STUDY OF LEKRA’S IDEAS ABOUT ART IN INDONESIA FROM 1950 TO 1965

• Main Author: Chris Hardani (NIM: 27016003), Antonius
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/25700
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

In the West, modernism has given birth to art autonomous. Art became liberal, <br /> <br /> exclusive, and separate from social reality. The famous slogan was ‘art for the <br /> <br /> sake of art’. This art phenomenon was against by Marxist that emphasized about <br /> <br /> strong relation between art and social reality. In art domain, Marxism transformed <br /> <br /> into the most extreme implementation in 1934, when Socialist Realism became <br /> <br /> official artistic method in Soviet Union. In Indonesia, the clash between liberal art <br /> <br /> and Socialist Realism also occurred, especially in 1950. At least this clash was <br /> <br /> caused by two reasons. First, new colonization strategy from the Dutch through <br /> <br /> Round Table Conference in 1949. Second, the publicity of Avant-Gardism <br /> <br /> Manifesto by Indonesian liberal artists in 1950. These two reasons were seen by <br /> <br /> the left thinker as threat for the totality of Indonesia independent. Based on this <br /> <br /> condition, a group of intellectuals, artists, and cultural workers from the left wing <br /> <br /> established Institute of People’s Culture (Lekra) in 1950. <br /> <br /> The main purpose of the establishment of Lekra was to fight against colonialism <br /> <br /> and save the revolution through peopleness art and culture. But this Lekra’s <br /> <br /> ethical mission was also part of political strategy of Indonesia Communist Party <br /> <br /> (PKI), which had collapsed in 1948. Through Lekra, PKI was able to get people <br /> <br /> sympathy and resurrect from its collapsed. This dualistic signed that Lekra was a <br /> <br /> very complex cultural organization. Therefore, in order to understand the <br /> <br /> complexity of Lekra’s thought, this research choose Lekra’ ideas in Mukadimah <br /> <br /> 1950, Mukadimah 1959 and 1-5-1 Method as research objects. <br /> <br /> This research analyzed Lekra’s ideas in order to understand about the basic <br /> <br /> formulation of these ideas. This research also had purpose to understand Lekra’s <br /> <br /> perspective about art based on its ideas. Finally, this research showed the <br /> <br /> correlation between Lekra and PKI’s politic strategy. This research used discourse <br /> <br /> analysis method. The whole text of Lekra’s ideas will be compared by Marxian <br /> <br /> materialism dialectic and Soviet Socialist Realism theories. Basically, materialism <br /> <br /> dialectic was a theory about scientific-objective process of reality negation. This <br /> <br /> process has purpose to fix reality and bring it to better stage. Socialist Realism <br /> <br /> was Soviet official artistic method in Stalin era that implemented materialism <br /> <br /> dialectic theory into art and cultural domain for the sake of socialism utopia. <br /> <br /> The purpose of this analysis was to understand how far these theories were used <br /> <br /> by Lekra to formulate its ideas. This analysis method not only focuses on textual <br /> <br /> analysis, but also consider about the context of PKI’s politic history. Since this <br /> <br /> context was also had influence to formulate the text of Lekra’s ideas. This <br /> <br /> analysis was divided into two phases. Those two phases are: the first phase of <br /> <br /> dialectical stage 1950-1955 which formulated in Mukadimah 1950 and the second <br /> <br /> phase of dialectical stage 1955-1959-1965 which formulated in Mukadimah 1959 <br /> <br /> and 1-5-1 Method. <br /> <br /> Based on the analysis of this research, Mukadimah 1950 was formulated by <br /> <br /> materialism dialectic consciousness which had purpose to bring Peopleness <br /> <br /> Culture into better condition and also to resurrect PKI from its collapse. The text <br /> <br /> formulation of Mukadimah 1950 contained ethical dan political mission. But this <br /> <br /> political mission was implicitly hidden behind the formulation of this text. In this <br /> <br /> phase, art in Lekra’s perspective emphasized peopleness and emancipatory <br /> <br /> characteristics. The alignment to people was a strategic position for both ethical <br /> <br /> and political mission. <br /> <br /> Different from Mukadimah 1950, an explicit political mission was found based on <br /> <br /> the analysis of Mukadimah 1959 and 1-5-1 Method. Both of Mukadimah 1959 <br /> <br /> and 1-5-1 Method were formulated based on the plan to continue the victory of <br /> <br /> Peopleness Culture from the first phase of dialectical stage that was pioneered by <br /> <br /> Mukadimah 1950. In order to defense and expand this victory, Lekra started to <br /> <br /> implement Socialist Realism method in order to control Peopleness Culture with <br /> <br /> more strict rules. In this phase, there was no democratic art in Lekra’s perspective. <br /> <br /> Peopleness Art started to be projected for the sake of socialism-communistic <br /> <br /> purpose. The cultural emancipatory mission also started to change into the <br /> <br /> absolute equality.