Susi Johnston Bali Blog

Our gallery of ancestral arts, ornament, weapons and textiles in Seminyak has been open for more than a year. Better late than never, at long last we have our website up. At present, there are 66 pieces from our inventory shown in the “collections” area of the site. We’ll be adding more material, and improving the site on an ongoing basis, so do bookmark it, and come back often to see what’s new. Expect refinements to design, additional functionality and fresh content during the weeks and months ahead. www.iconasianarts.com.

It’s too splendid to miss. An exhibition of  300 artefacts from Sumatra opened last night at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. “Sumatra: Isle of Gold” runs from today through 7 November 2010, giving us all plenty of time to plan a Singapore stopover to see the show, which is the first international touring exhibition about Sumatran culture.

The dizzying array of objects exhibited includes a diamond-studded crown worn by the Sultan of Siak, silk and gold-threaded textiles, beadwork, sculpture, and a glorious trove of  jewelry and ornament. Many pieces are from the ACM’s permanent collection, while others are on loan from the Indonesian National Museum in Jakarta, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, and from private collections, making this an unsurpassed opportunity to appreciate the rich spectrum of this rich island’s culture from the bronze age to the present day.

Kevin Lim has already posted a set of photos of the exhibition opening party on flickr (below), and some of the pieces on show (magical inscriptions in an antique Batak book, above).

Personally, it is gratifying for me to see a major exhibition on the arts and artefacts of Sumatra, as I have been collecting Sumatran textiles, baskets and beadwork for the past two decades. My collections are, of course, available for purchase at ICON Asian Arts and Macan Tidur in Bali.

Last Saturday I presented a program on Indonesian arts and antiquities for a group of young CEOs in Ubud, at Gallery Macan Tidur. Based on these snapshots it looks like I gave an animated performance – - despite the fact I was on crutches, having only just been liberated from a pesky leg cast following an injury last month. My crutch served well as a pointer (below), to indicate the locations of various peoples in the Indonesian archipelago.

The approach we took to consider Indonesian arts and antiquities was to observe the contrast between tribal or primitive styles and courtly or “classical” ones. One finds strongholds of primitive, tribal and archaic cultures to this day in the inland, and mountainous areas of Indonesia, as well as on less-accessible or less-trafficked islands, while more courtly styles tend to be found in coastal areas which were centers of trade and cultural exchange.

We explored how this pattern of distribution allows us to reflect on the nature of society throughout the region during various periods from pre-history to the present day. To illustrate these themes, we examined a variety of textiles, objects, weapons and jewelry from a wide range of cultures across the archipelago, dating from the stone age to the information age.

I very much enjoyed meeting this group of young business leaders who were in Bali to participate in a weekend gathering of the Pan-Asia chapter of YPO (The Young President’s Organization). Their weekend schedule, masterfully organized by Balistarz, was chock-a-block with every imaginable activity that Bali has to offer. Including a Saturday night barbecue bash at the Morabito Art Villa which they were kind enough to invite me to join. Great party, but a bit difficult to negotiate with only one foot functioning. Great company. The vivacity, intelligence and creativity of YPO’s Pan-Asia chapter members gave me new optimism for the future of the region. Go, YPO.

Stereo.type, the subject of the current exhibition at Kendra Gallery, is one of the myriad projects of artist-designer-activist Ebon Heath. It consists of metamorphosed typography which transmits subtle messages about printed words themselves and their broadest meanings. The title Ebon selected for his website, “listeningwithmyeyes” voices eloquently the peculiar effect of freeing typography from its familiar context. Text moves from the page into the atmosphere, where it is more seen than heard-in-the-head, as one hears words while one reads them on a page. Released from the page, text can be sensed in new ways. Ebon is experimenting with a form of synaesthesia, which I suspect  he feels himself and always has, in relation to text and typography.

No surprise then, that Ebon has for over a decade been a pioneer in graphic design, exploring divergent paths in typography, and in other graphic means to transmit urgent and potent messages. His graphic work evidences an innate understanding of the prevailing conditions of his clients’ publics. He fathoms just how deeply we wallow in a surfeit of text, messages, text messages and constant clever clamoring after our attention.

