramudya Ananta Tur (1925–2006) and Adhi Sidharta (A S)
Dharta (1924–2007), were active participants, while Henk Ngantung was also involved
96 as an advisor. Although the organisers of these two groups were not LEKRA members,
LEKRA still dominated the important positions. With its close links to the PKI, LEKRA
was able to assist its own members in travelling abroad. It is difficult to determine,
however, if the LEKRA delegations’ trips were a result of government support or of
party recommendations.44
Despite the extensive funding from the United States and the Soviet Union
in the form of travel grants, the orbit of cultural exchange between Indonesia and the
world was not confined to destinations in Cold War blocs. As it developed a cultural
policy for the young nation from the early 1950s onward, the Indonesian government
sent a large number of artists and intellectuals to places abroad, including India,
Japan, Italy, Thailand (see below), Mexico and the Middle East, in order to study and
compare cultures.
The government department responsible for organising the promotion of
art and culture was the Department for Primary Education and Culture (Departemen
Pendidikan Dasar dan Kebudayaan, hereafter cited as DPDK). Centred in Jakarta,
the DPDK comprised the Archaeology Office (Kantor Arkeologi) and the Office for
Culture (Kantor Urusan Kebudayaan), and in Yogyakarta the Art and Music Academy
(Akademi Seni dan Musik). In addition to the DPDK was the Visual Arts Section (Seksi
Seni Rupa), a part of the Office for the Arts in Yogyakarta from 1950 that was chaired
by Kusnadi (1921–1997), a Central Javanese painter and art critic who also taught
at the ASRI. The Visual Arts Section promoted art by holding shows and acquiring
artworks for exhibitions overseas. One such example was the government’s purchase
of artworks from twenty-four Indonesian artists for the 1953 São Paulo Art Biennial;
they were displayed later in 1956 at Victoria Hall, Singapore.45
The Visual Arts Section likewise sponsored and administered domestic and
international artist exchanges with the endorsement of the DPDK.46 It is noteworthy
that from the 1950s to the 1960s, most artists sent overseas by the government were
from Yogyakarta, thereby signalling a regional bias. This included the painters Sujono,
Natsir Bahri and Chairul Bahri, who studied in Italy from 1954 to 1957, and the painter
Hadi Asmoro, who went to Mexico for a year in 1958.
Another institution active in advancing the arts was the National
Consultative Cultural Body (Badan Musyawarah Kebudayaan Nasional, hereafter cited
as BMKN). BMKN was formed in 1952 following a cultural congress in Bandung in 1951
with 120 participating member organisations. The founding principle of BMKN was to
The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

build and expand national culture, which should be universal, comprising ‘living values,
growing and developing appropriately and organically in society and the history of the
Indonesian people’.47 Its close ties with the government meant that BMKN was similarly
responsible for recommending artwork to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, which the latter
would buy for display at Indonesian embassies worldwide.
In 1954 the Indonesian government funded BMKN staff to undertake
a cultural mission to Thailand with the aim of studying that country’s political,
economic and educational situation, the development of Islam, and the handling
of ancient objects and the visual arts. The objective of the inspection visit was
ultimately to formulate an Indonesian policy relating to national culture. In the
report on the visit, for example, it was noted that the Thai national anthem was
played before cinema screenings in an effort to foster a sense of national pride, and it
was recommended that a corresponding measure be considered in Indonesia.48 The
choice of Thailand as a destination is intriguing, because it demonstrated not only an
awareness of the importance in learning from Indonesia’s neighbours, but also that
the government’s interests lay beyond those of the Eastern and Western blocs.49
This interest in asserting a presence beyond either bloc is indicative
of Indonesia’s preference for non-alignment and ‘friendship’ over alliance.
