Promoting Art and Culture

As the newspaper grows, so does its involvement in activities outside its line of business. In the past 13 years of existence, the Post has contributed significantly to the promotion of the country's rich and diverse cultures as well as fascinating art life.

It is generally accepted that newspapers serve society in at least four ways. They inform, influence, entertain and contribute to the economic system. The way they perform these functions, however, varies from one to another, according to the philosophy each one holds, according to the audience to which each one commits itself to serve.

In the case of the Post, delivering a high quality newspaper every day is not an end in itself. It is only a means to serving the higher purpose of promoting ever-changing humankind, a task which is becoming more relevant today as the world finds itself in the middle of a process of transformation into a global village. In short, the Post commits itself to promoting people of culture in the broadest sense.

This new tradition of the paper promoting art and culture was started in 1992, when the Post held an exhibition of Sentani art to celebrate its ninth anniversary.

In the same year, the paper managed a series of events called "Paris-Jakarta". These centered on the salvaging and restoration of an invaluable national treasure, a great collection of more than 200 oil paintings and other art objects, representing Ecole de Paris of the 1950s, which included work of the world renowned Vassily Kandinsky.

Sponsored by the state oil company Pertamina and the French oil company Total, and with the support of the French Embassy in Jakarta, the Post newspaper indulged in organizing the restoration of the collection, the publication of a complete catalog on it, the public exhibition of a part of it and other related activities.

This collection has a special meaning to the country as it consists of art objects donated personally by the artists to the people of the Republic of Indonesia in 1959 in recognition of Indonesian independence. Somehow that collection "disappeared" for more than 30 years before being found in a very neglected state.

In 1993, Humba Hamu (Wonderful Sumba) crowned the paper's 10th anniversary activities. The exhibition, lasting for nine days, attracted so many visitors that it broke records in the history of Bentara Budaya Jakarta.

In the following year, the Dayak culture of Kalimantan, the contemporary ceramic works of Widayanto, paintings on ceramics by painter Widayat and original drawings of six of Indonesia's foremost artists were featured.