IVAN SAGITA: Death-Containing Life
JUNE 18 - JULY 29, 2005
CP ARTSPACE, JAKARTA
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Transitory. Death-Containing Life
By Suwarno Wisetrotomo

Absurdity, in general, is understood as the presence of imperceptible reality, one that is difficult to understand, but still it exists and takes place all the same. Albert Camus (1913-1960), for example, believed that the future was in fact unnecessary and absurd, as the future could never be understood. Then we are left aghast, stricken, and nervous; but at the same time we exist in the unavoidable reality. There is almost no other choice except to exist in the reality experienced at the moment. It is then that existence experiences great collisions, as it is like being in the unending situation of "self-testing," just like Sisyphus who kept on "shoving hope" and simultaneously "garnering futility." Or we can perhaps perceive life as the effort to meet these two possibilities.

On the edge of our effort to live the life, futility and nihilism might overcome our minds and awareness, and deliver us to the crucial point that might turn us into an anarchist or, on the other hand, make us productive. Ivan Sagita, the painter with the tendency to be a lone thinker, goes through his days with such struggle. Ivan is often amazed by the survival ability of a group of people, which seems to be beyond their capability limits. Ivan Sagita as a painter, one of the types of human being considered as absurd by Camus, expresses himself in his works, in order to intensify his physical experiences.

Amid the process of his artistic expressions, Ivan Sagita (and probably we do as well, especially those of us who live in Yogyakarta) often hears sayings or statements that have become usual and are thus taken for granted, but which actually contain truly absurd meanings. These sayings are, for example, "nyicil ayem" (taking happiness in installments), or "ndilati aspal" (licking asphalts).

In the case of the first saying, Ivan was fazed by the reality that "merely to feel happiness or calmness we must do it in installments." Ivan opines, "Isn't it supposed to be something that everyone has within themselves? Apparently not. How complicated this life is." Meanwhile, in the case of the second saying, albeit hearing it often in jokes of certain communities, or even from his close friends, Ivan feels how the saying betrays a fatal situation, the most shameful situation that one must confront when (to survive, or to hold on to one's existence) one is forced to "lick the asphalt," to do anything for an interest or a goal. This is indeed an unmentionable shame. A portrayal of the boundary situations and our limited capability. All of these exist in fact in the transient space, a fleeting space. A temporary space that is often deceitful. It appears to be permanent, to be lasting, so that we must defend it "with all our might," so that we are forced to exist in the reality of "nyicil ayem" where we must "lick the asphalt."

Living and life are truly temporary. We live merely "to stop by to have a drink." The rest is about developing the awareness that, according to Ivan, we must give meaning to this life and our living, triggered by the responsibility we have.

The above notes are a preliminary effort to comprehend Ivan Sagita's (latest) works, be it in the form of paintings, drawings, and objects (wood objects/wood installations), especially those exhibited at the CP Artspace Jakarta, in the title of "Death-Containing Life." Ivan Sagita's works can be perceived as the manifestation of his beliefs about futility, faith, limits, alienation, and nihilism - with a number of idioms that are teasing and provoke meanings.

Selendang and Women
The metaphors that Ivan has long explored are those of selendang - a scarf-like female garment - and the figures of women. Both of them, selendang and women, are in fact identical, portraying the ingrained functions and certainties. The selendang has multifunctional existences: as an accessory, as a means to carry things, as a protector and warmth-giver (when used to carry babies), as a body-covering garment. Their presences are permeating one another; which one is the selendang, which one is the body; who is supporting what, what is supporting whom (see the work Dua Badan or Two Bodies, 2005) - a metamorphosis of the female body construction, permeating into the supple, malleable, and strong selendang.

"Burden" and life are an unavoidable certainty, indivisible - like fate stuck on our back, covering our body. It might be a piece of futility, a patch of fate (like the selendang crossing the upper body, fastening our burdens, or covering the heads - don't "burdens" often end up pressing us in the head, albeit exercising their weight on our backs?), or probably a glimmer of hope, like the knotted end of the selendang, dangling in front of the old fragile body of the woman.