Opportunities for international exhibitions pursued by Indonesia were consciously
outside the influence of either bloc, and the artworks on view suggest that the
country represented itself in diverse ways. The first appearance of Indonesia in an
international context was in 1952 at the Colombo Exhibition in Ceylon (present-day
Sri Lanka). Indonesia’s involvement in this event is surprising, since the event was for
countries of the British Commonwealth; nonetheless, it gave Indonesia a chance to
parade its status as a newly independent country. In the official catalogue issued for
the exhibition, the government proudly announced its postcolonial existence: ‘[We]
don’t want to be an object, we want to be a subject’.50
The format of the Colombo Exhibition was modelled on that of the World’s
Fair, with each country having a pavilion to showcase its economic and cultural
development. This rather generic national exhibition format is still reproduced in many
overseas shows organised by the Indonesian government. The Indonesian pavilion
measured 400 square metres and was adorned with a massive bas-relief depicting
Garuda, a mythical bird with hawk-like features—the country’s national symbol. Inside
it was painted with historical narratives tracing Indonesia’s struggle for independence.
Maps and statistics were displayed to provide some socio-economic context, while
traditional crafts and pictures of Indonesian national resources illustrated the richness
of Indonesian culture and its land. The information in the exhibition catalogue stated
that the paintings were not selected by a committee of experts; instead they were
randomly gathered together from artists and collectors because of the tight deadline.

97
 Circulation and Internationalism

The first international group exhibit by Indonesian artists that was curated
in earnest was organised as a cultural component to complement the aforementioned
1955 Asian–African Conference in Bandung. This show had sixty-six contemporary
and traditional paintings; it included painters from different sanggar (art groups) in
Java and Bali, such as LEKRA members Affandi, Henk Ngantung, Hendra, Basuki
98 Resobowo and Sudjojono, as well as individuals not affiliated with any political art
groups, such as Sadali and Kartono Yudhokusumo (1924–1957). The diversity of
ideological affiliations among the exhibition juries demonstrates that a plurality of
artistic practice was still accepted as part of the openness declared by the principles of
Asian–African non-alignment.
This spirit of openness appeared in the 1961–62 travelling exhibition to
cities in the communist bloc: Beijing, East Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest, Moscow
and Warsaw.51 Many of the paintings depicted scenes of seascapes, beaches, villages,
cities, markets and everyday people, as well as idyllic Balinese landscapes. Most of
the artists involved in the show were from Java; however, Balinese artists such as
Regig (1919–1998), Madera and Made Widja (1912–1991) also participated. There
were politically motivated paintings, such as A Rachman’s piece that portrayed CIA
pilot Allen Lawrence Pope (b. 1929), who was understood to have backed a rebellion
in Papua, and a series of caricature drawings by Sibarani. Interestingly, the cubist
painting Peacock (Burung merak, 1958) by Gregorius Sidharta (1932–2006) was
included in the exhibition, suggesting that although it toured communist countries
and was organised by socialist realism-promoting LEKRA, abstract styles were not
excluded from the program.
Such openness had been lacking in the late 1950s when the heated friction
between artists of the Left (LEKRA) and the non-Left culminated in increasingly
vitriolic attacks on abstract and cubist artists. A deepening divide is most strikingly
witnessed in the aggressive response to an exhibition curated by Kusnadi and Zaini
in 1962 that ran concurrently with the counter-Olympic sports festival, the Games
of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO). A year later, in 1963, LEKRA published
an official statement in Harian Rakyat that harshly criticised the exhibition as
unrepresentative of the state of Indonesian art because one-third of it consisted
of abstract works.52 This in effect contradicted LEKRA’s own advocacy for artistic
pluralism, which they had announced at the organisation’s general assembly in 1959.
The huge gap between LEKRA’s biting criticism of abstract expressionism
in the GANEFO show on the one hand, and LEKRA’s inclusion and openness to
Sidharta’s cubist painting in its 1961–62 touring exhibition on the other, indicates that
there were internal disputes between LEKRA members regarding their interpretation
of what conformed to their leftist artistic ideology. LEKRA’s criticism of the GANEFO
exhibit was evidence of the affiliation between the PKI and some segments of
 The Politics of Friendship Brigitta Isabella

LEKRA.53 Blinded by Cold War politics and following Sukarno’s wish to pursue a closer
alliance with communist China, LEKRA’s stance, at least officially, considered abstract
art as a representation of US power. While ‘friendship’ had formerly connoted a
flexible, ‘free and active’ non-aligned relationship, at this politically charged point in
time ‘friendship’ actually involved siding with one and viewing the other as the enemy.

