Page 28 - 57 X 76 - Hanafi • Goenawan Mohamad

also be emphasized that Hanafi and GM are not when painting, he actually wants to treat writing as
involved in a game that produces a winner (so that something that responds to the image, by shaking

one artist appears ‘more prominent’ than the other). it or strengthening it. In 57 x 76, there are indeed
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The process of working on hundreds of 57 x 76 a handful of works that feature passages of GM’s
pieces of paper and canvas ultimately made Hanafi poetry, such as in ‘Lines and Poems’ (2018, from
and GM more familiar with, and learn from, each About People Killed Around Election Day, 1971) and

other. Here we find the serious impact of a game that ‘Afterword’ (2018, from poems from the same title,
is ‘joyful and open’: Although it is done ‘in silence’, 1972–1973).
without much discussion of concepts or theories,
the collaboration between Hanafi and GM produces In my view, the area of intersection between GM’s

intersubjective interactions that lead to acceptance poetry and Hanafi’s paintings never lies in the
of different views, ideas, and perspectives. G. M says merging of the writing with the picture, nor is it linked
that his encounter with the visual language of Hanafi with the careers of GM as a writer and Hanafi as a
made him learn to better draw lines and mix colors, painter. In fact, as a painter, Hanafi was never anti-

while Hanafi says that he also learned a lot from GM, writing. The Javanese Oxygen biography project,
who “... had a lot of images in his mind, as well as for example, in which he published a collection of
ways to retell them in an interesting way. And this is autobiographical writings, proved his intimacy with
important capital for a painter.” the world of writing. In his paintings we will often find
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letters or numbers, sometimes as a straightforward
Indeed, GM himself has identified his poems as works and intelligible statement, but often as an element
(writing) that are full of images—“imagic poetry,” he that eases the quarrel between writing the visual.
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says. When writing poetry, GM uses the power of Despite bearing the ‘abstract painter’ label, he has
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words to display not ideas but the atmosphere or also never been anti-metaphoric. When describing
events that are remembered in lyrical ways, whereas objects (tables, pans, irons, caterpillars, cocoons,

15 Hanafi, artist’s statement for the exhibition 57 x 76, 2018. saws, for example), what he does and presents is
16 Goenawan Mohamad, Gambar, atau Sajak yang Diam, catalog for
solo exhibition of Goenawan Mohamad, Kata, Gambar, Jakarta, Dia. 17 ibid.
Lo.Gue, 2017. 18 Afrizal Malna, op.cit.

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