Susi Johnston | The Sleeping Tiger on the Island of Bali
Bored with Boring Bali Furniture? Yaari Rom’s Got Insane Alternatives
This is seriously crazy furniture from certifiably wacky Bali-based artist, Yaari Rom. So if you’re bored of synthetic rattan sectionals and routine teak garden furniture, go see Yaari. Bali is a magnet for creative eccentrics, but few are as prolific and irrepressible as Yaari is. He does furniture, furnishing fabrics, fashion and body painting events (for which he is internationally famous, or more accurately, notorious).
Yaari was buoyed up on the tsunami of psychedelia that washed over California in the 60s and 70s, and has been surfing it ever since. He paints, he appliqués, he dyes, he patchworks, he prints, he parties, and when he shows up at parties in Bali, as he often does, it’s impossible to miss him, bedecked as he is, in his own colourful creations.
It’s nice, though, that Yaari doesn’t feel the need to force his clothing on us . . . it’s ultimately optional. Whatever his fashion can do, his body painting can do even better. But don’t sit on his furniture until the body paint is dry, please. Find Yaari’s universe at Yaari Toya Studio on Jalan Mertanadi in Kerobokan. Your life, and your lounge chairs, will never be the same again.
Sleeping Tiger Press Book: Travel & Leisure Insider Feature January 2010
Nice one-page piece in Travel+Leisure magazine about Bruno and I, and our galleries in Bali, ICON Asian Arts and Macan Tidur. Written by Jennifer Chen, who I very much enjoyed talking with back in December. We just heard she’s leaving the magazine to pursue other writing opportunities, incidentally.
(Click through for larger, sharper image.)
Live Art @ KuDeTa Bali: The Writing is on the Wall (For Charity)
Be at KuDeTa on Friday 26 February for a no-jive, all-live, art attack. Two UK artists painting live before your eyes to the tune of globally-regrooved hip hop, morphed tropical urban house and deep subterranean sounds spun by six (count ‘em, six) DJs. This art extravaganza isn’t happening just for YOUR benefit. It’s a benefit for the I’m An Angel charity, which does good in great measure for local people, places and problems.
The Urbanization of Petitenget: More Apartments on the Way
Urban sprawl is eating up Seminyak, Kerobokan and beyond. Years ago, in Legian they said, “We’ll never be like Kuta! So crowded! Such a mess!” Then in Seminyak, they said, “We’ll never be like Legian!” And in Petitenget they said, “We’ll never be like Seminyak!” But the advance of urbanization in South Bali seems unstoppable now.
The Bali Post: All The News That’s Fit to Print . . . and Then Some!
Fish! Fowl! Pussycats! Rats! And murder most foul! Read on . . .
Last year I promised to give occasional reports on the contents of the local Indonesian language newspaper, the Bali Post, which I read every morning. I certainly don’t read it for its quality journalism. I read it to keep tabs on what local people are thinking about and how they are thinking about it, and to access information which is sometimes kept out of the English language press, for fear it would have a negative effect on tourism.
It’s time for one of those occasional reports. Here’s a rundown of the items I read today in the Bali Post, skipping over most national and international news, which I generally get elsewhere. This is a typical day, a randomly chosen day, one on which the Bali Post contains neither more nor less disturbing news than on any other day. Just another perfect day in paradise. Synopses of selected stories appear below. The headlines are mine.
Mondo at Biasa Artspace: This Ain’t No Party, This Ain’t No Wonderland
Nice party. Beautiful people. Harrowing canvasses. Clearly, this ain’t no fooling around, even if it did take place in Bali, the ultimate island for fooling around, art-wise and otherwise. But a wonderland, Bali is not. A rabbit hole to wonderland, this exhibition is not. We are at Biasa Artspace, Bali’s pre-eminent, credibly independent, contemporary art gallery. November 21. It’s a vernissage for the disturbingly beautiful and beautifully disturbing recent oeuvre of Bali-based painter Edmondo Zanolini (AKA Mondo), entitled “Follow the Rabbit”.
Shades of Lewis Carrolls’s rabbit? Perhaps. But this is no recreational trip into a whimsically altered state, it is a harrowing one into a raw state of naked awareness, and certainly not a wonderland by any stretch of any addled imagination. It is more Helter-Skelter than Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Stop dreaming, says Mondo. Wonderland and the House of Horrors are one and the same. Drop the dreams and wake up. The antidote to dreams is down this rabbit hole, so follow the rabbit, if you dare. Reality is weirder than dreams ever could be.