Coda:
O Friends, There Are No Friends
Many of the trips taken by Indonesian artists in the 1950s and 1960s were facilitated
by foreign funding, backed by a political party network or supported by the
Indonesian government. I have yet to find any Indonesian artists who funded their
own travel abroad or who were able to establish independent connections with
overseas galleries during that period. The US government provided considerable
funding for artists and art educators to undertake long-term study in North America,
and most of the scholarship money came from the Rockefeller Foundation. By
contrast, the Soviet Union does not seem to have provided any form of scholarship
for artists; it relied instead on the leftist network within the PKI to organise official
visits to each other’s countries. LEKRA appeared to have an extensive leftist
network, as its touring exhibitions to communist countries suggest. The Indonesian
government did award artists scholarships for training outside Cold War blocs; it
also sponsored shows of Indonesian art abroad and on occasion enabled the display
of art at Indonesian embassies. All the travel initiatives facilitated by the government
beyond the Cold War blocs were undertaken mainly in an effort to present an
Indonesian national image on the international stage, rather than to create an
ideological alignment with a particular region.
During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States used the
term ‘friendship’ as a symbolic gesture to create closer and more intimate connections
between their countries and Indonesia. As I mentioned at the beginning of this essay,
the term ‘Friendship’ was used in order to avoid the term ‘ally’, which carried with it
the connotation of agreement in terms of political and ideological alignment.
The American and Soviet offers of friendship with Indonesia also came with offers of
money, which was referred to as ‘friendship aid’. There are two ways to view this kind
of relationship. First, friendship was a means to influence and control the direction of
Indonesia’s cultural orientation, in the hopes of supporting artists who conformed to
the ideological stance of the funder. In this sense, there was a very fine line between
what constituted cultural diplomacy and what constituted propaganda. If the creation
of friendship were accompanied by the creation of enemies, it would have been

99
 Circulation and Internationalism

difficult to maintain neutrality amidst Cold War rivalry. However, the cultural policy
of the Indonesian government was to adopt a ‘non-bloc’ attitude, and friendship was
approached in a very pragmatic way. Perhaps this situation could be summed up in
the words of Aristotle—o philoi, oudeis philos—which can be translated variously as
‘O friends, there are no friends’ or ‘The person who has many friends does not have
100 friends’.54 Aside from their complex philosophical connotations, I might additionally
suggest that Aristotle’s words may also contribute to our understanding of the
pragmatic, and often ambivalent, tendency of Indonesia’s friendship in Cold War
cultural diplomacy.
The Indonesian government never rejected cultural funding from the United
States or the Soviet Union. Yet this decision should not be viewed simplistically as a
representation of a sincere, pluralistic attitude, since there were in effect no innocent
parties in this transaction of ‘friendship’. Sukarno, for example, received US and Soviet
money to fund his political ambitions, be they to build impressive public monuments
in Jakarta, to educate Indonesian citizens abroad, or to fund his war efforts in Papua
and Borneo. In the realm of art, the diplomatic forces of the Cold War–period’s most
powerful countries were unsuccessful in fully indoctrinating Indonesian artists with
their ideologies because many Indonesian artists were neither passive recipients
of artistic styles, nor aesthetic ideologues, due to the sense of nationalism and self-
determination in their search for a modern identity. The cultural propaganda and the
bipolarity of Cold War aesthetic ideology stimulated unproductive quarrels that at
times were less to do with art than they were a struggle for political power. Further
research is needed, for example, to understand the nuanced visual vocabulary of
LEKRA artists beyond Soviet (and Chinese) socialist realism and offer a reassessment
of the political dichotomy (Left vs. Right) that even today is entrenched in the
discussion of Indonesian modern art during the Cold War era. Nonetheless, this
essay has attempted to delve deeper into the complexity of artistic aspiration and
exploration during the 1950s and 1960s, in order to privilege agencies that operated
beyond ideological poles. By doing so, we can reconsider the stylistic boundaries—and
what motivated and formed them—that came into play during this period.

