Pantjangan Pertama is another folio of linocut prints following Apin’s collaboration with Baharoedin in 1946. Funded by the Gelanggang collective this time round, it consists of 12 works on paper. Featuring a collection of images of objects and people going about their daily activities, they represent the ‘daily realities’ of the different societies within the Indonesian community.During the post-WW II period, the print medium was generally associated with the Social Realist art movements, looking at the few examples in Southeast Asia. Apin’s prints works, though maintaining the socialist bent is as much, if not more, about the print medium itself as a possible new direction in modern Indonesian art. Culturally dominated by paintings, Apin’s folio of prints and the activities of the Gelanggang collective are testament towards this push.
