Stops: Gajah Mada Plaza, Galeri Nasional, Taman Ismail Marzuki & IKJ (Institut Kesenian Jakarta), and RA Suites Simpatung, Jaksel. (Days 45-49)

The last time I was in the city of Jakarta was mid-August 2000. Between faded memories and massive redevelopment, I might as well have never been here before. It was good to explore a little bit. That was all I could really manage; it is such a huge and sprawling place. But, between Gojek, trains, and the BRT, it is much easier to get around. And, a bit of wandering around on foot, too.

I wanted something cheap, by transit, fairly central, and maybe near the old town, so wound up at an Ibis Styles Hotel for a couple of nights next to the Gajah Mada Plaza mall and just down the street from the Harmoni Bus Rapid Transit station. Nothing special, but served its purpose. I had to postpone my onward trip to Bandung because of holidays and tried to stay another night, but too late, full. So, I took the opportunity to check out a completely different part of the city–South Jakarta, or Jaksel–which is one of five cities that make up Jakarta. Originally a satellite, this is now a quite well off residential district. I first heard about “Jaksel” a couple of years ago on a linguistics podcast where the place was also the name of a youth language variety associated with the city mixing Indonesian with English, but also influence from Javanese and Betawi. On the Gojek ride over, I often felt like we were driving through Singapore. Glassy high rises and posh estates. It was kind of nice to spend two nights in a “fancy” hotel (about 9,000 yen a night) for a change. Very relaxing to have nice plants, nice pool, terry bathrobe–the works.

My first full day in the city I went for a bit of a wander around the neighborhood then got a Gojek to the National Gallery. There were two temporary exhibitions. I did not really look into them before going; wanted to go back and check out this museum. I was sure it would be interesting and the colonial architecture is great anyway.

It turned out to be really cool!

The main exhibition was “Butet Kartaredjasa, Melik Nggendong Lali.” I had no idea who this person was, but everybody in Indonesia does. Mostly an actor, and I guess satirist, Bambang Ekoloyo Butet Kartaredjasa, had produced a huge amount of completely obsessive work recently. Paintings filled with repetitive writing and re-writing of his name. One docent told me the artist had spent 90 days writing his name into the work all day, every day.

Figure at the entry to the exhibition.

The neighboring gallery building in the complex had a group exhibition by women artists.

It was such a varied collection with so many different styles (of course). Hard to capture the whole thing, but here are two I quite liked.

I had a nice chat with two of the docents and there was a big group of art students on a kind of domestic exchange trip. They were from all over the country including some really isolated places, even as far as Timor. Everyone really was enjoying the work.

Catalogs for both the exhibits at the bottom of this post.

The next day, I decided to take the train to an area and stop by a shop or two then walk around a different neighborhood. What used to be a local station on the tracks where I basically took a boxcar out to the hills on, if memory serves a couple of hours ride to Bogor in the late 90s, is now an elevated station, and Bogor is a normal commute. Took the train to Statsiun Gondangdia, walked to Artland Menteng, then continued on through the Menteng area to Taman Ismail Marzuki “Art Park,” and finished up through to Cikini Station. Rather a nice neighborhood. Near where I was staying, the commercial center was for power tools; the main commercial center in Cikini was for gold.

I’d read online that Taman Ismail Marzuki “Art Park” was a nice, cool place to relax. And, it was. Not sure what was there previously, but there had been some serious “urban renewal.” A huge section was now landscaped with very Ando Tadao-esque concrete galleries, library, an observatory (in Jakarta? with light and air pollution?) fountains, and some cafes. At the back of the park is a local art institute. Worth a wander around.

Around Taman Ismail Marzouki. Including street cat. Lots of cats in Jakarta and many Indonesian cities.

The campus of Art Institute Jakarta is really nice. The trees were absolutely enormous. Just huge.

I did a little preliminary doodling while I was wandering around, but it was getting hot and time to head back to the hotel, so below is not a live, on-the-spot, “urban sketch,” but done back at the hotel from a photo. Two things: working from a photo on your phone is so much easier, and using proper watercolor paper instead a sketchbook for drawing also makes a difference. Still need to work on tonal range and contrast, but happier with the perspective on this one. Also learning that I do not have to color as much of the subject as I have been. Still working on that. Will be working on that, for a while.

A5 size sketch of some gallery buildings, the observatory, and the theater as seen from the library at Taman Ismail Marzouki “Art Park.”