"Symphony No. 7" of Rahmat Subani
By Jim Supangkat

In Latin, the word "posthumus" refers to a son born after the death of his father, while "posthuma" means a daughter born after her father died. The word "posthuma", however, also refers to the presentation of a work of art that has been left unfinished due to the death of the artist.

A "posthuma opera", for example, refers to a staged opera whose libretto has not been finished due to the death of its composer. The piece is still staged anyway because it has parts that carry the meaning of the whole composition.

Several repertoires of opera and musical that would later be renowned as grand pieces, are actually unfinished. One of them is Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 7, composed in 1822 and consisted of merely two parts, from the planned four parts. The composition had been found after Schubert died in 1828. Further on, the piece was finally staged and entered a phase of serious debates. It was only in 1865, after the extraordinary quality of the piece had been discovered, that the piece was formally staged.

The meaning of "Posthuma Exhibition" in the title of Rahmat Subani's exhibition today is parallel with the meaning contained by term "posthuma opera". The idea to borrow the term arose from Schubert's Symphony No. 7. Some of the works displayed in this exhibition are works prepared for a solo exhibition that I prepared together with Rahmat Subani in the early 2003. The plan was to hold the exhibition in 2004 in Washington, D.C. and Jakarta. The exhibition did not take place due to Rahmat Subani's death in an accident in May 2003.

Rahmat Subani's death left layers of feelings and experiences on my part. When curating his exhibition in the beginning of 2003, I was also curating the CP Biennale I in 2003. Rahmat Subani was one of the participants in the Biennale. He was thus preparing his works with two goals in mind: his solo exhibition in 2004, and the CP Biennale I, 2003.

Rahmat Subani became the first participant of CP Biennale I, 2003 to send in his work. Along with the very early dispatch in April, 2003, he also finished all the paper works for the Biennale. He gave his curriculum vitae, the forms, the required data, and the photograph and explanation for his work. He seemed to be in a hurry. At the time I thought he wanted to concentrate on his solo exhibition.

In May 2003, he left with his family to Solo, a town of his birth. Aside from going there for some family reasons, he also went to Solo to conduct a photo-study - his realistic works depended on such photo study. I could not believe what I heard when the news came that Rahmat Subani died as his car collided with a container truck on the toll road of Cikampek. He left with his first grandchild, a baby.

I cannot help having the impression that Rahmat was not only in a hurry to settle his participation for the CP Biennale I, 2003. He seemed also in a hurry to finish preparing his solo exhibition and to bring up the meaning of that exhibition. He still had some time to prepare for this exhibition - a year to be exact - but it was as if he felt he did not have much time.

God has let him to meet his goal in a very short time. Some of the works that he had finished by the time of his death are stunning. The works convey an early answer for his journey and search - an answer that was expected to come up in his solo exhibition in 2004.

The plan for his 2004 exhibition was not the beginning of Rahmat's journey. He had begun his search two years earlier. The beginning was the plan for a solo exhibition in Edwin's Gallery in Jakarta, prepared in 2002. Rahmat Subani and Edwin Rahardjo, the owner of Edwin's Gallery, asked me to curate the exhibition.

The request was not the beginning of my acquaintance with Rahmat Subani. I had known him since early 1990s as a painter who presented a play of illusions through realistic portrayal. In his paintings, he seemed to blur the visual boundaries between realistic paintings and reality. In this play of illusions, sometimes he used objects on the painting plane, and it was often difficult to discern these objects from his realistic paintings. Rahmat Subani was famous because his paintings of this kind became widely known among the art public.

In 2002, when I was asked to curate his exhibition in Edwin's Gallery, I was interested in the paintings of his that were dominated by the color of black. With his approval, I decided that the exploration of the color black was to be the curatorial basis for the exhibition in Edwin's Gallery. The exhibition was set to be held in 2003.

Such play with the color black was not a new tendency arising in 2002 in Rahmat Subani's paintings. He had started to create such paintings from early 1990s, albeit only at random. I knew he was doing all kinds of experiments in order to find the most intense kind of blackness that technically would not be damaged my molds. When preparing for the exhibition in Edwin's Gallery, however, Rahmat decided to embark on a journey to explore the color black as his chosen path. He altogether left the play of illusions in his works.

Rahmat said that he soon felt the strength of the color black that would always dominate and leave no room for other matters. The dominant characteristic had previously made him become apprehensive to bring up the color black, although he had intuitively been interested in that color for quite a while.

In the beginning Rahmat continued the efforts that he had begun in 1990s - i.e. applying black in the paintings of nightscapes. The color black in these paintings was present as a medium to describe the darkness of night.

