Lot 1034
  • 1034

Ahmad Sadali

Estimate
500,000 - 700,000 HKD
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Description

  • Ahmad Sadali
  • Balok Bersisa Emas Dengan Latar Putih (Gold Remnants on a Beam Against White Background)
  • Signed and dated 86; titled and dated 1986 on the reverse
  • Oil on canvas
  • 99 by 135 cm.; 39 by 53 in.

Provenance

Private Asian Collection

Condition

Excellent overall condition as viewed, as is the canvas, which is clear and taut. Upon close observation, there are faint droplets of accretion visible at upper left quadrant and lower left quadrant. There is a very tiny area of craquelure along left edge, center, with active lifting. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no sign of restoration. Framed.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

The modern art movement that took place in Indonesia was largely inspired by the philosophy of the Realist Manifesto that celebrated the common man and rural existence. Though it originated in France in the late 18th century, it was only in the late 1930s that the ideology found traction in Indonesian populace thinking, the principles of the Manifesto mirroring the nationalistic emotions that were beginning to emerge during that period. Artists such as S. Sudjojono championed in the realist aesthetic to regain artistic ownership from the Mooi Indie (Beautiful Indies) modes of expression that was favoured by European colonialists.

Amidst these evolving trends and influences, however, there was an art movement simultaneously developing in the country. One that found its voice in Modernist Tradition and abstract expressionism, these artists placing more concentration upon visual reality versus the existing reality of their environment and they flourished when the Visual Arts Department was established at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in 1950. It was around the same period that the crucial germination of abstract expressionism in America took place, with artists like Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko at the forefront. Indonesian artists studying in Bandung, Western Java, mostly at the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology, explored and experimented with this movement's influence, combining their technique and aesthetic, such as Cubism, Abstract and Colour Field painting, with their own cultural identity and philosophy. Ahmad Sadali was a leading pioneer amongst this group, with the artist’s paintings seen as an intellectualizing of the external world and being redefined as shapes, forms, and colours in the abstract narratives.

Balok Bersisa Emas Dengan Latar Putih (Gold Remnants on a Beam against White Background) is a classic piece from the artist’s oeuvre, and is reflective of the superb aesthetics and compositions that governed much of Sadali’s career. A deeply spiritual and philosophical man throughout his life, Sadali’s oeuvre often found inspiration from the Quran, stating that “the content of the Quran was coloured by expressions of beauty and logical explanations…it was written in one of the al-Imran verses that only the complete person (ulil al-bab) could provide signs that bring enlightenment1. Therefore he equated artistic expression with self-awareness, and through creativity could an individual achieve the ultimate state of being. The present painting was created in 1986, one year before the artist’s passing, and therefore may be seen as a culmination of his learned principles and techniques that have established the artworks as a hallmark in Indonesian abstract expressionism.

Prior to his interest in abstract art, Sadali was influenced briefly by Indonesian nationalistic creative expression that was grounded in Realism. However after the country had achieved its goal of independence in 1945, he no longer had the same drive to express himself as such, and returned to the study of distilling the world as per an abstract paradigm and aesthetical construct. This change in direction was partly due to larger events unfolding at that period, notably the end of WWII that had a transformative impact on modernism worldwide. Artists like Antonio Tapies, Lucio Fontana, and Nicolas de Staël for example, were profoundly influenced by the aftermath of the war. Like them, Sadali strove to create works that are more than finely executed geometrical explorations of space and colour. His paintings express the hope for transcendence and enlightenment, the pursuit of idealism and purity in the way of life. He once said that his main goal as a painter was, “to seek God’s blessing.” According to historians, many artists of Sadali’s circle credit him for introducing the application of gold-leaf to certain areas of the canvas. Here gold is associated with divine principles, higher ideals, wisdom, understanding and enlightenment.

