The business world, which has developed rapidly since the 1970s in Indonesia, displayed the glory of industrial capitalism in the early 1980s. This development gave rise to a ‘tradition’ of art collecting among wealthy business tycoons and corrupt, wealthy government officials — they were the ones behind the art boom.
It is understandable if the art of ‘beautiful paintings’, which emerged in the 1980s and developed in the 1990s, continued the search for a national identity.
This tendency was praised by government dignitaries who saw this kind of art as displaying nationalism. Due to this official support, exhibitions of ‘beautiful paintings’ were held mostly in the lobbies of luxury hotels, and became social gatherings of wealthy businessmen and corrupt government officials, which celebrated the ‘success’ of Suharto’s regime.