In the ensuing development, Rahmat Subani gradually left the matter of light (sunlight) in his nightscape paintings. This was a brave decision as the matter of light has been a basic matter for realistic paintings as well as for photography. However, the removal of the matters of light had precisely made Rahmat Subani's paintings not mere realistic paintings copying reality. He entered the journey to explore black as the color black.

The problem that he soon faced was a technical problem to present the color of black. Rahmat said that in presenting an intense blackness, he avoided to blacken his canvass by sweeping it with his brush, as if he was painting a wall black. Rather, he would blacken his canvass by constructing small partitions on his canvass, and paint them black partition by partition. In order to present an intense color of blackness, he used ivory black and lamp black together. To present nuances of blackness - an effort that would seem to be nonsensical at a first glance - he mixed black with orange, dark blue, red, and dark green.

Rahmat Subani saw a space in the depth of the color black. This perception was betrayed by his paintings where he constructed three illusive spaces: the space at the foreground, in the middle, and at the background. In constructing such image, he situated the light source not at the foreground, but rather in the middle. The result was the silhouetting of the figures at the foreground, blending in with a veiling blackness. Meanwhile, in the middle space where the source of light had been placed, Rahmat did not present anything. At the vague background, Rahmat constructed figures that would also become vague.

The figures presented in these paintings were Javanese women. He said, "For me, the figure of the Javanese female is not a figure of the male sexual imaginations. Armed with my imagination about the mystical Javanese females, I seek ethical values in life. Women, for the Javanese, often represent controversial values such as honesty, conformity, goodness, and the balance of love."

Such search was betrayed in his solo exhibition titled 'Hitam Tak Kelam (Un-Dark Black)' in Edwin's Gallery, April 2003. The exhibition displayed 24 paintings that Rahmat had worked on between 2002 and 2003. An exhibition, however, cannot be always in-line with the searching journey of the artist. In the exhibition 'Hitam Tak Kelam' were present as well some of Rahmat's paintings betraying new changes and development, ones whose meaning I could not fully grasp. This was an unfinished matter. Rahmat and I planned thus another exhibition after the Hitam Tak Kelam exhibition.

In his new development, Rahmat left the composition of three illusory spaces in his paintings and begun to darken almost his entire canvass. There was also the tendency to reduce complex portrayals. The paintings in his new development mostly display a single object - that of a woman posing against a black background.

Here I felt that Rahmat Subani had mastered the color black. Black in his paintings no longer give an impression of a dark space - and even an impression of space altogether. Instead, there are the invisible nuances of black - felt but unseen. The color black no longer becomes the background, but instead is an important part of Rahmat's expression. The color black with an indescribable intensity leaves an impression of solitude (silent, quiet, soundless, voiceless).

The color of black in Rahmat's paintings is no longer related with the copying of visual reality that is a part of the theory of reality observation. Through the color of black, Rahmat moved further on in exploring the matters behind the reality. Rahmat's paintings, therefore, enter the realm of aesthetics.

In this development, I felt that Rahmat Subani had entered the matter of content in his paintings. He started to search for meanings based on his meditations on the Javanese female, not through thoughts but instead through depictions in his paintings.

In this exploration, Rahmat was not abstractly imagining a Javanese female. He looked for a model with the face of a Javanese female that he had imagined of. He found Maria Ulfah, an account executive in an advertising agency. She was willing to become his model.

With the help of his wife Naniek Mu'minah - who has within her the character of a Javanese female - Rahmat Subani started to observe Maria Ulfah's face, character, gestures, behavior, and attitude. Naniek Mu'minah played an important role in these observations. She was Rahmat's discussion partner; she talked with Maria Ulfah, arranged the poses for the photographic study, and took pictures as well. Rahmat analyzed this photographic study for his paintings. What was it that he sought?

Rahmat Subani said to me that he was searching for aura lights, radiating the colors of white, yellow, green, blue, red, pink, orange, violet, gray, brown, black, gold, and silver. Rahmat was sure that these colors, which can only be seen by people with a special ability, reflected the character, behavior, energy, and the condition of one's soul. The colors of the aura, said Rahmat, betrayed the level of wisdom attained by a person.

To me, Rahmat's statement reflects how his works and their creation process were closely related with the aesthetic principles of the Javanese classics, which many Javanese still believe in today. In the classic Javanese art, artwork is a manifestation of cipta, or the manifestation of the imaginations, inspirations, thoughts, and dreams into an artwork. The understanding of what cipta is lies between the understanding between the understanding of "image" and that of "phenomenon".

The manifestation of cipta relies on the "senses", which in turn is related to the sense of beauty and that of intelligence, and wise goodness. In Rahmat's paintings, it seems that he wanted to realize the cipta of a Javanese woman, considering personal imaginations about the Javanese female.

