Asian Art Museum Presents Large-Scale U.S. Exhibition of Balinese Art

Written by Conrad Burlintopn Monday, 23 May 2011 23:55

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- A tiny island in the Indonesian archipelago, Bali reverberates in the world's imagination. A globally recognized destination in Southeast Asia, the island is home to one of the most vibrant centers of visual and performing arts in the world. But until now there has never been an in-depth examination in the United States of Balinese artistic traditions. Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance, on view at the Asian Art Museum through September 11, brings the art and artists of Bali to San Francisco, introducing museum visitors to Balinese history and religious beliefs, and illuminating the ways that performance and rituals are integrated into daily life.

From woven palm-leaf images of the rice goddess to terrifying wood sculptures of Hindu deities, from gilded chairs for kings to painted palanquins for the gods, from offerings made for family shrines to masks carved for foreign tourists, this close examination of Balinese art includes some 130 diverse artworks. Many of these are among the finest examples of their kind, including sculpture, paintings, ritual objects, architectural structures, masks and costumes, photographs, furniture, and more.

But the Bali exhibition doesn't stop there: Amplified by a brimming schedule of public programming—live performances, artist demonstrations, and hands-on art making—the exhibition sheds light on the role art within the fabric of Balinese life. The show also features a multimedia tour, providing context for many of the individual objects. And it is accompanied by a 376-page, fully illustrated catalogue—the first of its kind to be published in more than thirty years—containing essays by renowned experts representing current scholarship. Curated by Natasha Reichle, the Asian Art Museum's associate curator of Southeast Asian art, Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance is organized by the Asian Art Museum, which is the only place it can be seen, either nationally or abroad.


The majority of the artworks in Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance are drawn from six museums in the U.S. and the Netherlands: the Asian Art Museum; the American Museum of Natural History in New York; the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles; the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam; the Rijkmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden; and the Museum Nusantara in Delft. Other objects come from private collections in the Netherlands (a former long term colonial presence in Indonesia) and U.S.

The Island of Bali
"Bali is not harmonious, homogenous, and static," Balinese scholar Degung Santikarma writes. "It is—and has long been—the home of many competing strands of thought and many different ways of being Balinese." A thousand years ago, most regions in Southeast Asia showed evidence of Hindu practices, but today Bali is the only place in the region where ancient Hindu traditions still boldly flourish. The island is not merely a storehouse of past culture; the Balinese have adapted and innovated as they incorporated Hindu and Buddhist ideas into what must have been an already complex network of local beliefs. Likewise, the Balinese have learned from and taught generations of artists from other countries, and Balinese art and performance continues to have an important impact on artists of all kinds worldwide.

Faced by the external pressures of globalization and modern popular culture, Bali has continued to change. The objects in Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance help explain the island's history and religion; demonstrations of how to make offerings illustrate one of the culture's continuing traditions; and performing arts programs show ways Balinese artists adapt and innovate as they present their culture in a 21st-century light.

Exhibition Presentation and Themes
As the title Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance suggests, the exhibition focuses on three major elements:

Visual Art. The artworks featured include sculpture, ceremonial and decorative objects, musical instruments, textiles and costumes, masks, photographs and drawings, architectural elements, puppets, weaponry, and more. Many of the objects displayed were once used in religious rituals—and others of their types are in use even today for the same purposes.

Ritual. Much more than beautiful objects, many of the works on view are of a type that can be imbued with sacred power through ritual and are thought capable of independent powers. The exhibition explores the ways these objects were and are still made sacred—how they are brought to life in ceremony and performance—and uses music, photography, video, and demonstrations to help explain these processes. In the museum's North Court, visitors can watch artists make ritual Balinese offerings, and explore an interactive video program of temple ceremonies on computer monitors.

Performance. Although non-sacred performances exist in Bali, most performances there are deeply connected to or derived from ritual events such as purification rites, exorcisms, and agricultural festivals. Live dance, drama, shadow puppetry, and music performances will take place in a range of open spaces at the Asian Art Museum through the run of the exhibition.

Acclaimed Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias (1904–1957) and his wife, Rose (a dancer and photographer), first traveled to Bali in 1930. Covarrubias had moved to New York at nineteen and had gained fame primarily as a caricaturist, designing covers and illustrations for such publications as Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. The couple were fascinated by Balinese life, particularly by rituals, offerings, and festivals, and Miguel Covarrubias's 1937 book Island of Bali is a remarkable source of information about the art, ritual life, and customs of parts of Bali he had observed during the years he lived there.

In his painting Tanah Bali ("Land of Bali") Covarrubias concisely illustrates the defining geographical features of the island. A trail of volcanoes divides the land, with the two largest, Gunung Batur and Gunung Agung, dominating the east. Smoke rises from the still-active crater of Batur, while the sacred lake Danau Batur fills the volcano's huge collapsed crater, or caldera. Terraced rice fields descend the fertile slopes to the southern shores. The most sacred temple, Pura Besakih, is on the southern slope of Gunung Agung, the most sacred mountain in Bali. Other famous temples dot the island. Visit : http://www.asianart.org/

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