Ebon seems to propose his mobiles as a means to float above the imperatives of prolific message making. They are not the products of an assignment to Ebon the graphic designer, requiring him to hit a target with a specific message shot from a grassy knoll into a cluttered world. Rather, they seem to be his own response to the nebulous nature of the printed word itself as a phenomenon. And equally, as an expression of Ebon’s own understanding of that phenomenon, or cluster of phenomena, after years of deployment on missions as a sniper on the battleground of printed messages. Me, I can’t help but like this stuff, as a veteran of the sharp-shooting message squad myself (JWT, O&M, etc).

I’m not sure that Ebon has achieved the full effect  he hopes to achieve with Stereo.type, yet. Nevertheless, his trail-breaking at this juncture still affords us access to paths that were not previously available. In other words, there is value in the Stereo.type project, and one would do well to follow its course and expect even greater work as Ebon conjures forth his word-clouds (as above, at Kendra).

The art products comprising Stereo.type are primarily undulating and exploding mobiles of typography which release printed words from the constraints of the two dimensional page. Words hang in the air. Words fly. Poetry floats. We are invited to feel in a spatial and physical way how real words really are. As embodied beings ourselves, we witness an analogous embodiment of the texts that fill our world. In this way we can begin to comprehend what the printed word is actually doing in our world, from religious texts to text messages to political campaign slogans. Everything written, printed, and distributed is hovering in the atmosphere around us, twisting and drifting like Ebon’s mobiles (above).

As text is decontextualised in Ebon’s artworks, so is the artist himself deliberately decontextualised. He drifts wantonly away from the orthodoxies of the contemporary art market, disregarding agreed-upon categories of fine art as we know it. He is colouring outside the lines that separate fine art from, say, interior decoration, graphic design, body ornament and indeed, activism. Ebon’s mobiles are “going retail” later this year as constituent elements for high-design interiors. As are other Stereo.type art products, including laser-cut typographic earrings, cuffs and belts (above).

Photographic prints are another form of art objects within the Stereo.type project (above, visible to the right of a word-cloud). A dozen or so of these these limited edition prints are avaible through Kendra, and several are hung in the gallery now. They twist the text-to-art story into yet another permutation, by first taking the printed page into three dimensions (mobiles), then intentionally flattening it out again (photographs of mobiles), but with its earlier 3-D state having transformed the text in disorienting yet salient ways. It’s all as twisted as the morphed, warping words whirling slowly in the air-con at Kendra, now through 16 May. Go. Spend an hour or two in the gallery if you are in Bali, and consider how words and text exist among us, take form, move, morph, move, and insinuate themselves into our very atmosphere.

Kim Randall, la femme chef d’affaires of Kendra Gallery, was radiant on the occasion of Ebon’s vernissage last Saturday, as she always is (above, with Chun Gee of Bule Fusion studio). She’s an object lesson in natural beauty, which has nothing to do with airs and everything to do with graces. That characterises Kim (below, far right), who was on fine form on the night. The artist, on the other hand, initially seemed to be on less than fine form, having not yet appeared until well into the second hour of the vernissage. Kim explained matter-of-factly, “Gosh, Susi, he’s been up for three days working on the installation. Now he’s crashed out asleep in his room!”

Kendra is situated at Uma Sapna, one of the few well-designed boutique villa hotels in Seminyak. It, and Kendra Gallery, were discreetly created by their ineluctable éminence grises, Bruno Wauters and his enchanting partner Sekar Warni (above, third from right, beside interior designer Laure DeGuillaume and architect Cheong Yew Kwan). Given the fact that Ebon was staying at Uma Sapna, he was understandably inclined to recharge – -  after three days discharging the painstaking duty of affixing innumerable strings of typography to walls and ceilings he had never seen before.

But lo and behold! The artist ultimately emerged! At the very moment the crowd reached maximum numbers, which were impressive numbers indeed (see above), Ebon Heath popped out like a rabbit from a hat, and proved to be remarkably personable, approachable, affable, relaxed, and generous in answering questions and discussing his work – - not to mention, beaming smiles for miles. I guess the mattresses and sheets at Uma Sapna are top-drawer, and the rooms are as serene as a Trappist monastery. It seems that a two-hour siesta there is equivalent to eight hours of shut-eye anywhere else.