I did not immediately see this search in Rahmat's paintings. His early works of such tendency seemed in the beginning quite phenomenal, as I was unable to link the search for meaning that he had once said with the seemingly simple paintings: a woman posing for a portrait-like painting. However, before he died, Rahmat Subani had the chance to finish seven paintings which were not previously displayed in the 'Hitam tak Kelam' exhibition in 2003.

One painting titled 'Meniuplah dan Rasakan Keindahan Hitamku' was once displayed at the CP Biennale I, 2003. Another painting was almost finished by the time of his death, and another one is difficult to be considered as done. Only the work displayed in the CP Biennale I, 2003 had a title. The other paintings are still untitled.

I started to be able to read the search for meaning after observing Rahmat's final seven paintings, and analyzing the photography study he had done, including his latest photography study in Solo, with a dancer - not Maria Ulfah - as a model. I found the early signs that the search for meaning was reflected in subtle changes that were almost imperceptible in the female faces of his paintings.

I had the chance to meet and know Maria Ulfah, the model appearing in all Rahmat's latest works. Comparing Maria Ulfah's face and behavior with "her portraits" in Rahmat's paintings, I felt that it was only Maria Ulfah's body that appeared in these "portraits". Rahmat Subani instilled another "soul" in each of the "portrait" of Maria Ulfah that he made. All the portraits of the woman that was no longer Maria Ulfah presented a different woman. Every picture is different as each of them had been instilled with a different "soul" and "character".

I could not ascertain whether the subtle differences in each of the female portrait betrayed Rahmat Subani's search for an essence, or whether he was revealing the dimensions of the Javanese female character. Both possibilities seem equally probable. One thing, however, is certain: the instilling of soul is the path of the search for meaning in Rahmat Subani's paintings.

In his seven last paintings, it can be seen that the instilling of soul was done not merely by the exploration in facial expressions. Rahmat also made use of the gestures and body movements. The photography study he did in Solo showed how Rahmat was aware that in the Javanese culture, the female character could also be seen in dance movements. In a Javanese dance, the subtlety of female movements in the ideal form is the medium to record a mystical strength that is believed to have roots in a different realm.

The usage of body movements in order to search for meaning makes the position of the color black in Rahmat's paintings become even clearer. When he tended to present a static pose - that of a silently sitting or standing woman - the black color presenting solitude was present in harmony with the subject. However, when Rahmat presented some movements, there was a counterpoint in his composition. There was a collision between the movements - with the dynamic image - and silence.

Such collision is deliberate. In the composition of classical music, the tendency to use counterpoint - the usage of two conflicting tones - has grown since the 17th Century. The usage of counterpoint and fuga in their extreme form reflected a search for another possibility than canon and homophonic composition - compositions with harmonious tones.

In my observation, the usage of counterpoint in Rahmat Subani's paintings affected his decision on the usage of the black planes and the nuances of blackness. In his painting, 'Meniuplah dan Rasakanlah Keindahan Hitamku', it is obvious that Rahmat was expanding the black panel. In his other paintings, he used the nuances of black to paint the body, or parts of the body that moved. Also important was his decision to depict the transparent black veil to cover the skin color. The result, I believe, is stunning. Movements in his paintings become very slow and subtle movements.

Subtlety is the key word in understanding Rahmat Subani's works. The slow movements in his paintings show the subtlety of movement, as is the case with the almost imperceptible nuances of black due to the fine gradual changes. The most distinct manifestation of subtlety is revealed in the depiction of faces that minimizes the effects of light. The depiction of faces has been composed by fine lines and color partitions with minute nuances.

Rahmat's exploration answers a problem that I have been working on for years - where lies the aesthetic problem in realistic portrayal? In art theory, realistic portrayal is invariably related with the matter to copy reality and is considered finished with the advent of photography. Rahmat Subani's realistic portrayal shows that his paintings have a considerable distance with the matter of copying reality. The subtlety that involves sensitivity, imagination, and a sense of beauty is undeniably a matter of aesthetics.

I never had the chance to accompany Rahmat as he was painting from the beginning to the end. Therefore, I do not know how he composed his paintings. However, in one of his unfinished paintings - that of a portrait of a face filling the canvas - I sense how he in the beginning felt his way around. The painting shows expressive emotional patterns, but ones that are tightly veiled because Rahmat began with the color of black and built on his images by employing nuances of black.

The unfinished painting showed how Rahmat composed his paintings by creating layers upon layers of depiction that are integrally linked. Every layer seems to have a meaning. Such awareness made me stop for a while and mused - the face on the unfinished painting closely resembles that of Rahmat's wife, Naniek Mu'minah.

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