Fenessa Adikoesoemo, Chairwoman Of Museum MACAN Foundation, Is Painting A Bright Future For Indonesian Arts

Photography by : Heri B. Heryanto

A hint of muted excitement permeated down the halls of the MACAN Museum, which has the motto “Art Turns. World Turns. Exploring the Collection of Museum MACAN”, and which is run by the Museum Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN) Foundation, as workers prepped for the highly anticipated grand opening of Indonesia’s first museum of contemporary art. Amid the shrill sounds of walls being drilled, Fenessa shared her thrill mixed with relief of opening the place which would showcase the impressive art collection of her father, Haryanto Adikoesoemo.

The inauguration ceremony of Museum MACAN

“What motivated us to open a museum is my father, who has been collecting art for more than 25 years. After having amassed that amount of artwork, it is time for us to give the public access to these works which they would, otherwise, not have seen,” she said.

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The museum will showcase roughly 90 artworks, including those by Yayoi Kusama and Ai Weiwei, throughout the opening round. These works represent a small fraction of the museum’s overall repository which it will rotate throughout the seasons. “We have been working on this museum for three years, so finally seeing the artworks on the wall is such a great feeling,” she noted.

Andy Warhol; Walter Spies

 She further pointed out that the biggest challenge in building the museum is the absence of  local benchmarks, given that the museum is the first of its kind in the country. The foundation had to pull in international experts in getting the museum right, from climate controls to installing special lighting systems.

Sawahlandschaft mit Gunung Agung; Djoko Pekik

“Humidity control is one of the biggest challenges in buildings, given that Indonesia is hot and humid,” she said, adding that they hired a company that specialised in museum lighting to ensure that the heat and light would not deteriorate the paintings.

 WTS Dandan

The foundation’s effort sharing art to Indonesians does not begin and end at the doors of the museum. Fenessa pointed out that the non-profit foundation—the philanthropic endeavour of her family—would pursue three missions in its bid to develop the nation’s art scene.

Tanaka Atsuko, Untitled

The first mission is to educate the public about art, thereby improving their appreciation of it. The second is to promote cross-cultural exchanges between Indonesian and foreign artists, while the last is building proper art infrastructure, notwithstanding human resource limitations.

Sudjana Kerton, Akibat Pemboman Di Lengkong Besar Bandung, 1945

Schools are the foundation’s primary target in laying the foundation on art awareness. According to Fenessa, the foundation plans to create an education programme which schools could integrate into their curriculum, besides scholarships that provide schools with better access to the museum. “We have created different programmes, like setting a children’s art space. We commissioned Entang Wiharso to create artwork that is interactive and educational there,” she said.

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As for bridging local and foreign artists, the foundation aims to sponsor overseas residency programmes that would allow Indonesian talents to build their international knowledge. The foundation also looks to introducing Indonesian art to museums abroad. “We have built a lot of connections with museums overseas,” Fenessa noted. “One way of engaging with them is to bring Indonesian artwork to their institutions to build understanding about Indonesian art.”

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Museums that the MACAN Foundation have a relationship with include the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, in which Haryanto Adikoesoemo was appointed into its Board of Trustees, and the Guggenheim Museum New York, at which Fenessa completed her fellowship.

Miguel Covarrubias, Map of Bali with Rose of the Winds

Meanwhile, on the point of infrastructure, the foundation has made the sustainability of the museum as imperative. “We want to do a lot of fundraising related to the museum; this is something that the foundation is set to doing well in the next five, ten, twenty years,” Fenessa said. “We want Indonesia to be a global player in the museum world, and through this museum, we want to show that we do have the facilities and infrastructure to be on par with other countries in the region,” she added.

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