Tommy Soeharto Scores Ten Stories: What’s With That, Really?
This image comes from the website of the Pecatu Indah development which has engulfed Dreamland beach and everything around it in the Bukit Jimbaran area of south Bali. The endearing little erection here depicted, called modestly “The Terrace,” will reach to ten stories. Count ‘em. Plus those “Rapunzel-Does-Denpasar” appendages on top, which ostensibly give this generic tenement block its Balinese character. The whole Pecatu Indah mega-development of which this is a part, has been captained since the beginning by none other than Tommy the Wild Child of Indonesia’s late, long-reigning despot, Soeharto.
Oh, just incidentally and not worth mentioning at all, Tommy was actually convicted of the gang-style murder of a high court judge in broad daylight a few years back, and managed to mitigate his sentence to nearly nothing, if he ever served a minute of it. Pundits proclaim that he paid a “stunt double” lookalike to sit in his posh executive cell while he gallivanted around the world, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it were true. OK, nevermind, so here we have Tommy erecting edifices on a grand scale in Bali, an island already starved of electricity, water and necessary space to revv all its motorbikes, not to mention the Range Rovers, Hummers and Ferrari Testarossas. So Tommy scores ten stories plus.
Javanese Antique Furniture Enters the Realm of Fine Art
ICON Asian Arts (Bali) and Editions Didier Millet (Singapore) are collaborating to raise Javanese antiques to the level of fine art. The Bali gallery will host on 3 December 2009 two simultaneous events: the opening of the world premier exhibition of the Smith-Tirtoprodjo Collection of Javanese antiques; and the launch of a comprehensive illustrated book on the subject, Javanese Antique Furniture and Folk Art, published by Editions Didier Millet.
The Smith-Tirtoprodjo Collection is the most extraordinary group ever assembled of 18th and 19th century artworks in teak from the villages of Central and East Java. These masterpieces challenge preconceived ideas about Javanese art and furniture, compelling us to regard them not as mere objects of use, but as works of art in their own right. With their primitive purity, power of form, and visceral expression of humanity, these works hold their own among the most celebrated tribal art from all corners of the Indonesian archipelago.
Bali Quality Development: Alila Soori Survives in Tabanan
The Alila Soori project near Tanah Lot temple in Bali has had its challenges during development. Issues over land use (an opaque and intentionally obfuscating area of local law), and permitting (more opaque and more obfuscatory), had become a thorn in the side of the Alila development team. Well, breathe a sigh of relief. Alila is now emitting press releases heralding the imminent opening of Alila Soori, after many bumps in the road.
Known for it’s high quality, regionally appropriate and stylish properties around Southeast Asia, it seems a shame that Alila was given such a runaround on this development in Bali. While, at the same time, many horrendously mismanaged and ill-conceived developments of every stripe and type have plowed ahead unchecked.
I for one, welcome a reasonably sensitive, reasonably sustainable, and high quality new arrival like the Alila Soori in the Canggu-Seseh-Tanah Lot area. Now if only there were ways to rein in the more rapacious, quick-cash, destructive development elements at work all over the island.
Photography in Bali: Mixed Bag of Goodies at the Alila
Last night we attended the opening of a photography exhibition by a dozen or so emerging Indonesian imagemakers at the Alila Ubud. The show was a pre-event for the Bali Photography Festival 2010, (which seems to be identical with BLIPFest, but I can’t tell for sure).
The most impressive works on the wall last night were those of Muradi (above), whose original eye, technical rigor, and intrinsic involvement with his (her?) subject matter is extraordinary. The rest of the exhibition was not quite as strong, but the talents and potential are there. Bearing in mind that these are young photographers, I wasn’t surprised to see some over-obvious devotion to the global pantheon of popular imagemaking. I also sensed ambitions to get ahead in advertising. Much of the work exhibited evidenced a lack of courage, and perhaps too much concern for future commercial success.
In summation, I think these young photographers may be looking at too many magazines, when they should be looking more at the world, and with more scrutiny and an independent eye. “Toss the icons, trust your eye, and train it,” I would say.
Worth mentioning here are three other photographers in the show who had something tangible going on . . . Read more…