Selendang, in Ivan's understanding, is more than just a tool; rather, it has a life of its own. This is especially so when it is related to women - specifically, women workers, laborers and the like, who, in the space of their fate and limits, are carrying burdens, just like the cloth that wraps them in.

Cloth, especially selendang, is actually also a piece of landscape. Used on the body, it protects and at the same time also stores and hides. Isn't it the same with a landscape - as far as our eyes can see - in that it actually stores and hides myriad problems and realities it carries within it?

On this level, we can compare Ivan's contemporary works with his works in the 1980s, for example the work whose visual construction had been triggered by the clothesline and poles (questioning and provoking our awareness about something that is socially functional and at the same time religious; residing, it is worth noting, in the private area. This was, for example, to be seen in the association with the figure of the Cross); or the work about the well (provoking our awareness about a source whose content is continually taken out, a source that unfailingly gives life). Ivan's contemporary works are like flowing water that eventually (for now, at this stage) reaches an estuary, flowing over the whole plane of understanding and awareness about the human reality and humanity.

Hair
Life does in fact consist of layers of reality. Ivan Sagito keeps on questioning, keeps on exploring its mysterious niches and mazes, keeps on marking the parts that bother our consciousness. His latest works that are being exhibited at the moment are marked by the dominant presence of the hair image (this can be seen in almost all his works) and by his exploration about the existence of the body.

Ivan intensively and productively started to explore the image of the hair when he was staying in Vermont, a small town in the northern part of the United States. For two months, in 2003, he worked there as an artist in residence, sponsored by the Vermont Foundation Full Fellowship. He found himself in an inevitable space of alienation. The body was ripped off from the daily space that had been familiar and penetrating (Yogyakarta), and thrown into a whole new space (United States).

Trapped in such reality, Ivan did not feel imprisoned, robbed from his space of meditation and imagination. On the contrary, Ivan more intensely traced the reality he was facing, questioning it, then revisited all his ideas so far - especially ones about impermanence. In short, he explored impermanence as the main theme, manifested in the use of such metaphors as facial forms, body, carrying cloth/selendang, and hair.

What's with hair? Ivan notes that "hair is the manifestation of one's thoughts and awareness; prolonged and keeps on growing while other biological parts or our body degrade. Is this a struggle against impermanence?". This note is important, as therein lies and unveiled Ivan's deep understanding about the details of life, perceived as phenomena. In that note, too, we can sense how he has been trying to put meaning into this life and living. Ivan sees that there has always been the ability to survive and struggle in every imprisoned situation, in the detention of fate, or in the pervading futility. Hair becomes an example that represents the spirit to struggle against such situation.

When hair is still united with the life of the owner, it has a layered existence: as an accessory, or, more than that, as a crown, and also as a protector.

Hair, in such understanding, is a symbol of struggle. Albeit being continually cut, it keeps on growing with its own agility. Even when other parts of the body degrade, especially upon death, the hair still has an existence. Therefore, it is certainly not due to a certain "harmony" attained in terms of the construction of the body/figure that hair finds its place on our head. It, the hair, has its own existence (see the painting Mati di Luar, Sakit di Dalam, or Death Without, Pain Within, 2004; or the work Air Alir, or Water Flowing, 2005 - an object assembled from 28 wooden poles, made to appear wavy-flowing like water, but on each of the pole an eye protrudes as if ascertaining the distinct "life" of the hair, using a form that - albeit appearing to flow - has the potential to pose threats).

As an illustration, here is some scientific information about hair. The number of hair on the human's body, according to a research, is around 120,000. The age of each strand of hair is around three years. From various tests, 2,000 strands of hair, when united, will be able to carry 30 kg of burdens. This is due to the sophisticated components and composition of hair, making it strong and supple ("Hair on the Head Able to Carry 1,800 Kilos of Burden" in Kedaulatan Rakyat newspaper, Saturday, 23 April 2005, page 17). In daily life, there are other proofs of the existence of hair.

Using the idiom of hair, Ivan Sagito tries to state that there is an unfailing fighting spirit on the side of impermanence. Limitations also give room to strength and the ability to survive. There are not enough reasons to give up, let alone to choose the path of nihilism.