—
 The Politics of Friendship
Notes
1 Although the official purpose of
these ventures was to develop
a connection and exchange of
knowledge between two countries
through art and culture, Francis
Saunders’ investigation into the
CIA archive related to American
postwar cultural diplomacy
revealed the real aim of this was
psychological warfare. Cultural
diplomacy was a broad campaign
of persuasion, which was stated in
a United States National Security
Council Directive as ‘The planned
use by a nation of propaganda
and activities other than combat
which communicate ideas and
information intended to affect
opinions, attitudes, emotions and
behavior of foreign groups in ways
that will support the achievement
of national aims’. See Frances
Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold
War: The CIA and the World of Arts
and Letters, The New Press,
New York, 2000, p. 4.
2 Albert Lau (ed.), Southeast Asia and
the Cold War, Routledge, Abingdon,
2012, p. 3.
3 David Craven, ‘Abstract
Expressionism and Third World
Art: A Post-Colonial Approach to
“American” Art’, Oxford Art Journal,
vol. 14, no. 1, 1991, pp. 44–66.
4 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing
Europe: Postcolonial Thought and
Historical Difference, Princeton
University Press, Princeton, 2000.
5 The political scientist Joseph S Nye
Jr (b. 1937), who coined the term
‘soft power’, believes that unlike
‘hard power’, soft power is based
on indirect influence and is used
to shape the preferences of others
and reserve support for greater
cooperation between two nations.
See Joseph S Nye Jr, Soft Power:
The Means to Success in World
Politics, Perseus Books, Cambridge,
2004, pp. 5–6.
Brigitta Isabella
6 Nancy Snow, an American expert in
propaganda and public diplomacy
studies, has observed these terms
and suggests they are related but
cannot be used interchangeably.
Snow also asserts that the intent
behind cultural diplomacy and
propaganda may be the same, yet
by arguing that cultural diplomacy
and propaganda come together
across intersections within disparate
groups, Snow opines that the target
audience always has agency in
responding to the messages from
the sender, which can range from
public affair officers to heads of
non-governmental organisations
(NGOs). See Nancy Snow, ‘Public
Diplomacy and Propaganda:
Rethinking Diplomacy in the Age
of Persuasion’, E-International
Relations, 4 December 2012. http://
www.e-ir.info/2012/12/04/public-
diplomacy-and-propaganda-
rethinking-diplomacy-in-the-age-
of-persuasion/ (viewed 11 June 2017). 9 See Mohammad Hatta, ‘Indonesia’s
7 The political scientist Tuong Vu
writes that most scholarship
tends to position Europe and
North America as the centre of
the Cold War conflict, while the
development of other external
conflicts is regarded as dependent
on the decisions by superpowers.
Conceptually, this perspective
ignores the existence of minor
powers and underestimates the role
of local forces in the evolution of
Cold War struggles. In contrast to
this Western-centric perspective,
Vu suggests an approach that
shifts the emphasis of the global
Cold War and positions the role
of Asia as an influential element
in the intensification of struggles
during this period. See Tuong Vu,
‘Cold War Studies and the Cultural
Cold War in Asia’, in Tuong Vu
and Wasana Wongsurawat (eds),
Dynamics of the Cold War in Asia,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York,
2009, pp. 3–5. See also Tony Day
and Maya Hian Ting Liem (eds),
Cultures at War: The Cold War and
Cultural Expression in Southeast Asia,
Cornell Southeast Asia Program
Publications, Cornell University
Press, Ithaca, 2010. In the book’s
introduction, Day argues that the
wave of decolonisation and the
rise of postcolonial nationalism
in Southeast Asian countries
had encouraged actors in the
region to play a central role in the
international system of global
Cold War.
8 Merle Calvin Ricklefs, Sejarah
Indonesia Modern 1200–2004,
Serambi, Jakarta, 2005, p. 472. For
more on the historiography of
Indonesia in 1950–65, see Adrian
Vickers, ‘Mengapa Tahun 1950-an
Penting Bagi Kajian Indonesia’, in
Henk Schulte Nordholt et al. (eds),
Perspektif Baru Penulisan Sejarah
Indonesia, Yayasan Obor, Jakarta,
2008, pp. 67–78.
Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs,
vol. 3, no. 3, 1953, p. 446.
10 In the Permesta Rebellion of 1958,
Allen Lawrence Pope, a retired US
military pilot on a CIA bombing
mission, was shot down over
Ambon by Indonesian government
forces. The capture caused a tense
diplomatic dispute between the
United States and Indonesia.
11 A great deal has been written
on this subject, including John
Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder:
The September 30th Movement and
Suharto’s Coup d’État in Indonesia,
The University of Wisconsin Press,
Wisconsin, 2006, and Robert Cribb,
The Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966:
Studies from Java and Bali, Monash
Papers on Southeast Asia, no. 21,
Centre of Southeast Asian Studies,
Monash University, Melbourne, 1990.
12 There have been various in-depth
investigative journalistic reports
and academic writings that touch
upon the issue of the CIA’s supplying
101
 Circulation and Internationalism
lists of targeted names to the
Indonesian Army. See, for example,
Kathy Kadane, ‘U.S. Officials’ Lists
Aided Indonesian Bloodbath in the
1960’s’, The Washington Post, 21 May
1990. https://www.washingtonpost.
com/archive/politics/1990/05/21/
102 us-officials-lists-aided-indonesian-
bloodbath-in-60s/ff6d37c3-8eed-
486f-908c-3eeafc19aab2/?utm_
term=.c0a1e3569564 (viewed 27
September 2017); Thomas Blanton
(ed.), ‘CIA Stalling State Department
Histories: State Historians Conclude
US Passed Names of Communists
to Indonesian Army, which Killed
at Least 105,000 in 1965–1966’,
National Security Archive Electronic
Briefing Book, no. 52, 27 July
2001. http://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/
NSAEBB/NSAEBB52/ (viewed
27 September 2017); and Mark
Aarons, ‘Justice Betrayed: Post-1945
Responses to Genocide’, in David
A Blumenthal and Timothy L H
McCormack (eds), The Legacy of
Nuremberg: Civilising Influence
or Institutionalised Vengeance?
(International Humanitarian Law),
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden,
2007, pp. 69–98.
13 Jennifer Lindsay and Maya Hian
Ting Liem (eds), Heirs to World
Culture, KITLV Press, Leiden, 2012,
pp. 3–4.
14 In 1963 a number of artists and
intellectuals, suspected to have
military backing, published the
Manifes Kebudayaan (Manikebu); it
made clear their refusal to submit
to Sukarno’s Political Manifesto
(Manifesto Politik, abbreviated
as Manipol) and suggested that
Pancasila (Five principles), a
philosophical theory underpinning
the Indonesian state, be retained
as the foundation of Indonesian
culture. The leftist group LEKRA
criticised the Manikebu because
it appeared to represent universal
humanism, the bourgeois and the
anti-revolutionary. On 8 May 1964
Sukarno banned Manikebu and
thereafter the attitudes of certain
LEKRA members became more
aggressive towards the Manikebu
signatories. For more on the
dispute between the Manikebu
signatories and LEKRA members,
see Keith Foulcher, ‘A Survey of
Events Surrounding Manikebu.
The Struggle for Cultural and
Intellectual Freedom in Indonesian
Literature’, Bijdragen tot de taal-,
land- en Volkenkunde/Journal of the
Humanities and Social Sciences of
Southeast Asia, vol. 125, no. 4, 1969,
pp. 429–65.
15 Day and Liem (eds), Cultures at War,
p. 3.
16 Research that applies a post-1965
lens to the period 1950–65 is
found in the compilation of LEKRA
and PKI documents in Taufik
Ismail and D S Mulyanto (eds),
Prahara Budaya, Penerbit Mizan
dan Republika, Jakarta, 1994, in
which the authors emphasise the
relationship between LEKRA and
the Soviet and Chinese communist
network. This is similar to the
way that the actions of the New
Order government (1967–98)
created a stereotype by associating
Chinese Indonesians with the
People’s Republic of China, with
the result that this group was
accused of being communist. See
Leo Suryadinata (ed.), Ethnic
Chinese in Contemporary Indonesia,
Chinese Heritage Centre, Singapore,
and Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies, Singapore, 2008. Wijaya
Herlambang’s research on the
politics of culture in Indonesia
after 1965, in Kekerasan Budaya
Pasca 1965: Bagaimana Orde Baru
Melegitimasi Anti-komunisme
Melalui Sastra dan Film, Marjin
Kiri Publisher, Tangerang Selatan,
2013, is an important contribution
to understanding the structural
violence of the New Order in
silencing artists and intellectuals.
