Susi Johnston Bali Blog

BRUNO PIAZZA: MASTERPIECE

My beloved husband Bruno Piazza died at home in Bali, at dawn on Friday the 28th of October, 2011 after a long and courageous battle with cancer.

Bruno lived an extraordinary and beautiful life, and (not surprisingly) he died a remarkably beautiful death. He was not an artist, he was Art. His life was his masterpiece. Now he has completed and signed that masterpiece, with a flourish, and it is beautiful indeed. It is perfect.

Please forgive me, and forgive Bruno, for our shortcomings, and for any oversights or mistakes we may have made in the past, and for anything we ever did or said that caused you or anyone else any pain or suffering. The evening I dispersed Bruno’s ashes in the Indian Ocean, I saw a new crescent moon. That  bright sliver of a smile in the sky was the sign of a clean, happy, new beginning for us all.

Hic et nunc was Bruno’s mantra. I am beginning to understand it better and better.

Brand spanking new, and smack up against Biku Tea Room, here’s CARGA. It’s a retail emporium taking traditional Indonesian ideas and materials and throwing them sideways. In delightful ways. Tradition with a twist. Read more…

A large-scale exhibition entitled Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance will open in February 2011 at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, one of the world’s most respected institutions for Asian art. This is big news. Exciting news. The show includes works on loan from numerous international collections, many which have never before been exhibited publicly. Unusual ritual objects ranging from palm-leaf offerings to gilded palanquins will complement the more familiar Balinese art forms such as sculpture, masks and textiles. Read more…

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.

With museum exhibitions and fairs all over the calendar, San Francisco has no “season” for tribal arts and textiles. The most notable fall fair  Tribal SF 2010 starts later this week. It’s organised by the local independent dealer’s association, SF Tribal, and kicks off with a champagne preview reception on October 15th. The venue for this year’s fair (their sixth), is Fort Mason on the bay. Very convenient. Some of our favourite dealers will be there, including Thomas Murray, Andres Moraga, and Joe Loux. That’s Tom’s stand from a previous show above. Gorgeous. For more information click the links herein, or email Andres Moraga at moraga@lmi.net.

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.

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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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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