YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia's premier contemporary art festival, ARTJOG 2026, opened on June 19 at the Jogja National Museum amid a storm of nation-wide protest against the dictatorship regime of Prabowo Subianto. The controversy centers on the festival's sponsorship by the Didit Hediprasetyo Foundation (DHF), an organization founded by Didit Hediprasetyo—the only son of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
Artists, collectives, and anarchist movements in Yogyakarta pointed out the festival of engaging in "artwashing"—a practice critics describe as using art and culture to polish the public image of controversial entities. Some have gone further, alleging that the sponsorship represents a political co-optation of the arts. The backlash has prompted several partner withdrawals, the removal of DHF's name from official materials, and Didit's cancellation of his scheduled appearance as the event's opening speaker.
ARTJOG is Indonesia's largest annual contemporary art festival, held in Yogyakarta—a city widely regarded as the nation's artistic and cultural heart. This year's edition, themed "Ars Longa Generatio," runs through August 30 and features 96 artists under the curatorial direction of Farah Wardani. The exhibition includes works by 25 invited artists, 19 young artists selected through open submission, and 52 children and adolescents aged 6 to 15 through the ARTJOG Kids program. The festival also showcases collaborative presentations from regional and international galleries.
This year's edition of ARTJOG curatorial concept builds on the work of the late anthropologist David Graeber (1961–2020), an anarchist thinker whose critiques of power, debt, and bureaucracy reshaped contemporary social theory. ARTJOG appropriate Graber's “Another Art World” text into their curatorial concept.
On the other side, ARTJOG 2026 sponsored by Didit Hediprasetyo, the sole child of President Prabowo Subianto. Even more, Didit Hediprasetyo personally became an advisor for the company that owned this festival: PT. Artjog Matra Nusantara.
The protest erupted in the days leading up to the festival's opening. A digital poster announcing Didit Hediprasetyo as the opening speaker was circulated on social media, only to vanish following intense public backlash. The poster was replaced with one naming GKR Bendara, Chief of the Cultural and Heritage Department of the Yogyakarta Palace, as the event's opener.
On opening night, tensions escalated when our fellow artists threw red paint across a commissioned artwork and scattered flowers in a manner resembling a funeral rite. Security personnel and a private bodyguard agency detained our friends, with reports of physical violence against them. ARTJOG Program Director Gading Paksi later apologized for the detentions and physical altercations, stating that they breached the festival's internal regulations.
ARTJOG Director Heri Pemad acknowledged that the foundation was one of several sponsors and maintained that its position was equivalent to that of other supporters. However, the festival's organizers ultimately removed the Didit Hediprasetyo Foundation's name from both the official website and event backdrops.
As of the end of June, ARTJOG has neither issued a press release regarding the violence committed against our fellow artist about the direct action in opening night of ARTJOG, nor has it released an official statement concerning Didit Hediprasetyo's involvement—whether as a sponsor or as an advisor within the organizing company. The direct action we carried out marks our protest against the appropriation of anarchist anthropologist David Graeber's ideas, as well as against the capitalist and extractive industrialization of art.
Written by Forum Kuratorial Anarkis (Anarchist Curatorial Forum) based in several city in Indonesia.
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