In the manifesto accompanying his 1988 solo exhibition at Taman Ismail Marzuki, Semsar called on artists to engage head on with issues that gripped Indonesian society instead of producing works that masked or ignored them. Aminudin Siregar suggests that this manifesto was targeted at the “depoliticized and deradicalized” aesthetics of art that had been produced since 1965 as a result of the kinds of commissions that artists received from the emerging middle class and Suharto’s mega development projects. In order to subvert this image, Siahaan raises ‘the garden’ as a metaphor for the tripartite of the vernacular (metabolized through cultural tropes), capital and bureaucracy. All these elements come into concert in his monumental work Olympia, Identitas Ibu dan Anak (Olympia, Identity with Mother and Child) (1987). “And now I stand here before you with my art, hey you people who dwell in the beautiful garden. I fully understand your view that new fresh creations in the contemporary art world in particular, and art in general, will be achieved only when artists have complete individual freedom in their creative work. I AGREE! That is the highest priority of my artistic endeavors as well. But I want to ask, is that motto suitable for you to mention in the narrow confines of your garden of beauty which lives as a parasite amidst the far greater garden, where human beings struggle just to defend their lives? They are already struggling just to live, let alone expecting the self-respect and human rights that have been torn from them.” The picture is complex, as Siahaan places the key protagonists of the collective ‘Indonesian soul’ around the figure of a blonde Olympia, who remains unperturbed by the chaos around her. The masses are at the door, blood has been spilt, yet the pictorial sublime remains in-tact. The illusion is at once real, materials and palpable.
