Critical Analysis Discourse of Curatorial Text of Modern and Contemporary Islamic Art of Indonesia Exhibition : Islam and Identity

• Main Author: Sholahuddin, Abdullah
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/43980
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

After the Istiqlal Festival in 1995, very few Islamic art exhibitions activities in Indonesia. One of the exhibitions ever held was an exhibition of contemporary Islamic art of Indonesian: Islam and Identity 14 years later, in 2009. It’s interesting to study Islamic art discourse in that exhibition, because it was held at the first Jakarta Art Bazaar which had a focus activity on buying and selling art works . Considering the conditions that surround it, how is the relation beetwen discourse on the exhibition of Islam and Identity in curatorial texts, and discourse practice and social conditions when the text is produced? This study examines the exhibition discourse through the exhibition curatorial text using Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA). In the analysis model, the text is seen as a social practice that cannot be separated from the practice of discourse and social conditions that surround when the text is produced. The practice of discourse includes individual writers, the process of producing and consuming texts. Social conditions include the situation, institutions and conditions of society that affect text production. In the curatorial text of Islam and Identity exhibition, the curator emphasizes the development of Islamic art in Indonesia, by open the boundaries of Islamic art which is fixated on classical Islamic art works such as: calligraphy, arabesque, ornaments, etc., as well as Islamic art which is fixated on spirituality and religiosity. The concept of the exhibition began with the direction from the organizer of the curator, who saw the potential of Indonesian contemporary Islamic art in the world. The curator chooses works based on the presence of signs that represent Islamic values, without looking at the real ideas of works from the artists. The theme of this exhibition is the Islamic identity that lives in Indonesian culture. From this study, there several things found. Through text, curators try to develop Islamic art discourse that can embrace a wider variety of works by removing other discouraging Islamic art discourse. In the practice of discourse curators carry out organizers' requests by ensuring it’s not contradicted with Islamic values as his idealism. In sociocultural practices, this exhibition follows the interest of world art markets which at that time were interested in issues that came from the Islamic world, not the value of Islam as a religion. However, the discourse in this paper does not carry the fundamental content of Islamic values, but is merely an introduction to displaying contemporary works of art, from the spiritual-religious to the contemporary art that there are no so much different from contemporary art in general.