This thesis investigates why an alternative visual art and arts infrastructure developed in Indonesia during the 1990s. Initially alternative exhibition spaces developed in response to a lack of outlets through the existing commercial galleries and in reaction to the cultural hegemony of Suharto???s regime, which failed to provide infrastructure for modern art. ???Alternative??? will be extended here to describe an art and an arts infrastructure that became an influential system of power, the gatekeeper for the Indonesian arts community to the international art forum. The background of Alternative art is considered, its sources being in the protest of the New Art Movement, Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru, in the 1970s and an on-going art student rebellion against the modern and decorative art taught in the art academies. Contemporary artists sought content that reflected the many issues confronting Indonesian society, and rejected that art focusing on formal properties particularly in painting, which, by avoiding contention, served the purposes of Suharto???s regime. Particular examples are explored to define the lines of power that evolved: firstly the alternative gallery, Cemeti, and secondly the curator, Jim Supangkat and his theoretical justification for Indonesian contemporary art for the international forum. Finally the career structure of Heri Dono is examined to identify the mechanisms for artistic success through international contacts. This investigation concludes that power and influence became dependent on recognition in the international forum. Western and later Asian institutions, in selecting work for the high profile survey exhibitions proliferating in the 1990s, worked almost exclusively with this network. Their preference was for installation art that reflected the socio-political context in which it was made, and the few artists who were selected developed careers very different from their colleagues in Indonesia, some becoming nomadic art stars. This relationship between the Indonesian and the international art network has gained recognition for Indonesian contemporary art and an outlet for suppressed issues and marginalised people, but did not provide a fully balanced representation of Indonesian culture and reiterated the systems and paradigms of the West in relation to Asian art.

This thesis investigates why an alternative visual art and arts infrastructure developed in Indonesia during the 1990s. Initially alternative exhibition spaces developed in response to a lack of outlets through the existing commercial galleries and in reaction to the cultural hegemony of Suharto???s regime, which failed to provide infrastructure for modern art. ???Alternative??? will be extended here to describe an art and an arts infrastructure that became an influential system of power, the gatekeeper for the Indonesian arts community to the international art forum. The background of Alternative art is considered, its sources being in the protest of the New Art Movement, Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru, in the 1970s and an on-going art student rebellion against the modern and decorative art taught in the art academies. Contemporary artists sought content that reflected the many issues confronting Indonesian society, and rejected that art focusing on formal properties particularly in painting, which, by avoiding contention, served the purposes of Suharto???s regime. Particular examples are explored to define the lines of power that evolved: firstly the alternative gallery, Cemeti, and secondly the curator, Jim Supangkat and his theoretical justification for Indonesian contemporary art for the international forum. Finally the career structure of Heri Dono is examined to identify the mechanisms for artistic success through international contacts. This investigation concludes that power and influence became dependent on recognition in the international forum. Western and later Asian institutions, in selecting work for the high profile survey exhibitions proliferating in the 1990s, worked almost exclusively with this network. Their preference was for installation art that reflected the socio-political context in which it was made, and the few artists who were selected developed careers very different from their colleagues in Indonesia, some becoming nomadic art stars. This relationship between the Indonesian and the international art network has gained recognition for Indonesian contemporary art and an outlet for suppressed issues and marginalised people, but did not provide a fully balanced representation of Indonesian culture and reiterated the systems and paradigms of the West in relation to Asian art.