Art | Museum MACAN | sun & seasalts

Museum of Modern And Contemporary Art in Nusantara or shortened as Museum MACAN (macan means tiger in bahasa Indonesia), is recently opened a few months ago in Jakarta.

It was born by Yayasan Museum MACAN, a non-profit foundation.

‘Art Turns World Turns’ is the current exhibition since it’s opening on November 7th.

I visited here because the infamous installation by Yayoi Kusama ‘Infinity Mirrored Room‘. I couldn’t make it to visit her exhibition in Singapore this year. 😦 So this was a very good chance to see her art!

The museum is open at 10 AM. But when me & Mr F arrived, there were quite a long queue already. Most the visitors are couples and teenagers but there were some families too. Last night I bought the online ticket from museum official website to prevent the long queue . Unexpectedly, both the ticket booth & online ticket queue were long too.

the ticketing lobby

While we were waiting in line, there are two paintings displayed at the ticketing lobby area. I think this to let customers kill their time by enjoying the art and taking some photographs while waiting the long queue. Customers can enjoy some snacks and beverages in the cafe at the corner and enjoy the city view.

that polkadot flower reminds me of Mario Bros

entrance to the gallery

Before you enter the gallery, the security will check your belongings to make sure that you follow the rules, like don’t bring water bottle and any food, no selfie sticks, tripods, monopods, etc. Then you’ll go through the ticket checking while the staff will ask you to read the rules again.

First thing to visit here must the Infinity Room! You must line up for this installation first. Most of the visitors come here to take photos in this room because it is so instagramable! Well it is! But make sure you setting your camera or prepare your phone so that you can capture as many photos as possible in this room. Due to long queue, you have only limited time inside. I think we got less than a minute inside. There will be 1 staff outside the booth as the timer and another staff inside to explain to you.

Pretty isn’t it? ❤ ‘Infinity Mirrored Rooms‘ first developed by Yayoi Kusama in 1865. She then moved to New York from Tokyo in 1957. Since then, she developed her provocative and experimental works.

Mostly the art in this museum are paintings. It came from so many countries. From Indonesia itself until artists from other countries who painted Indonesia in their own perspectives.

‘Bung Karno amidst the Revolutionary War’ by Dullah (1966)

The painting above was born from Dullah. He was one of the famous painter in Indonesia history. In this painting shown our first president who made Indonesia independent. This painting was not made based on actual historical events, but it’s a resemblance to the scene from Bung Karno heroic speech at Jakarta in 1945.