Susi Johnston | The Sleeping Tiger on the Island of Bali

Last June I heard that Bill Gates bought Irma Lake Ranch (above), the property of a dear friend of mine, Roger W. Hollander. I was happy to hear the news. I loved the place, and will never forget the time I spent there. Knowing that it is staying in private hands is somehow heartening. (More info from Huffington Post here.)

Roger bought Irma Lake in the 90s to serve as his private home, and headquarters of his Empire of All Things Extraordinary. The ranch had belonged to Buffalo Bill Cody, and was used to entertain celebrities and heads of state on hunting and nature outings in the mountains and plains near what is now Yellowstone National Park. Cody even had the Burlington Northern Railway build a spur line out to the ranch. Many of the original structures from Cody’s time still survive intact on the 500 acre property. Thanks in part to Roger’s conscientious stewardship of the property during the years he called it home. (You can download a property brochure from it’s listing agent for the sale, here.)

Roger was involved in a terrible car accident a few years ago, while driving down the seven mile mountain drive from Irma Lake Lodge, his spectacularly beautiful, and intensely personal home. In the pre-dawn hours, heading for the Cody airport, he rolled his SUV, and was left in sub-freezing weather, unconscious and upside-down, held in place by his safety belt. Several hours later, he was found by ranchers and rushed to hospital. The head injuries and exposure were so severe, that even a hardy soul like Roger has been unable to recover. He remains in rehabilitative care in Wyoming to this day, and all of his friends are still saddened by Roger’s tragic story.

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Textilians take note. There’s a spiffy article on the Laharia Turbans of Rajasthan in the catalog for the Arts of Pacific Asia Show (part of Asia Week New York 2010).

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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.)

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.

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If you’re not in Paris right now, you missed it.

Parcours des Mondes is now undeniably the ultimate event on earth for non-western art or arts premier *. It takes place in Paris every September, and if you’re not there now, you missed it, because it ends tomorrow. Book now for next year.

During this extraordinary week, the galleries of Saint Germain are taken over by five dozen or so of the world’s most distinguished tribal art dealers - - those with the sharpest eye, the deepest understanding, the best sources, and the most discriminating tastes. After eight years in existence, Parcours has begun to shake the tectonic plates of the global art trade, garnering attention from the highest echelons of art cognoscenti and the media. That is as it should be.

With contemporary art looking like the painted stepsister of a dodgy derivatives investment, it’s not surprising to find timeless art that reaches deep into the roots of humanity and arises directly from those roots, maintaining its stature, and even growing it. Parcours is the proof - - ça marche. In a time when almost nothing works (including a lot of contemporary art dealers), arts premier works. And why shouldn’t it? Tribal art has always been about efficacy - - in proclaiming power, warding off disease, cultivating fertility, and establishing a place in this confusing universe. Ça definitely marche.

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The Ashmolean is rebooting. Big plans and improvements are underway, with 39 new galleries happening, to the tune of £61 million. Among them is a major new space for textiles. Textilism is officially a trend. In recent years numerous upper-echelon museums have created spaces devoted to textiles as art, notably the DeYoung in SF, among others.

The textile tale of the Ash in a nutshell: The Ash says one of its “best kept secrets is its large collection of textiles.” Just announced, £122,000 was awarded to the museum to support their forthcoming textiles gallery and allow more of the cloth in their collection to go on display. The collection numbers something over 4,000 pieces (that’s just twice my own private collection, interestingly). Download a flyer on the new textiles gallery here.

The New Ash reopens with a bash this November. If we had an invite for the opening night we would surely be there despite it being half a world away.

Pablo Bartholomew’s arresting images of the Naga peoples of Burma and India have been up at the Rubin Museum in New York since March. The show closes 21 September, so if you haven’t had an opportunity to see it yet, make one. The Naga tribes as a group are among the most diverse and interesting traditional societies existing on earth. Having lived in relative isolation into the modern era, their cultures were relatively uninfluenced by the rest of us. Times change. The Nagas are changing. Bartholomew’s visual anthropology bears witness to the change and consistency which co-exist in Naga culture now.  Image ©2009 Rubin Museum of Art

Fine tribal and Asian art gets more attention now than ever, but where are the avid buyers of yesteryear? If the (almost) concurrent BRUNEAF and BOAF fairs in Brussels this June were any indication, there’s plenty of solitude for art afficionados to quietly contemplate the works on offer (like Davide Manfredi’s Modang panel, above).

Lately there’s also plenty of solitude for the dealers at tribal art fairs to meditate on their fate and what the future holds. Andres Moraga (below, with Clive Loveless), apparently had ample time to sample a pseudo stogie at Chez Richard on the Sablon, where the fair’s experts, organisers, cognoscenti, collectors, dealers and groupies rub shoulders with the rogues, ruffians and renegades of the tribal trade daily, weather permitting. Weather does not always permit in Brussels, and this year it did. Still, few buyers ventured forth.

For those who feel acronymed-out, BRUNEAF = Brussels Non-European Art Fair, one of the most respected and active international events for African, Asian and Oceanic tribal arts. And BOAF = Brussels Oriental Art Fair, a relative newcomer that looked promising for a few years as it built patronage. Both fairs this year, and also the (almost) concurrent BAAF (Brussels Ancient Art Fair), were subdued events in comparison to years past. Read more…

We have a new website, small but cute. Which suits Macan Tidur perfectly. At last this lazy Sleeping Tiger has gotten up off its belly and made a wee site offering a peek into the Macan Tidur network of elegant little enterprises, which includes Gallery Macan Tidur (Ubud, Bali), ICON Asian Arts (Seminyak, Bali), Sumaru Sourcing (Indonesia), Macan Tidur Textiles (Bali and the World), and Sriwijaya Jewels (excavated and antique ethnic ornament by appointment and at ICON Asian Arts and Aman Resorts in Bali). Feedback welcome. And pardon us for blowing our own horn here . . . or for roaring just a bit instead of simply purring.

It’s a fun theme for an exhibition, “Hunters & Collectors.” And an interesting opportunity to consider the history of collecting itself as an anthropological phenomenon.

The age of plundering in the jungles is over, and attitudes toward cultural property and buccaneerism have shifted 180 degrees. Still, you can relive the romance and recklessness that helped build the Southeast Asian collections at the Singapore Asian Civilisations Museum, an institution which began in 1849 as the Raffles Library.

Flora and fauna, as well as ethnographica (above), photographs and fine tribal artefacts make up a significant part of the show. On through 21 September.