By: Fadjar Pratikto- ADIL News
Jakarta- The night was getting late, an old sculptor had not yet slept. His mind was in turmoil. The silence of the night brought him to daydream about every test in life he was facing. Orders for statues are low and to this day he still doesn't have the money to continue or move the contract to a more appropriate place. Never mind paying the house rent, he still lacks enough to survive on a daily basis. Now the legend of Indonesian sculpture lives with his wife and child in an old rented house in the Pondok Gede area, Bekasi City, West Java, Indonesia.
That is the sad fate that the national statue maestro, Azmir Azhari, has been living with. This Jakarta sculptor, born in Payakumbuh, West Sumatra, January 1 1953, is currently facing serious economic problems. It's not because he is lazy about creating, but this difficulty occurs because there is no assistance from the government and the DKI Jakarta provincial government that could actually raise his name and business in the field of classical realist sculpture so that it can be noticed by local art lovers.
The lack of appreciation from the state means that quotations for this work are not appreciated properly and professionally. The government still seems to be ignoring the future of artists who are assets of this nation, even though Azmir is like a legend in Indonesian sculpture who has international artistic abilities.
Maestro Statue
So far, Azmir is known as a sculptor who is characterized by a classic realist and impressionist style. His portrait statues look so alive and full of deep emotional power. Every time he creates statues of heroes and national figures, the level of similarity is very high and cannot be found in other sculptural works in Indonesia. He wants to make his work a medium for education in Indonesian history, art and culture. Indonesia deserves to have high quality statues that can inspire the younger generation to love its heroes.
"Because, the art of sculpture that I study, is a historical record of heroes who can record their appearance, shape, face, attitude, movements, body proportions into one three-dimensional form that is immortalized. So, people see, wow, this is my hero," he said Azmir.
Azmir started learning sculpting since elementary school, and he learned it autodidactically by making clay statues on the edge of the lake behind his childhood home in Minas, Riau. He did his hobby of making statues solely to entertain his younger siblings and friends, without knowing that his sculpting abilities would shape the course of his life in the future.
After graduating from high school, Azmir migrated from his village in Payakumbuh to Yogyakarta to study painting at the Sculpture Department, Faculty of Fine Arts, Indonesian College of Fine Arts (STSRI) ASRI Yogyakarta in 1973. However, his desire to become an engineer wavered after just one year. He changed his direction to pursue sculpture in 1974 after joining the figure of Empu Ageng Edhi Soenarso, Bung Karno's favorite legendary sculptor. Edhi is an Indonesian maestro sculptor who created monumental works such as the Welcome Statue at the Hotel Indonesia Roundabout, Jakarta, the West Irian Liberation Statue at Banteng Square, Jakarta, and the Dirgantara Statue in Pancoran, Jakarta.
The meeting with Edhi began when Azmir was assigned by the painting department to make marathon sketches depicting the life of people in the city of Yogyakarta. He went to a number of places to make sketches and ended up at a sculpture campus. "When I was making a sketch in the sculpture department, the chairman looked at my sketch, he said if you were in sculpture you could get an A. Do you want to just go into sculpture?" Azmir recalled a conversation with Edhi Soenarso in Yogyakarta.
Since then, Azmir has moved from majoring in painting to sculpture. His achievements continued to increase in the field of sculpture so that he received great attention from his teachers and college friends. Edhi Sunarso also educated him directly by asking him to stay and learn sculpting at his house in Karangwuni, Yogyakarta. The teacher often invited Azmir to work as an apprentice with Edhi while teaching at STSRI ASRI Yogyakarta. Furthermore, in the 1979-1981 period, Azmir was asked to become Edhi Sunarso's teaching assistant.
Because of his outstanding talent as a sculptor, Azmir often receives project calls from a number of other lecturers to work on projects in various regions. Without exception, the order came from Edhi himself. One of them, Azmir was once asked to make a statue of Captain Pierre Tendean which is kept at the Satria Mandala Museum, Jakarta and the Puputan Badung Monument in Denpasar, Bali.
In 1982, Azmir said goodbye to Edhi Sunarso to pursue an independent career. He had to take care of his younger siblings who had migrated to find work, while at that time the sculpture business in Yogyakarta was experiencing stagnation. Even though it was hard to leave Edhi, who was like his own father, he still went to try his luck in the capital as an independent sculptor at the Ancol Art Market, Jakarta.