However, Herlambang’s account
of the cultural debates between
1950 and 1965 overestimated the
involvement of the CIA in the
evolution of the conflict between
Manikebu and LEKRA, and
dismissed the fact that Cold War
intervention involved not only
the United States but also the
Soviets and Chinese. Herlambang’s
scholarly bias is not entirely unlike
that held by Ismail and Muljanto.
17 Astri Wright, ‘Affandi in the
Americas’, in Sardjana Sumichan
(ed.), Affandi, vol. 1, Bina Lestari
Budaya Foundation, Jakarta, and
Singapore Art Museum, Singapore,
2007, p. 135.
18 ‘Affandi mengadjar di universitas
negara bagian Ohio’, Aneka Amerika,
no. 156, 1962, p. 19.
19 Ayip Rosidi, Pelukis Affandi,
Penerbit Nuansa, Bandung, 2008,
pp. 57–8.
20 In addition to Sadali, artists
and teachers who were
given scholarships by the US
government in 1950–65 included
Saptohudjojo (Boston School of
Art, 1956), Djumadi (Pennsylvania
State University, 1956), Mardio
Kusumaardja (ASRI lecturer, Yale
University, 1956), Ahmad Sadali
(Iowa State University, 1956, and
New York University, 1957) and
Sudarso (ASRI lecturer, Northern
Illinois University, 1963).
Scholarships for Indonesian
students were also supported
by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Other Bandung lecturers also
went to the United States
throughout the 1950s and 1960s,
either for degrees, residencies
or fellowships, including Srihadi,
Muchtar, A D Pirous and Yusuf
Affendi. I would like to thank
Agung Hujatnika for information
on the Bandung artists who went
to the United States at this time.
21 ‘Pelukis dari Bandung’, Aneka
Amerika, no. 117, 1958, pp. 3–6.
 The Politics of Friendship
22 Craven, ‘Abstract Expressionism’,
p. 47.
23 See Trisno Sumardjo, ‘Bandung
Mengabdi Laboratorium Barat’,
first published in Siasat,
5 December 1954, in Aminudin T H
Siregar and Enin Supriyanto (eds),
Seni Rupa Modern Indonesia, Esai-
Esai Pilihan, Penerbit Nalar, Jakarta,
2006, pp. 113–21.
24 Kenneth M George, ‘Art and
Identity Politics: Nation, Religion,
Ethnicity, Elsewhere’, in Kathryn
Robinson (ed.), Asian and Pacific
Cosmopolitans: Self and Subject
in Motion, Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 2007, p. 43.
25 Misbach Tamrin, Amrus Natalsya
dan Bumi Tarung, Amnat Studio,
Bogor, 2008, p. 64.
26 ibid., p. 64.
27 On the life of Indonesian students
in the Soviet Union, see Kusalah
Subagyo Tur, Kampus Kabelnaya,
Menjadi Mahasiswa di Uni Soviet,
Gramedia, Jakarta, 2003.
28 ‘Kerdjasama Kebudayaan Tahun
1961 Antara Uni Sovjet—Indonesia’,
Negeri Sovyet, no. 12, June 1961,
p. 28.
29 ‘Delegasi LEKRA Berkundjung
di URSS’, Negeri Sovyet, no. 12,
December 1963, pp. 16–8.
30 Trisno Sumardjo compared his visit
to China, which was more or less
similar to the kind of official guided
tour in the Soviet Union, with his
experiences in America. See Trisno
Sumardjo, ‘Sebulan di Tiongkok’,
Budaja (annual bundle), 1958,
pp. 15–25.
31 ‘Optimisme Mendekatkan Kesenian-
Kesenian Kita’, Negeri Sovyet, no. 23,
December 1961, pp. 28–30.
