In the beginning, Sotheby’s was an auction house. But now, as the development of the fine arts market continued, Sotheby’s is being developed as a corporation that works on almost everything in the fine art world, from the upstream sectors to its downstream.
Sotheby’s now own a school to educate future art lovers, who will become the future buyers of the art objects Sotheby’s have to offer. To control the quality of art works, Sotheby’s also established a school of curators and artist. They also established a school to produce art marketers and the art managers, who will be placed in marketing field. The core of this entire establishment is the capital machinery of the gallery and the auction house.
The model of Sotheby’s inspires the fine art activist Andonowati of the Artsocietes, Bandung. She established Lawangwangi, an art space of fine arts, which will be covering upstream to downstream activities. On that space, art works will be created, interpreted and given context, promoted, and then offered to the collectors.
The Lawangwangi building stood on an area of 1,300 square meter. It was designed by Baskoro Teja, an architect who also designed the Selasar Seni Sunaryo. The address of Lawangwangi is Jalan Dago Giri Number 99, Warung Caringin, Mekarwangi, Bandung.
“I understand that Sotheby’s has everything. They produce artists, curator, they educate their buyers, they own gallery and auction house,” said Andonowati, in an early Sunday in November, at Lawangwangi. Lawangwangi was designed as a comprehensive fine arts infrastructure. In this building, there are rooms used for offices, laboratory, room stock, library, house of worship and, of course, exhibition hall.
There are some interesting things of the office space. Paintings are displayed on each office space, each with its own particular theme. There is the theme of paper-base medium in a particular office space. “I want to convince people that work on paper can be very beautiful and interesting.”
Another office space has a contemporary painting theme. The painting theme in Andonowati’s office is the Islamic Art. “I want to help explaining to people that Islamic arts are not only calligraphy, and that it also undergone development.”
Not far from the main building, a villa is being prepared for guests coming from afar, who needs lodging to stay. The guests, mostly collectors, will have plenty of time to study and consider the value of the paintings they have there.
“So potential buyers can consider which works that they want to buy. They can get close to the works. They will collect the works that they really want by considering their taste and the quality of the works.”
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Around 150 meters of the Lawangwangi area, there is a local village. Some of the houses there are damaged. This house was bought and turned into studios that can be used by artists. The multi-talent artists Asmudjo Jono Irianto and Dikdik Sayahdikumullah once stayed in that studio. They created some of their works there. The products were exhibited at Lawangwangi.
There is a studio, a discussion room, an exhibition hall, and lodging place for the collectors. They all showed a continuous plan to make Lawangwangi as a fine arts infrastructure that will run from upstream to downstream, from the art work creation process into the latest form of appreciation: to be collected. For information, the laboratory at Lawangwangi will cover research, archiving and documenting artists’ portfolios and provenance-making (the history of an art work).
To promote artists and their works must be done by exploring the variety of means and possibilities, for example by building an online gallery. But no less important for artists is for them arrange their portfolio. In order to participate in the international fine art community, an artist has to have a good track record and portfolio. According to Andonowati, Indonesian artists have not realized yet the importance of portfolio and provenance record for their works.
All the plans have been laid down, and the main building of Lawangwangi has been erected. It will officially start operation by launching it in January 2010. Exhibitions programs are planned for one year, with plan of holding an exhibition once every two months.
Perhaps because its cool climate, far from the noise of the city, some of Andonowati’s colleagues and artists friends have already bought land near Lawangwangi. The place has become a magnet for other people to get close to. Andonowati said that the areas around Lawangwangi will become an art village that will grow naturally.
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