Bali Echo Visitor's Guide

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February/March, 1998
No. 033/VI/98

cover story

Galleries Galore
The boom in
contemporary Balinese
art

A Matter of Taste
Why bourgeois Balinese
are collecting art

beyond
bali

From Toraja to the
Togians
Sulawesi's most seductive
parts

Treading Lightly in
Lombok
Tips to being a green
tourist

regular
features

Weekender
The Saltmakers of Amed

Home Grown
Legian's Legend,
Made Kasim

Health and Beauty
The Ubud-based
Bali Utama Spice

Books
The search for the Great
Bali Novel continues

Cuisine
Bumbu Bali cooking
school

Fiction
Marni's Ride by
K. Landras Syaelendra

Jungle Drums

The Galleries

Sika Gallery
The avant garde of
Balinese art

Komaneka
The second generation

The Artist Cafe
Art for everyone

Darga Gallery
Bali's
house of masters

advertising index for
Bali Echo web site

Most of the galleries that emerged in the seventies were very much oriented towards market demand, rather than originality or creativity.... Contemporary artist, therefore, were forced to find other spaces to exhibit their works.

As much as the artistic ideals of Ida Bagus Made and Gusti Ketut Kobot have remained consistent since the 1930s, Ubud has been transformed. Kobot still remembers when, to get to the village of Ubud from his native Pengosekan, he had to traverse several kilometers of the precarious narrow barriers that divide rice paddies. Now a major thoroughfare links the two villages, and what was once forest is now a jungle of art shops and galleries that have developed in the wake of waves of European artists, each of which has made their own mark on Balinese painting. Hot on the heels of Bonnet and Spies, in the 1950s more European painters settled in Bali - among them Arie Smit, Hans Snel, and Antonio Blanco. Arie Smit facilitated the emergence of the Penestanan-based Young Artist's school and as Bonnet had done, often purchased their works himself. Bonnet himself established a close friendship with Ubud local Wayan Suteja Neka. This pioneer art entrepreneur observed increasing numbers of tourists were coming to Ubud especially to see local paintings as early as the 1960s, promptly quit his day job as a teacher and established himself in the art trade by opening a shop which later became the Neka Gallery. Throughout the seventies and eighties many others - such as Nyoman Rudana in Mas, Agung Rai in Peliatan, Agung Raka, Sumerta, Barwa - followed Neka's example and set up their own art shops and galleries selling paintings, statues, cloth and other souvenirs.

Most of the galleries that emerged in the seventies were very much oriented towards market demand, rather than originality or creativity. Some were interested in contemporary works, but they continued to prioritise paintings depicting such themes as the legong dance, cremation ceremonies, barong, rangda and the like. Contemporary artists, therefore, were forced to find other spaces to exhibit their works, which usually ended up being in the Museum Bali, the Art Centre, or five-star hotels. Agung Rai still remembers when Made Wianta came to him in the seventies with some of the black and white surrealist works that he had done while living in Karangasem. Said Rai: "Wianta's works were indeed very fresh and interesting, but there was no market for them." So Wianta didn't put a price on them. "I was lucky enough to have them hung," said Wianta, who has since frequently participated in international exhibitions.

It wasn't until the mid eighties that the value of contemporary Balinese art began to pick up on the international market, and artists such as Made Wianta, Nyoman Tusan and Nyoman Gunarsa suddenly began to make some money from their paintings. Around the same time, many of the art shop and gallery owners who had done so well out of the tourism boom in the early eighties began establishing Museums - such as the Neka Museum, the Agung Rai Museum and the Nyoman Rudana Museum - ostensibly to 'preserve the artistic heritage' they had collected. Whilst they were more interested than they had been previously in the now saleable commodity of contemporary art, the Museums, were unable to accommodate all of the growing number of contemporary artists in Bali.

Above:
1. Made Djirna's 'Red Tongue with Animal"
2. Made Djirna explans that 'there are many influences to my creative process-tradition, religion, education, technology, tourism, hopes and fantasies-which sometimes all become jumbled together"

continued