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Afficionados of ancient ornament, take note. In the middle of last year, a hobbyist who enjoys combing the countryside with a metal detector discovered the most important early medieval gold hoard ever.

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There’s a beautiful and unusual exhibition on at the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), showing over 200 brooches from the collection of former US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright. Her use of brooches as signals in diplomacy was truly extraordinary. She drew from her vast and expanding collection to send a wide repertoire of signals, sporting pin-on insects, weapons, angels, and even a snake (above), which she donned for a meeting on Iraq in 1994, after Saddam Hussein had called her a “serpent.”  The full story is in the Christian Science Monitor here.

The exhibition, which runs through the end of January 2010, coincides with the publication of Albright’s book of her memoirs, ”Read My Pins: Stories From a Diplomat’s Jewel Box” (HarperCollins, 2009). Photo: John Bigelow Taylor

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Asia Society, New York, offer an unprecedented exhibition of art from ancient Viet Nam—the first U.S. exhibition to address in depth the historical, geographic and cultural contexts of precolonial Vietnamese art. Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea will expose approximately 110 objects dating from the first millennium B.C. through the 17th century, on loan from Viet Nam´s leading museums.

Highlights of the exhibition include ritual bronzes, terracotta burial wares, fine gold jewelry, Hindu and Buddhist sculptures, and ornaments of jade, lapis lazuli, crystal and carnelian. The works have never before been exhibited. 

The exhibition runs 13 September 2009 to 2 January 2010, and afterwards travels to the Asia Society in New York. While we wait for September, let’s all read the book behind the exhibition, by its chief curator Nancy Tingley, with Andreas Reinecke, Pierre-Yves Manguin, Kerry Nguyen-Long and Nguyen Dinh Chien (in stock at amazon.com now).

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I stumbled on this stunning diadem, excavated from a royal tomb at Nimrud in Iraq, where it was discovered near the remains the queen’s skull. Its technical sophistication and fine workmanship are unbelievable. This is one of the most beautiful pieces of gold ornament I have ever seen or heard of. Elegant. Lavish, yet not excessively so. Tastefully lavish.

What most piqued my interest, however, were the tabular “eye” agates. I used to have a ring by Jean-Francois Fichot, mounted with a similar stone, perhaps originating from the same period and region. Sadly, it deteriorated with constant wear, and I have been hoping to restore the ring, but haven’t been able to find a suitable replacement for the stone.

Another noteworthy feature for me is the fine knitting using gold wire. Crocheted or knitted wire ornament is also a tradition here in Indonesia, and I have seen numerous old and contemporary knitted wire artefacts from various island cultures. More on this tomorrow.

The jewelry collection of the Walters Museum in Baltimore is vast and diverse, spanning five millennia and a broad spectrum of world cultures, yet most of it is rarely seen. Here’s your big opportunity to ogle over 200 pieces from the collection, many never before shown publicly. Bedazzled: 5,000 Years of Jewelry opens 19 October and runs through 4 January 2009. In this exhibition the riches of the Walters collection will be augmented by numerous finger rings from the collection of New York gemologist Benjamin Zucker, scion of one of the great Antwerp diamond families, who has a passion for antique and ancient rings from around the globe, and has been dubbed “Lord of the Rings” in recognition of his passionate pursuit of fine antique finger rings for his personal collection. Be there. With bells on. And plenty of rings on fingers and toes. 

Image © 2006 The Walters Art Museum

An in-depth interview with tribal art dealer Joel Cooner has just been posted on the Tribalmania website. Joel is known for his exquisite eye and his talent for arranging artefacts in such a way that the arrangements are works of art in their own right.

In the interview Cooner reveals his inspirations, and shares his advice for collectors. He talks straight, and with an earthy familiarity, as only a Texan can, mixing sophisticated art jargon with down-home metaphors. When you read the interview, imagine the words delivered with a warm Texan twang and you’ll get the feeling.

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