Sneak Preview: W Retreat & Spa Bali
I blogged last week about W Retreat & Spa Bali, which is a major work in progress on the site of the old Intan Hotel in Seminyak, slated to open September 2009. Starwood Group’s W Hotels division has been very tight-lipped about the whole project, as I mentioned previously. W’s online info on the Bali property and their press materials have been scanty to the point of secrecy. The architects say, “3d images and walk-thru animations for the restaurants are nearing completion. Sorry, no sneak previews.”
Well, here’s a sneak preview of the place from me. The interior shots are from a mockup of a typical unit, and the CAD images are from the original proposed concept (which has most likely undergone a process of evolution over the past year).
I knew the old Intan Hotel well, because I used to live very close to it, and would ride my mountainbike there almost every day to use their gym (cheap membership), swim in the pools, play tennis, and get a massage.
Jakarta Fashion Week 2008 : Personality Crisis
Nothing to do but quote the New York Dolls in this review. Personality Crisis. That characterises as well as anything could, Jakarta Fashion Week 2008, which ran from 20 to 24 August. That’s not to say it was a “bad” fashion week. Not at all. Genius, and talent (and utter absence of talent), were all floundering about messily in the throes of a national and institutional personality crisis. This all felt painfully apropos for an Indonesian fashion manifestation at this particular moment in the country’s history.
Update on the “Ugo-Filippo Show”
Finally, here are photos from the Ugo Untoro/Filippo Sciascia vernissage at Biasa Artspace (which I posted about a couple weeks ago). Your patience has been rewarded. Sorry, no photos of Ugo. He’s kind of shy.
The tense reciprocity of Ugo and Filippo’s collaborative works is visually arresting, and crackles with static electricity. Viewers were transfixed.
Filippo expresses himself eloquently . . . on canvas, in words, and in gestures, as well.
Susanna Perini, found of Biasa Artspace and Biasa fashion house, with members of the Biasa team. She has supported and cultivated the talents of innumerable young Indonesians over the years, and imbued the whole Biasa world with an ebullient esprit de corps.
That’s Yours Truly, and Bruno, on the left. Just had to put this one in.
Parcours des Mondes: Arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas
The Parcours des Mondes tribal art fair in Paris has been a fixture on the calendars of dealers, collectors and connoisseurs for seven years now. Each year it has expanded and diversified, and this year is no exception. More exhibitors, more spaces. And new directions.
W Resort & Spa Bali : I Guess the “W” Doesn’t Stand for “Writing”
In case you hadn’t noticed, W Hotels is creating a huge luxury resort on the beach in Seminyak. It’s in Petitenget, to be precise, and the site entrance is directly next door to Bali Catering Company (best take-away gourmet shop in Bali).
W Hotels is the hip luxury brand of the Starwood hotel group (which includes Sheraton, LeMeridien, Westin, and St Regis, all of which are also represented here in Bali). It makes perfect sense that they should put the W brand on the Seminyak property, as Seminyak is reputed to be the hippest and most luxurious district in Bali. The new W Retreat & Spa – Bali is slated to open just over one year from now on the site of the former Intan Hotel, which was a huge Soeharto-era carbuncle, that got very tatty in its last years of operation. I’m sure Starwood will transform it magnificently, and the fact that I now see three tall construction cranes standing on the site suggests they are busy doing just that.
Of course it is exciting to see such a prestigious brand arrive, thus raising the bar for hospitality development in Seminyak. The only dismay I feel about the project is caused by its paltry presence online. The W Hotels site includes only a few pages of content, so far, about the Bali resort. But who made these pages? Who wrote them? The welcome page starts off like this:
Why, Bali Hai
Escape hectic philosophies and plunge into the deepest wisdom of peace and tranquility at the W Retreat & Spa – Bali, where the usual everyday is a myth and lush tropics, sparkling waters and pure white sands are the utopian reality.
Gosh! I didn’t even know philosophies could be hectic? What philosophies might those be? Hermeneutics? And who would be drawn to a resort in order to escape a philosophy? Is this to be a hotel for academics on sabbatical?
Now, moving right along.
Bali : A Day in the Life
As promised, here’s a digest of interesting items from the last issue of the Bali Post.
Headline on the health page: Don’t Send Your Kids to Buy Your Cigarettes. 37% of all children in Indonesia smoke. The writer ventured that sending the kids to buy smokes might encourage them to try smoking themselves, which is not a good thing, as smoking is the “door to narcotics.”
Three Turkish nationals were arrested at the ferry port, heading for Java. They are accused of hypnotising a salesgirl at a cellphone stand in Denpasar. She says they approached her asking for change, and the next thing she knew, they were leaving and Rp 400,000 (US$44) was missing from her cash box.
Bukit Birthday Party Update
On Tuesday I wrote about the past weekend’s wicked exploits. But no photos, so I had to illustrate the post with a painting by Davina Stephens, whose birthday party on the Bukit was the main event of the weekend. Now I have a few snapshots thanks to Carolyn Tyler, celebrated jewelry designer and freelance tantric master.
Jewelry artist, Carolyn Tyler (thanks for the photos), and Marco of Quarzia gettin’ down, and how.
Bali Paradox – A Bali Point of View Channelled to You
I have been intending to write more about Bali from the inside-outsider’s point of view. Being inside and outside often makes me feel inside-out and often alienates me from the many non-Balinese people here (expats) and sometimes from the Balinese, too. Its a tricky tightrope.
I intend to share periodically, digests from the local newspaper, the Bali Post, which is biased toward the indigenous Balinese point of view (probably rightly so, as someone needs to take up the torch). I read it daily, one could say religiously. Occasionally I will post full translations of important pieces of writing from this newspaper, which does a very good job of voicing the points of view of the majority of Bali, the Balinese. This is a majority swiftly being displaced and marginalised in a variety of ways. Visions of Tibet anyone? Different encroaching agents, but similar results? Worth thinking about.
The following is a direct translation from Indonesian to English, of a piece which appeared on the font page of the Bali Post yesterday, and which echoes many other articles in this newspaper and other media in recent months.
In Bali Kite Season = Party Season
It’s kite season in Bali, when strong trade winds from the east bring dry weather. Kite season means two things. It means crazy colourful skies. And it means crazy colourful parties. The good weather brings global party-goers and party-makers in droves. The Sleeping Tiger has had little sleep of late, and this high season doesn’t look like it will let up for weeks. The winds are blowing, and the parties are roaring. This past weekend we were at several of them.
The pinnacle of high season hi-jinks was Saturday night’s masquerade bash celebrating Jasmine and Davina’s birthdays in a villa on the Bukit. A Rocky-Horror-Village-People-Freddy-Mercury theme was declared on the invitations. Madness ensued.
Get Met Mania This Summer : Radiance from the Rain Forest
Here is another special summer exhibition on at the Met that’s a crowd-pleaser, a kid-pleaser, and also pleasing to serious connoisseurs. Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, which stays up until 1 September.
Many of these seventy-or-so masterpieces of featherwork are a millenium and a half old. That tropical rainforest feathers could survive so long, and remain so brilliant is amazing. Also amazing is how such ancient works of art can correspond so strongly to tastes which we now call “modern”.
Images, ©2008 The Metropolitan Museum of Art