32 ‘Monumen Persahabatan’, Negeri
Sovyet, no. 3, February 1961, pp. 8–9.
33 In 1982 the Monument of Farmers
was almost destroyed by the New
Order military General Sarwo Edhie
(1925–1989), but Adam Malik was
able to convince Suharto to keep
the monument in its place. See the
Brigitta Isabella
report on Tempo, 16 October 1982. I
would like to thank Aminudin T H
Siregar for pointing this out to me.
34 ‘Potret Gagarin oleh Pelukis Rd
Omar’, Negeri Sovyet, no. 16,
17 August 1961, p. 9.
35 ‘Hadiah untuk German Titov’,
Negeri Sovyet, no. 14, 15 February
1962, p. 13.
36 As one of Sukarno’s important
ideologues, Prijono propagated the
president’s revolutionary language.
Prijono belonged to the Proletarian
Party (Partai Murba), which
strongly clashed with the PKI, and
was also influential in establishing
links to the Soviet Union and China.
In 1962 he published the article
‘Tugas Pekerdja Kesenian’, which
employed Soviet jargon such as
‘scientific socialism’ (sosialisme
ilmiah) and ‘optimistic realism’
(realisme optimistic). This article is
kept in the ‘annual bundle’ Budaja
1962–1963, pp. 90–107 (i.e., these
documents are bound together
based on years of publication; the
page numbers in each edition do not
follow the original magazine but are
contiguous as one ‘bundle’).
37 ‘Optimisme Mendekatkan Kesenian-
Kesenian Kita’, pp. 28–30.
38 See, for example, Buyung Saleh,
‘Bentuk dan Isi’, Harian Rakjat,
18 October 1952, p. 3, and Jubar Ajub,
‘Realisme Kita Dewasa Ini’, Harian
Rakjat, 14 January 1956, p. 3.
39 LEKRA’s principles and methods
are referred to by the jargonistic
expression ‘1–5–1’. The first (1) is
‘politics as the commander’ (politik
sebagai panglima), which means
all artistic activities should have
political intention. The five (5)
comprises the five principles: (a)
combination of the wisdom of the
masses with individual creativity
(memadukan kreativitas individu
dengan kearifan massa), such that
the vision of the artists should
be in harmony with the people;
(b) ‘wider and higher’ (meluas
dan meninggi), referring to the
broad distribution of art and high
artistic quality; (c) high artistic
and ideological quality (tinggi mutu
artistik dan ideologi), meaning
that art and ideology should be
in harmony; (d) a combination
of tradition and a modern
revolutionary spirit (memadukan
tradisi baik dengan kekinian
revolusioner), in which traditional
art need not be entirely preserved
but can be used selectively based
on the present-day spirit; and (e)
harmony between revolutionary
realism and revolutionary
romanticism (memadukan realisme
revolusioner dengan romantisme
revolusioner), such that the artistic
combines depictions of both the
realism of the revolutionary spirit
and the romantic picture of the
future of socialist society. The
final (1) is turba, an abbreviation
of turun ke bawah, or ‘going down
to the people’. Turba is a method
for practising politics as the
commander of the five principles.
Artists were obligated to engage
with the people, and the creation
of art should be based on material
experience. On the similarity
between LEKRA’s method and
principles and Maoism, see Keith
Foulcher, Social Commitment
in Literature and the Arts: The
Indonesian Institute of People’s
Culture, 1950–1965, Centre of
Southeast Asian Studies, Monash
University, Melbourne, 1986,
pp. 110–11. On 1–5–1, see Hersri
Setiawan, Kamus Gestok, Penerbit
Galang Press, Yogyakarta, 2003,
pp. 260–1; see also J J Kusni’s
account of practising turba in
Klaten, Central Java, between 1963
and 1964, in J J Kusni, Di Tengah
Pergolakan: Turba Lekra di Klaten,
Penerbit Ombak, Yogyakarta, 2005.
