Cafe_Street_Cafe

Grabbing a table and settling into the hard, weathered, geometric-wooden seat, I scanned the room while restlessly opening and closing the menu. Lolly and I had arrived at the cafe early enough to catch the DJ's warming up for their scheduled hiphop performance necessitated by the street art exhibit opening in the cafe that night. It seems as though you cannot have a gallery opening without the complete package of food, jesters and fireworks -- live musical acts are the standard at gallery openings in Yogya. Openings also offer free catalogues, posters, stickers or even odd plastic trinkets. Thus, an early arrival guarantees the best selection of loot. Lolly and I scanned the room, registering the usual European backpacker clients, common opening snacks of crispy cassava chips and glutinous rice cakes, cluster of baggy-clothes-clad hip hop kids, and recognizable LoveHateLove paintings filling the walls.

For the show, LoveHateLove, the most prolific graffiti artist in Yogya, turned his spray and brushes to mobile, salable surfaces and filled the walls of ViaVia with pieces to make some income. Graffiti, Murals, or vandalism -- whatever you prefer to call it -- doesn't usually lead to income, so an artist/vandal cannot continue without some source for money and supplies. ViaVia, an institution in Yogya that is part of a larger chain of Belgian "traveler cafes", has long supported "alternative artists", so it was no surprise to hear that they would host LoveHateLove and a crew of hiphop musicians.

So, as I considered ordering something from the cafe menu, I also scanned the walls, wondering whether one of LHL's paintings would be my loot for the night. We noticed Boy, the curator/organizor of the event, who confirmed that all of the paintings were for sale and that the numbers joining each piece was in fact the cost in Indonesian Rupiahs and not US Dollars. Stimulated by the low costs and lack of buyers, Lolly and I scanned the rooms for our favorite works and informed Boy that we wanted to purchase them. Once the red-dots were permanent, I stepped back to re-evaluate the $80 worth of paintings which will have a new home in my boarding house. Perhaps I went a little overboard by purchasing three canvases. There were two random paintings which I wanted to buy together as a set -- one with the face of a young man with four eyes, with the text "Boys Don't Pray", and one with a rabbit with the same four eyes, reading "Going to Logos". The third is a smaller piece with some printed-images pasted on, which in combination with paint create an intense, energetic composition.

It was a strange experience to purchase paintings, which I associate with wealthy individuals and either a kind of investor-consciousness or a romanticism for a kind of aesthetic purity. My motives were completely selfish in buying the paintings -- they are awesome keepsakes to remind me of Yogya's streetscape, a material link to  the past. But if I'm not a collector of Indonesian art, how does this transaction reflect on my identity in Yogya's artist communities? My funds for art are limited, and I make no promises about a safe or accessible storage facility -- in my possession, art will have a limited lifespan.

More details and maybe even some images will come soon! I'm still re-adjusting to the new digital environment of my back-amongst-the-living laptop with its new version of Windows. I'm still something of a tourist in Windows 7, having yet to accept that it might be permanent on my computer, and that I might just settle down with it, living a Windows 7 expatriate life.