rtists Hanafi and Goenawan Mohamad forged a unique collaboration for a collection that is currently being exhibited at the National Gallery of Indonesia until July 2.
The artists took on an unusual approach to create the works for the exhibition, where one would start on a particular painting, without consulting the other, before passing it on to continue the process to finish the canvas.
Titled "57 x 76", the exhibition's creative process has been dubbed fluid and flexible.
"The numbers 57 and 76 are the ages of Hanafi and Goenawan," exhibition curator Agung Hujatnikanjennong said at the opening on Thursday as quoted by Antara.
"The intention was not to just work together, but to merge oneself into the collaborative project," Agung added.
Hanafi first came up with the idea to collaborate with Goenawan after seeing the latter's exhibition "Kata, Gambar" (Word, Image) at DiaLoGue in South Jakarta last year.
"This exhibition would not have happened without a sense of trust in each other -- their closeness really mattered," Agung said.
Goenawan, who is best known as a prominent writer and journalist, wrote an introduction and opened Hanafi's solo exhibition in 2009 titled "Of Spaces and Shadows".
Read also: Goenawan Mohamad's great visual adventure
For the latest collaboration, Hanafi and Goenawan created 200 pieces, although not all are displayed due to limited space. The exhibition in Central Jakarta has three installations, showcasing how each “destroyed” the other's work.
"The word “destroy” to me is symbolized by the metamorphosis of a line, field and color. Hanafi generally creates monochromatic works, and if not, his line of work reflects a theme: memories of Picasso, Max Ernst, hints of eroticism and surreal shapes. I welcomed this pattern and continued on it by actually creating something different each time," Goenawan said.
He added that there was never any discussion on a concept throughout the process. Some of the pieces were created solo in their respective studios, without communicating on what each one was doing.
"We jumped directly into the work. An intuitive dialogue took place," Goenawan said.
Hanafi likened the collaborative process to reading a novel halfway through.
"Our work encourages visitors to guess the end and the beginning due to the unreadable front pages. But a canvas has many doors, more than a novel has," Hanafi said.
He invited them to determine if the collaboration was a success or not. (liz/wng)
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