Popo Iskandar's painting career traced in exhibition

Popo Iskandar's painting career traced in exhibition

By Wawan S. Husin

"A well has been dug up" -- Tisna Sanjaya

BANDUNG (JP): Popo Iskandar's 55 productive years as a
painter, represented recently in a retrospective exhibition held
at the National Gallery, are evidence that Indonesia's current
crop of artists have more than a shallow pool of inspiration to
draw on.

Popo can be regarded as a monument for the country's young
artists, alongside other masters of contemporary Indonesian
painting, like Amang Rahman, Affandi, Abas Alibasyah, Basuki
Abdullah, Hendra, Srihadi Sudarsono, Sudjana Kerton.

Popo has earned a seat for himself in the hall of past arts
masters. His Jago (rooster) and Kucing (cat) -- two themes he has
traced since 1974 -- have left their indelible marks on
Indonesian painting.

Maman Noor -- the art critic and author of the book Popo
Iskandar: Citra dan Karya (Popo Iskandar: Reputation and Works)
-- writes about Popo's existence: "The principle characteristic
of Popo is his firmness in applying his own values on the
concepts of art and beauty. He has earned a place in the world of
modern art, which demands individuality."

Popo was born in Garut, West Java, on Dec. 17, 1927, to a
family who loved the traditional Cianjuran folk songs and local
literature. He has painted since 1943.

During the revolution, a lot of his paintings, sketches and
other works were ruined when they were hidden underground so as
not to be destroyed. This was a very sad period of his life.

He begun teaching in 1950. Although he once was a student of
mathematics in the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), he
decided to finish his bachelor's degree (sarjana) at the Drawing
Teachers School (now ITB's School of Arts).

It was R. Muilder, one of his professors, who introduced him
to modern Western painting styles, such as Cubism.

There where also others that he respected and had an influence
on him: Angkama, Barli and Hendra Gunawan.

He later entered the Teacher Training Institute (IKIP) of
Bandung as a teacher in the fine arts department.

Popo was a lecturer at the institute for 40 years and retired
in 1995. He has also written articles on a wide variety of
topics.

According Maman Noor, Popo wrote about 500 articles, mainly
during the 1970s and 1980s. Some of these are to be published
this year.

Popo collected of cameras and Sundanese music, and has a
substantial library of books on culture, philosophy, literature
and photography.

His work

Popo's works were exhibited at the National Gallery in
February. As well as about 180 works of art, including paintings,
sketches and woodcarvings, the exhibition, receiving more than
1,000 visitors, included many books and videos on Popo.

Evident in the exhibition was the development of Popo's long-
running relationships with his cat and rooster themes. His cats
of the 1970s and 1980s are enthusiastic, powerful, wild and
always dynamic. With stark colors, also seen in his roosters, of
white, black, red and gray. So brave, cheerful and optimistic.
The rough, thick texture on the canvasses perhaps shows two
things: The painter is never satisfied with the works, or he is
always searching for the "truth" and the "finishing" of the
painting.

Popo once wrote, "My work starts with an impression which I
then develop into an idea. This, I express through a sketch I
draw on a sheet of paper, directly or indirectly facing the
object. This, I call my preliminary study. This does not always
work though, I sometimes need some span of time to select which
sketch I consider will succeed. Based on the preliminary study I
then start painting.

"But this needs intuition, contemplation and sometimes trial
and error, because I do not know the final result of my work
which sometimes needs a long time to finish. That's why sometimes
I put two figures at the bottom of my painting, such as 91/93,
meaning I've worked on it from 1991 to 1993." This is from an
entry in his diary, dated March 10, 1996.

Although it is true that his themes are quite varied, his
favorite theme, and the theme of his strongest works, was the
kucing.

Tisna Sanjaya, now a lecturer of fine arts at ITB, was once a
student of Popo. "Popo is a mature painter, both in vision and
depth of his works. Technicalities are no longer a problem in his
painting. His themes of roosters and cats show his caliber. For
me, especially the cat, this is the strength in himself. He has
enhanced the existence of cats -- a pet, tame animal -- in his
own way. This animal, an ordinary one, has become an expression
of reality. Of anger, cuteness, wildness, passion, tenderness. In
his loyalty to the theme, he seems to have been a digger of a
well. He has been digging the well of his own creativity,
enthusiasm, with his own honesty without any pretension at all.
This is his clear strength to make what is considered 'tame' and
'common' into gigantic images. And through which appreciators of
his works are allowed to see his inner self. The well has been
dug up and the 'water' has become a lot of things. It can become
a pond, a rice paddy, a lake, or whatever. His cat can become
everything. I am perhaps jealous of him. Such a great painter."

Popo's strength is possibly his whole-hearted dedication to
the world and to life. He has a courageous commitment to reality.
The long journey of life has transformed this recipient of the
government art award in 1980 into a mature and respected painter.

Art critic Umar Kayam from Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta,
in 1981 wrote, "As a painter he is one of the outstanding artists
whose works are respected seriously by experts and art critics.

"This prestige has been achieved through his hard work,
tenacity, seriousness in developing his own personality and, of
course, he is a man of literature. The themes of his works are
various: cats, bamboo, the sea, ships and other images. Possibly
he is not interested in 'big' themes."

Popo wrote in his diary on Dec. 26, 1995, "What I want to
achieve from my painting is to express what I've got from
studying an object thoroughly and spiritually.

"A cat to me does not just consist of a head, a body and four
legs and a tail. Because besides this that a cat is within a
specific environment, which is inseparable from the cat's
psychological situation and condition, which I've studied
thoroughly before.

"I paint my own version of what I see, as other people could
have different interpretations. This is what I call
expressionism. It is a complete personal portrayal.

Jim Supangkat, independent gallery operator and art critic,
said this of Popo: "In the modernist discourse, Popo Iskandar is
believed to have obtained a special place in achieving the
essential domain of the visual arts."

Popo today

Popo is living proof of his devotion to the profession. His 55
years of hard work has brought its rewards. His fame and success
now was bought dearly. He was a painter in the time of Japanese
and Dutch colonialism.

He has always been loyal to himself and his work. When times
were harsh, he would buy canvas and paint instead of rice and
tempeh for the family.

Now aged 72, this master of cats enjoys a stable life in
Bandung, with 11 grown children, and several grandchildren.

The seeds of tenacity have now grown into a gigantic
collection of works, both here and overseas.

For the young artists of Indonesia, Haji Popo Iskandar may be
an ideal model of how an individual has decided his own fate.