Haji Widayat between Worlds: A Retrospective

Written by Lauriston Roach Thursday, 16 September 2010 22:02

Singapore - Singapore Art Museum and Museum H. Widayat are pleased to present Widayat Between Worlds: A Retrospective. The exhibition, which features more than 70 paintings, sculptures, ceramics and found objects, show a broad representation artistic practice of the late artist, Haji Widayat (b. 1919-2002), one of the most influential Javanese painters in the 20^th century.

From the world of fantasy to the realities of everyday life, the exhibition introduces the significant themes in Widayat’s oeuvre. The associations, multilayered meanings, mythically and historically evocative elements of Widayat’s landscapes and figurative works are representative of Java’s “traditional/decorative” art style. At the same time, Widayat’s work displays the imaginative influences of modern and contemporary Western artists and genres such as Henri Rousseau, Jean Dubuffet/Art Brut as well as Chicago Imagism. Widayat’s personal collection of tribal art, which will be on display in the exhibition, is also of interest as indicators of sources that have exerted influence on the content and decorative formal devices in his artworks.

Widayat’s experimentations with medium – aside from the predominant oil media he is known for – also include acrylic, watercolour ceramic, prints and sculpture making on found objects. His use of colour and movement are dominant aspects of his work and his abstract works in particular, illustrate his mastery of shape and composition while remaining child-like and naïve. The exhibition provides a direct glimpse into the late artist’s perspectives, ideas and guiding principles about his own life and practice, as well as his developments in formal idioms, and his influence on younger generations. At the same time, it also looks at the relationship between the late artist and his patrons, which include both public and private collections.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a catalogue will be published to include essays by scholars and collectors including Mr Sudarso S.P., Mr Agus Burhan and Dr Oei Hong Djien.

Says Director of Singapore Art Museum, Mr Kwok Kian Chow, “Since its inauguration in 1996, the Singapore Art Museum has been dedicated to the collection and display of Southeast Asian Modern and Contemporary Art. The Museum has built up the largest public collection of 20^th-century Southeast Asian art. Widayat Between Worlds: A Retrospective is a celebration of an artist whose eclectic nature exemplifies the aesthetics and sensibilities of Southeast Asia. H. Widayat is a towering artist in the art histories of both Indonesia and Southeast Asia. He embodies the syncretic nature of Javanese culture that we also encounter in the cultures of Southeast Asia. His subjects range from the religious to the mystical, from nature to daily scenes of life in the city, from the spiritual to the human world.”

Adds Mr Kwok, “This exhibition would not be possible without the Museum H. Widayat as co-organiser. This collaboration cements the strong linkages that SAM has established with other important art institutions and private collectors in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.” A collaboration between Singapore Art Museum and Museum H. Widayat, the exhibition draws works from the Museum H. Widayat, Singapore Art Museum as well as the private collection of SAM Board Member, Dr Oei Hong Djien.

About the artist

H. Widayat’s artistic career spanned five decades of protean and prodigious creativity. Celebrated as a painter whose imageries of dense forests, myths, and primitive life forms, weave magic and mysticism with decorative sensibilities, Widayat’s creative energies, unremitting even in his final years, accommodated excursions from the habitual oil-on-canvas medium to sculpture making, print and ceramic works. The Indonesian modern master emerged in the early years of the Indonesian republic and distinguished himself in the Suharto era as an artist whose thematic oeuvre and decorative values garnered critical attention when the Indonesian art world was searching for expressions of the Indonesian identity. Art critics focused in particular on Widayat’s adaptations of indigenous primitive art and ornamentation, and ‘decora-magic’ was coined to describe the mystical and the magical imageries of Widayat’s richly ornamented paintings.

Widayat’s artistic worlds extend beyond the painter’s studio to the classroom where over three decades he nurtured young aspiring artists on whose practices his stylistic influence is perceptible. The artist was also an art collector: housed in Museum H. Widayat which the artist established in 1994 in Magelang, Central Java, Widayat’s collection of artworks of his mentors, peers and students, and of indigenous traditional and tribal arts, is a poignant assembly of Widayat’s many worlds.

About Singapore Art Museum

The Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is one of the first art museums with international standard museum facilities and programmes in Southeast Asia. Opened in January 1996, the mission of the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is to preserve and present the art histories and contemporary art practices of Singapore and the Southeast Asian region.

As a national visual arts institution, SAM evolves in tandem with art development in Singapore. Since its inauguration, SAM has initiated a series of exhibitions to examine and celebrate the contributions of Singapore’s first generation of artists like Chen Wen His (2000), Georgette Chen (1997), Chen Chong Swee (1998), and Liu Kang (1998, 2000, 2002, 2003). This effort continues till the present with exhibitions on Thomas Yeo (1997), Trimurti [Goh Ee Choo, Salleh Japar, S Chandrasekaran] (1998), Lim Tze Peng (1998, 2003) and Tan Swie Hian (2004). Visit : www.singart.com.