About Andonowati

An alumnus of Bandung Institute of Technology in applied mathematics major, Andonowati is the founder of ArtSociates. She continued her study in McGill University, Montreal, Canada in 1995, which marked the beginning of her involvement in the art world. She picked up fascination in the art market, especially on the commodification of the art and how the price of an artwork could be determined, through Montreal’s many galleries and auction houses.

In 1999, she returned to Indonesia and began to collect the artworks from the Indonesian artists. The first collection she built was comprised of the final projects of the art students and Bandung’s emerging artists at the time. Originally, she was collecting for the sake of art-collecting itself, but due to a large number of artworks she owned, her name was inevitably known. Her collection particularly gained exposure after it was put to display in her house; the house plan was a winning design submitted by Baskoro Tedjo to an architecture competition in Bandung Institute of Technology, of which Andonowati was one of the jury. The house earned an award as the best living house of the 2006, and was sold afterwards in 2007 with a proper publication.

A particular event in 2007 was boosting her reputation even further. She traded an etching artwork by Tisna Sanjaya – a renowned Indonesian artist and printmaker – with a car, and this was highlighted in Pikiran Rakyat as one of the most important events of 2007

Both events – the architecture competition and the art-trade – were integral in the making of ArtSociates and its main program, Bandung Contemporary Art Award. Seeing how promotion and publication can be a great advancement for artists and designers, Andonowati eventually decided to focus more on the art and its management, and so in 2007 she established ArtSociates. Since then, she actively nurtures and promotes the Indonesian artists through it, creating platforms for emerging artists and helping them achieve wider recognition from the public.