 “The modern denotes not solely the notion to distinguish the present from the past. The modern is rather the fact being engaged in the current movement of human endeavours to understand the self, the environment and the entire universe", Sadali wrote. “Modern art is an ideological concept. It rejects past modes and aggressively asserts its claim to be the only art truly reflecting our age”.2 The 1960s showed Sadali applying synthetic cubism to the abstract narratives. Paintings like Holes on Scribbled Surface and Tetas Emas Atas Merah Padas (Growing Gold on Rock-Red Solid Soil) demonstrate this synthesis of cubist forms and abstract lyricism. The 1970s saw the artist delving deeper into abstraction, the artworks focusing on specific hues and compositions, while experimenting with foreign materials such as glue, putty, and oil paints, to create a sculptural effect upon the canvas. Horison Abu - Abu (Grey Horizon) painted in 1976 reveals the fine line between painting and sculpture that the artist experimented with during this period. Acknowledged largely as landscape paintings, Sadali’s visual dissection of the material world into a specific colour palette may be read as emotional expressions.

Many of his paintings were given titles that were literal descriptions of the artworks’ composition and featured colour palette. The current work is no exception. As an artist-philosopher this intent to ground the works as such enabled the viewers to place their own meanings upon the paintings, the narratives open to interpretation and subjective thought. The artist wrote, “Modern art is a type of creation exercised by contemporary artists who make use of every facility existing in today’s space and time. It involves the effort to find a new ground of reality that is a quandary from which modern man find no escape. It is an insight contending a search of knowledge that can clarify the relationship between the self and the world”.4 Sadali conjures the universe on his canvases, realms of heaven and earth, darkness and light, black and white, and the grey areas in between. It has a tangible tension that is harmoniously balanced between the opposing elements, between the rough and the smooth surfaces, with its subtle gradation of light like the sun’s rays slowly hiding into shadows. The effect recalls the diffused light enrobed by Anish Kapoor’s alabaster sculptures, juxtaposing its rough-hewn natural surface against the highly polished precision of the smooth areas. In this regard Sadali’s form of abstraction is not the cold, calculative way of geometric abstraction but rather a more lyrical approach to abstraction: soft and even sensuous in its tactile surface, warm in its palette of monochrome with spurts of vibrancy, meditative and primal in the grooves of its thick layers.

As per the title of the present work suggests, Sadali has captured a moment of meditative tranquillity—the sunshine and silence of that moment as remembered by the artist in the narrative. The surface perfectly embodies the aesthetic alchemy that is so characteristic of the artist's best works. The deep rich grey tones are instantly hypnotic, drawing the viewer into an endless dark chasm. The gold and green patina add shimmer into an otherwise monotone palette and the spurt of vermillion adds warmth and passion into the composition. Sadali developed a style that involved covering his canvases with a thick, highly textured paint using elements such as clay, marble dust, sand, glue and oil paint. This elaborate impasto allowed Sadali to replicate the surface of walls and to vigorously incise and inscribe them.

For Sadali much of his artistic practice was a way to transcend reality, and reconfigure it within a framework centred upon emotions, intellect, and the instinctive connection humans have with beauty. Balok Bersisa Emas Dengan Latar Putih (Gold Remnants on a Beam against White Background) communicates this desire to express visual language as a higher form of material sensibility. Within the artist’s paradigm, abstract art was a pairing of the outer reality with the inner reality, and therefore a philosophical dialogue on the essence of truth and beauty. “Despite there being a distance between faith, the mind and the feelings, the intensity of faith to some extent depends upon the mind and feelings”, he said.5 Sadali died at the zenith of his career and as one of his best works, the present painting, executed about a year before his passing, truly stands as one of the pinnacles of the artist’s oeuvre, a glorious evocation of the transcendental and unquantifiable nature of the infinite journey and evolution of an artist and a man who had embraced and been embraced by life. It signifies the attainment of peace and maturity. A highly personal work, this painting was in the artist’s own collection before it was sold to a private collector.

1 Jim Supangkat, The Hidden Works and Thoughts of Ahmad Sadali, Edwin's Gallery, Jakarta, 1997, pg. 16

2 Refer to 1, pg. 13

3 Refer to 1, pg. 13

4 Refer to 1

5 Refer to 1