Initially, Setiawan Sabana became interested in the matter of paper. He has consistently treated paper not just as an object having a specific character and function - in particular the function related to the working process for creating graphic artworks - but more appropriately he viewed paper as a thing with a long history as a sign and symbol of the civilization of man. This idea to monumentalize paper is not just a random action, within this choice there are the inklings of an awareness of an attitude of reverence toward momentous and significant meanings or values. Paper is a medium for making notes, setting things out, and for telling millions of stories about significant events; a thing found in data rooms, libraries, and even the safes used for storing valuable documents.

Starting with paper, Setiawan Sabana is capable of speaking of many matters, from metaphors to the creation of symbols, stains, colors, letters, words, drawings, or just scribbles, all of which are compressed together thickly to the point where there is no space left. On the paper touched by this artist we can find a symphony of life about loneliness or the busyness and hustle and bustle of human behavior. Paper is a kind of universal sheet music ready to play and interpret communally within a global orchestration. And just what kind of music can we play within this current period of cultural crisis other than a black symphony?

How difficult it is to read the piles of stories telling of overwhelming rage, greediness, and violence, and all the other dark notes of the history of mankind. Domination and suppression exist everywhere, with waves of peace and violence ebbing and flowing, creating a paradoxical reality in which slips up and down and back and forth between the dictates of the stomach and the mind. The globalization of this world has not provided any opportunity at all to those under the heel of domination unless they also join in the celebration of hegemony.

At the very least, at this time, Setiawan Sabana is in the midst of stealing away pieces of this drama step by step and little by little. His first series in this process is titled Symphony in Black : The Global Orchestra and was presented in Egypt last year. In this work, Setiawan Sabana displays a row of standard sheet music, which he has etched, with the notation of form and the rhythm of the stomping of military boots, the rattle of the machine gun, the booming of the cannon, the screams of commandos, the cries of pain, and the weeping of widows and children. This story of violence is longer than the history of paper, and as ancient as the tradition of scratching images on the walls of caves or on the monumental stones and copper sheets of the past. The story of violence in all of its variations fills millions of thick volumes, which will only continue to multiply page by page as long as the strains of the black symphony of the history of the civilization of mankind continue to be heard and to be recorded on paper. This continuing and currently unfolding history is like a series of episodes that never seem to come to an end even though the lives of those recording it may seem far too short. Ars Longa Vita Brevis.

Mamannoor

Born on May 10, 1951 in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia.
Studied at Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Bandung (BFA; 1977) (Doctor; 2002), Northern Illinois University, USA (MFA; 1982).

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2000 "Waas", Hidayat Gallery, Bandung.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1998 "Modernities and Memories", Dolmabace Museum, Istanbul, Turkey; The 13th Asian International Art Exhibition, The National Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
1999 14th Asian International Art Exhibition, Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan; Print and Drawing Exhibition, Fukuoka, Japan; "Media in Media", Installation Exhibition, National Art Gallery, Jakarta.
2000 15th Asia International Art Exhibition, Tainan, Taiwan.
2001 Bandung Art Event, Popo Iskandar Art House, Bandung; Contemporay Craft Exhibition, National Gallery, Jakarta.
2002 "Imagining the Book"; international workshop, seminar, exhibition, in The Library of Alexandria, Egypt; 17th Asian International Art Exhibition, Daejeon Museum, Daejeon, Korea.

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