To Merge; to Experience as
Ivan Sagita's works generally indicate a situation of a merger (fusion) among the parts. This is also an indication that Ivan, through his works, is actually not making a critique, not questioning, not making a social commentary; instead, he is stating his physical experiences, and his deep understanding about the reality he sees - the understanding that has dissolved within him, turning into empathy. He builds thence also an awareness that he is also a part of the reality; he, who has merged and dissolved in order to experience.

On this level, his works are a kind of manifestation of the most basic longing, the longing to "exist and experience as" (see the work Luka Sekujur, or The Pain Throughout, 2005, color pencils, pastel, wood; or the work Yang Tergantung dan Terjemur dan Bagian-bagian Dirinya, or Ones Hung and Sun-dried, and Parts of Them, 2004-2005, pencil and wood). In other words, the merging between the existence of the body and its cover; between the clothing and the body.

Someone (perhaps we, perhaps Ivan Sagita, perhaps many other people, too) is experiencing, or invariably experiences, the condition as a piece of cloth being dried and hung - a situation of the merger between the subject and the object; the situation when others are empathizing with someone else's' pains; or the situation when someone is carried away by inevitable problematics.

Authenticity; Absence
I repeatedly asserted that Ivan Sagita's musing, expressed through several idioms (forms), explains that he does not exist in a space and view that are nihilistic (nihil, a Latin word, which means "nothing". Nihilism is a view, attitude, or stream that finds its roots in the "nothing", as betrayed in the pessimistic tendency about all aspects of life).

Ivan's critical understanding and meditation about the layers of reality and the problematic of life and the living precisely trigger a great passion to give meaning to life. "I want to experience the authentic, the basic, the original, the ones that must be experienced," explained Ivan Sagito about what it is that he actually wants to attain. Just as life must be experienced and gone through, death (nothingness) must also be experienced.

Death, to Ivan, has visually reached its zenith in the graphic works of Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945), who has often explored the theme of death (remember Kollwitz's works, Death and a Woman Struggling for a Child, etching, 1911; or Remembering Karl Liebknecht, woodcut, 1919-1920; Death, lithograph, 1897; Death of a Friend, 1934-1935; or the much referred-to work of a female corpse lying with a baby on her chest, Widow II, woodcut, 1922-1923).

The last example of Kollwitz's work, Widow II, in terms of theme or visual construction, apparently stings our consciousness about the event and the meaning of death. This is also the case with Ivan Sagita, who, through his work Makasih Kollwitz (Thanks Kollwitz, 2005, oil on canvas), gives respect to Kathe Kollwitz's works, thoughts, and understanding, and at the same time offers new (other) meanings and visualization about death. The ancient woman lies straight, held by her long and tight strands of hair that are longer than her body, with an awkward and tight pose of hands on her chest. The female figure floats parallel to the lines of clouds on the gray sky. From her chest, going down (to the side), there is a fissure of blue, seemingly peeking, becoming a landscape of the sky amid the atmosphere of death. A calm death as the peak of impermanence, with a long hair challenging evanescence.

It is on this work, I think, that Ivan has no desire to hide his longing to create a narration of death. The struggle between impermanence and the efforts against it - probably also the efforts to fight against fate and limits; efforts that can very well be futile - is manifested in Ivan's work, Hidup Bermuatan Mati or Death-Containing Life (2004, oil on canvas): identical female faces, lying down, some with eyes wide open, some with empty eyes (white, without the blacks), linked by vertical strands of hair. That is precisely the drama about the tension between "transience and permanence" that I meant.

An awareness about death precisely becomes the motor drive to carry and control whatever events taking place in life. The longing to experience the nothing, or the reality of the nothing (whenever it is, as a part of the human's limits to know), becomes the drive for him to act (to paint, to create works of art). "That's why I paint," Ivan says in all certainty. Painting, and his works of painting (and other works of art), are the manifestation of his consciousness about life on the one hand, and death on the other hand. Both are struggling to seize an existence amid alienation, limitation, and the mystery of fate.

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