Tjipta niaga was one of the old buildings cleverly transformed into an art gallery for the KTCF (Kota Tua Creative Festival) 2014. Most of the contemporary artworks of Indonesia’s rising young artists were displayed on the second floor of the building, while on the ground floor it accommodated an architecture exhibition “Jakarta Old Town Reborn”, curated by Yori Antar.

Jakarta Old Town Reborn displayed architectural models by seven architectural firms from Indonesia and the Netherlands, showing their visions on how to creatively revive the old (and poorly maintained) buildings in the old quarters. The project was led by Erasmus Huis and Rumah Asuh, and would be displayed at Erasmus Huis after the exhibition at KTCF.

Upstairs were filled with contemporary artworks from all sorts of medium. There were paintings, photographs, sculptures, even multimedia. The artworks were really interesting, but unfortunately, since the visitors were mostly general public who probably rarely went to art galleries, they did not ‘treat’ the artworks properly. I saw some teenagers taking a selfie really close to a painting and their backpacks might have scratched the artwork 🙁

22.06.2014