Walking around the "Indonesian Eye" exhibition, now on view at the Saatchi Gallery, a question I had been asking myself for some time cropped up again. Is it really possible for a Western art critic (and a fortiori for a member of the public) to "get" art made on the other side of the planet? Does contemporary art truly transcend cultural differences? Or is the belief that one should be able to appreciate artworks whatever their place of origin another myth of "liquid," globalized modernity? In an age driven by the constant search for new markets and artists, this is a thorny issue, and maybe an unfashionable one, but that doesn't make it less relevant.

"Indonesian Eye, Fantasies and Realities" is the first important presentation of contemporary art from Indonesia in England. This is a big deal. Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, is also one of the biggest art players in Southeast Asia. "Indonesian works in Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art auctions account for about 68 percent of Christie's and Sotheby's turnover," wrote Patricia Chen in The Art Newspaper. Indonesian art is now increasingly popular in the West, and exhibitions are popping up like mushrooms from Paris to Milan.

But viewing the show, I felt at loss in front of a dozen of pomo figurative paintings and absurdist sculptures. Was it because I don't share the artists' cultural background, or because the works are just truly unimpressive? What am I to make, for example, of Samsul Arifin's semi-abstract painting "Time After Time" (2010), vaguely redolent of Basquiat's appropriation of urban graffiti? And why the representation of a cloth doll, reclining at the bottom of the picture? What role does it play in the artist's own mythology, or how does it relate to a bigger picture, Indonesian or otherwise? My questions remained unanswered, and the catalogue didn't help either, only explaining the artist's fascination with 1980s school stationary.

Paintings by Eddie Hara and Wedhar Riyadi have a similar eighties feel. Hara's "Lost in Wasteland" (2010) depicts a Keith Haringesque robot and his humanoid companions. It is cute, in the way that Japanese manga can be cute. Street art, the environment, and image saturation are all part of this pictorial equation, but these issues don't coalesce into a satisfying whole. Likewise, the picture of Jackie Chan (or of one his colleagues) in Riyadi's digital print and acrylic on canvas "Give me Your Best Flavour and I will Bite You" (2008)

his leg gnawed off, the exclamation "Oh my god" emerging from his mouth — is amusing, but doesn't go beyond that.

Jompet Kuswidananto's sculptural installation "War Of Java, Do you Remember?#1" (2008) has five pointy red helmets hung over five pairs of gaiters and boots, four of the ensembles completed with a rifle. They are clearly ghost soldiers. On each of them, a little transistor broadcasts angry speech, perhaps relating to a military situation. But I wasn't able to find out what exactly is being said in the piece, either by speaking to the gallery attendants or by reading the catalogue. Only the title and dated uniforms informed me that it has something to do with the Java War, which, I learned later, was led by Prince Diponegoro against the Dutch colonialists in the early 19th Century.

Wiyoga Muhardanto's ironic "iType" (2005), an old typewriter painted white and encased in a pristine plinth bearing an illuminated Apple logo, is efficient because it is simple, a tongue-in-cheek take on the "Appleization" of design. And Rudi Mantofani's guitar with nine fingerboards, "Lost Note" (2007), has the charm of its incongruity. But by my culturally determined, standards, only one artist really stood out: Angki Purbandono. Purbandono uses a flatbed scanner to produce what he calls "scanographies," highly detailed pictures with no depth of field. The collection of worn-out toothbrush heads in his "Brush!" (2008) is both formally alluring, for its highlight of industrial colors, and moving. Each toothbrush seems to convey some of the personality of its fictional owner: the meticulous, the messy, the stingy. The piece stands as a collective portrait through domestic routine. I only wish more of Purbandono's pieces had made it to the final selection. There's clearly still a lot to be discovered.