40 It should be noted that China’s
cultural propaganda in Indonesia
did not centre on Mao’s
103
 Circulation and Internationalism
revolutionary realist style then
dominant in China. Instead,
Chinese exhibitions in Indonesia
focused on the superiority of
traditional art, presented as a grand
legacy that continued with modern
art. This perhaps related to China’s
104 own strategy of cultural diplomacy
that attempted to stress the
‘common past’ shared by Indonesia
and China, rather than any shared
ideological position. See Hong Liu,
China and the Shaping of Indonesia
1949–1965, NUS Press, Singapore,
2011, for a thorough overview
of China–Indonesia cultural
diplomacy. However, Hong Liu
gives more attention to literature
than art and therefore further art-
historical research on this subject
is needed.
41 Mukaddimah LEKRA 1959. Appendix
in Antariksa, Tuan Tanah Kawin
Muda; Hubungan Seni Rupa-LEKRA
1950–1965, Yayasan Seni Cemeti,
Yogyakarta, 2005, pp. 106–8.
42 See chapter 4, ‘Realism and
Revolutionary Chinese Painting’,
in John Clark, Modernities of
Chinese Art, Brill, Leiden, 2009,
pp. 45–59.
43 ‘Keputusan 2 Kongres Nasional I
LEKRA’, Harian Rakjat, 14 February
1959, p. 3.
44 For example, the government
funded Trubus, a LEKRA
member, on a month-long trip to
Czechoslovakia in 1954. However,
when he travelled out of Indonesia,
Trubus was seen less as LEKRA’s
delegate and more as an Indonesian
representative. See Trubus,
‘Sebulan di Czechoslovakia’, Budaja
(annual bundle), 1954, pp. 79–85.
45 See Kusnadi, ‘Bienal II di Sao
Paolo’, Budaja, June 1954, p. 29, and
Handrijo, ‘Surat dari Singapura’,
Budaja (annual bundle), 1956,
pp. 191–206.
46 Claire Holt, Art in Indonesia:
Continuities and Change, Cornell
University Press, Ithaca, 1967, p. 208.
47 Warta Kebudayaan, booklet issued
by the National Consultative
Cultural Body (Badan Musyawarah
Kebudayaan Nasional) in
conjunction with the National
Congress of Culture in Solo, 1954,
p. 3.
48 ibid.
49 Cultural relationships with
Southeast Asian nations became
closer in the 1970s but operated in
a totally different political context
under the New Order neo-liberal
oriented regime.
50 A S Nasrun (ed.), Indonesian
Pertama Kali dalam Pameran
Internasional, Penerbit Bulan
Bintang, Jakarta, 1952, n.p.
51 A catalogue that can provide a
complete picture of this exhibition
has yet to be located; however,
newspaper reviews have assisted
in finding the names of artists
involved. Based on newspaper
reviews and descriptions, the
exhibition was associated only
once with LEKRA. It was more
often generalised as an exhibition
by Indonesian artists. Ninety
artists participated and more than
300 artworks were selected by a
committee made up of members
from the People’s Painters group,
LEKRA and ASRI. The committee
consisted of Affandi (People’s
Painters), Hendra Gunawan
(People’s Painters), Sudarso
(ASRI), Suromo (ASRI) and Basuki
Resobowo (LEKRA). See ‘Seni-lukis
Indonesia Punja Bentuk & Gaja
Tersendiri’, Kedaulatan Rakjat, 31
January 1961, p. 1.
52 Marah Djibal, ‘Pameran Senirupa
Nasional di Ganefo-I’, Harian
Rakjat, 24 November 1963, p. 1.
53 Michael Bodden has noted that
after the 1960s there was internal
tension between LEKRA figures
who rejected the affiliation with
the PKI. See Michael Bodden,
‘Dynamics and Tensions of
LEKRA’s Modern National Theatre,
1959–1965’, in Lindsay and Liem
(eds), Heirs to World Culture,
pp. 470–3.
54 Aristotle’s words are discussed
in Jacques Derrida, Politics of
Friendship, George Collins (transl.),
Verso, London, 2005 [1994], and
in Giorgio Agamben’s essay ‘The
Friend’, in David Kishik and Stefan
Pedatella (transl.), What Is an
Apparatus?, Stanford University
Press, Stanford, 2009 [2004].
—
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