Phenomenal Work
One of the phenomenal works of Azmir and other sculptors was creating the Baluwarti Relief at the entrance to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in 1981. The relief ordered by Mrs. Tien Soeharto depicts the struggle of the Indonesian people from the Majapahit era to the Asian-African Conference. Azmir and his old friend Kasman KS Piliang are the artists responsible for the mega project by Bandung artists But Muchtar and Surya Pernawa.
After moving to Jakarta, Azmir worked on various sculpture projects, most of which were commissioned. In his small kiosk he received guests from local and foreign figures who ordered his statues. From small portrait statues to giant realist monument statues such as the 10 meter tall General Soedirman statue which has become an icon of Purbalingga City.
His work, which is so detailed and looks real, has attracted the attention of a number of local governments to order statues to become icons of their cities. One of them is the statue of Jakarta's mascot, namely 'Elang Bondol and Salak Condet' which marks the six border points of DKI Jakarta Province.
After working for a long time at the Ancol Art Market, starting in 2013, Azmir focused his search in his old age on the deeper meaning of realism and moved his workshop to his residence in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta to make it easier for him to work and restore his health condition, which had been stricken with heart disease.
That's where this seasoned sculptor made a model of the statue of Didi Kempot in the yard of his rented house in Kebun Jeruk in 2020. In the yard of the house there are also rows of model statues of figures from his work, including statues of General Sudirman in Purbalingga, Taufiq Kiemas, Prof. Dr. H. Tabrani Rab, Chinese medicine figure Li Shao Bo, First Lady Ainun Habibie, and several of her abstract works.
As a sculpture artist, Azmir realizes that a big name is not a guarantee of getting a decent life. Although his life in Kebon Jeruk was full of happiness, it was also filled with severe economic trials because his request for marketing assistance from the state and the provincial government of DKI Jakarta had not yet been realized. This condition made him have to work alone to market his work via social media with the help of his son.
Even though he was going through difficult times, Azmir was not afraid and continued to persevere even when the pandemic hit Jakarta which caused his business to collapse and his projects to be canceled by customers. After surviving almost a year during the PSBB period, he and his family were forced to be evicted from the rented house they had lived in for many years. In order to survive, he resigned himself to being moved by an acquaintance to an old rented house on the outskirts of the capital, which was very far from his extended family and old home. Even so, Azmir remains confident that he will return to live in Kebon Jeruk and work again in Jakarta like before.
In 2021, the Bentara Budaya cultural agency under Kompas Gramedia entrusted Azmir to create a statue of the founder of Kompas Gramedia, Jakob Oetama. Through this bronze statue he expressed all his talents and abilities. The statue now stands tall at Bentara Budaya Jakarta, and has become a benchmark for realist sculpture in Indonesia. The beauty of Jakob Oetama's statue and his profound philosophy have received praise from many artistic figures and cultural figures.
Azmir also put the words "Providentia Dei" on the left side of the body of the bust of Jakob Oetama (1931-2020). He wanted to present the figure of the founder of the daily Kompas, as well as give deep meaning to what Jakob often said, namely providentia dei or divine inclusion, God's providence. Azmir feels that all his tests so far have been a journey that has forged him to become a greater sculptor. Slowly his story and work for 46 years in the world of Indonesian art, which for so long eluded publication, is starting to emerge. People are starting to recognize the great talent that Jakarta has.
Even though Azmir's dedication to sculpture is very high, the appreciation he receives is still far from appropriate. The economic condition is still far from adequate. In fact, he and his family still live in the old rented house. His proposals and offers of works to the government have never received a response or follow-up even though the Covid-19 pandemic that has hit the country for several years has ended. This has had an impact on various sculpture projects that have not been completed until now, one of which is the statue of the late singer Didi Kempot which was initiated by the Sobat Ambyar Community, Central Java Provincial Government and Surakarta City Government in 2020.
However, Azmir has not given up at the age of 70. He still plans to build statues of heroes and cultural figures in the country he loves. He wants to play an active role again and take part in Indonesia's development. He conveyed this dream directly to the Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta, Ahmad Riza Patria, who visited his rented house on June 25 2022 in Pondok Gede, Bekasi City. Riza, who had just had the opportunity to meet him, hopes that Azmir can continue to work as a sculptor in the city of Jakarta and advance art and culture in Indonesia and the world.
In commemoration of World Art Day on April 15, Azmir also advised young sculpture artists to maintain idealism in their work. "Make our sculptural works of art a cultural mission that not only has aesthetics but also a deep meaning of truth, because art is the real reality of life," he said as quoted by Historia magazine.*****