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The Photobook Club Jakarta is a platform to discuss photobook from local Indonesian photographer and International ones.
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The Photobook Club Jakarta is a platform to discuss photobook from local Indonesian photographer and International ones.
Review: Jakarta Estetika Banal by Erik Prasetya
Now, let me first try to explain why I was highly anticipating this book. Although Erik Prasetya is by all means an accomplished photographer, Estetika Banal is his first and thus far only monograph. The last time his photographs were present in a major publication was in 2005, in a book called Yang Tercinta (The Loved Ones), consisted of personal works from 8 photographers. After that, I came across another small sample of his works in the 2007 Jakarta International Photo Summit catalogue. It was his photographs in this catalogue that really got me intrigued. I remember thinking to myself, “Can this possibly be the Indonesian pioneer of street photography we’ve all been looking for?"
When the interest in street photography began to arise in this country, the young practitioners (myself included) were mostly informed through the internet, inspired by the greats of the foreign masters. We did, of course, wonder if there were local predecessors—whether there was someone photographing street-style in Indonesian cities in the past, but it has proved difficult to find such photographers. Sometimes we would find a couple of interesting frames, only to be disappointed that there weren’t more information as to whether it’s part of a larger body of works, etc. So we resorted to where we began; outside sources. But I find studying the foreign greats has its own downfalls too: what we have here in our own streets isn’t anything like the scenes in our favorite photographs from other countries. Everything is different. I would go out and shoot, and when I come back to view the photos, I would often wonder… "Are these interesting scenes? Is this the most effective solution to that particular visual problem? How would I know? How would a seasoned Indonesian street photographer solve this problem? Oh right, there isn’t one.” But now, with the release ofEstetika Banal, I feel that we finally have some sort of solid grounds from which we can discuss, compare, and more importantly develop Indonesian own street photography.
The book consists of eight chapters, each of it untitled but marked with an excerpt of a poem to signify the beginning of a new chapter. Marriage between images and words (especially poems) are something that’s really hard to get right without the risk of one overwhelming the other, but it is not the case here. The selected excerpts, short as they may be, beautifully set the tones for the following photographs. They give a tease of what’s to come, without really describing it as to not ruin your experience of the book. I really like how it works here. The poems in their entirety can be read at the end of the book. The photographs themselves are very solid, and I think even that’s an understatement. Not only is each photograph strong, it is really clear that much thoughts have been put into the editing process. Even though there isn’t a "story” per se, the sequencing of the photographs give the feeling of a narrative, starting from a rather descriptive treatment of the city in the first chapters which then slowly and gracefully move towards a more subjective statement the author has about the city and its development seen in the faces of its citizens in the later chapters. Each photograph has a caption, and while most of them simply show the place and year the picture was made, some other captions give additional interesting information which aren’t just objectively explaining the situation of the scene photographed, but also seemingly unrelated events surrounding the photographs which somehow actually give new, broader meanings to them.
On a smaller scale many of the photograph pairings on a spread are also interesting, sometimes implementing simple visual puns and similarities within the photographs, other times creating a mini-story by putting complementary photographs next to each other, some of which I display here. This is a book which you can definitely enjoy on repeated viewings.
Jakarta Estetika Banal
© Erik Prasetya
Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, in cooperation with Jakarta Arts Council
Hardcover 192 pages; 30cm x 24cm
IDR 175.000
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