Your Coffee Table Wants This Tome
My friend and colleague, Bruce Carpenter just co-wrote a fine tome on the art of the Batak of North Sumatra, with Achim Sibeth, a leading scholar of Batak culture. The photographs are very good, and the collection which was the basis of the book is extraordinary in its breadth and quality. Bruce Carpenter is a remarkably diligent fellow, who studies, collects, advises and writes about the arts of the Indonesian archipelago with almost maniaical fervour.
Interior Design, As It Should Be
One of our favourite interior design firms is Douglas Durkin Design. Douglas and his partner in the firm, Greg Elich, are two of the smartest, most honest and most genuinely talented designers out there. Specialising in high end residential work, the firm has grown exponentially since it was founded, exclusively by word of mouth. Their work is impeccable, tasteful, client-focused (not ego-focused), and it’s all about Quality with a very large Q. No smoke and mirrors here, dear. Would never fly in Dubai. Or Vegas. So if it’s Swarovski tap handles and ruched pelmets you’re wanting, look elsewhere.
I’m Talking to a Jade Circle
I’m giving a lecture to the “Jade Circle” of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum on the 15th of July in Ubud. Donors who make significant financial contributions to the museum are granted membership in the “Jade Circle” which comes with a wealth of special privileges and programs. One of them is their upcoming trip to Bali, accompanied by museum experts. I will be making a presentation to the group on Balinese textiles, entitled “Diversity and Insularity: The cultural threads of Balinese textile traditions.” If you would like an outline with images from the presentation, contact me.
Beauty Breakout Behind Bars
Schapelle Corby, the celebrity inmate of Bali’s Kerobokan jail is in trouble again. She’s in for 20 years for smuggling drugs, in case you managed to miss this high profile case. Well, last week when her appeal of the sentence was denied, she came down with a bona fide case of clinical depression and was taken to Sanglah hospital where she’s being treated by seven psychiatric professionals to beat the depression. Yesterday the Bali Post reported she’s in big trouble because she went to the beauty salon inside the hospital without the permission of her doctors. She was accompanied by the prison guard detailed to keep tabs on her in hospital. I would think that’s good enough, but no, the doctors are furious.
Socialist Pays Social Visit to a Crumbling Palace
Sukmawati Soekarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia’s founding president Soekarno, is touring Bali this week. She is the chairman of PNI Marhaenisme, one of the political parties now vying for recognition in anticipation of Indonesia’s April 2009 presidential election. Sukmawati is a strikingly elegant and gracious lady, who during her tour of Bali has charmed people from all walks of life, journalists not excepted. The Bali Post has followed her movements closely, and run flattering photographs of her daily. Yesterday they reported her visit to the palace of the last ruling dynasty of Bali, Puri Dalem Gelgel, along with members of the Dalem Gelgel family and Balinese Hindu high priests.
Indonesian Textiles @ ArtIC
From last December until March an extraordinary exhibition of Indonesian textiles was up at the venerable Art Institute of Chicago, entitled The Art of Indonesian Textiles. It closed in March, so if you didn’t go, you missed it. But you can still get the book, which is as extraordinary as the exhibition.
Parcours de Paris: Be There
The Parcours des Mondes is one of the most anticipated art fairs in the world for collectors of African, Oceanic, American Indian, pre-Columbian and Asian Art. Held every September in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood of Paris, the fair brings together over sixty exhibitors from around the world. This year, with new management by TAM (Tribal Art Management), the high standard of quality that Parcours is known for will rise further still. We understand that vetting of objects for authenticity will be more rigourous than ever, so no caveats for emptors here.
The Design Library for Textilians
An amazing resource in New York State, serving the world. The Design Library sells and licenses antique textile designs from their vast collection of original documentary textiles. Most of their clients are in home furnishing, fashion and graphic design industries. They have satellite offices in London and Manhattan, and staff who can assist clients to find what they are looking for among the Design Library’s five million or so textile designs. For “textilians” this is a mother lode of inspiration.
Brussels Oriental Art Fair 2008
The Brussels Oriental Art Fair (BOAF) is an annual event that takes place in early June, concurrent with the Brussels Non-European Art Fair (BRUNEAF) and the Brussels Ancient Art Fair (BAAF). All three fairs are centred on the Sablon district of Brussels, which is a divine place to spend a day, or a lifetime, even.
My partner Bruno and I have been exhibitors in the fair together for a few years, but this year he was on his own, as I was too busy in Bali with building projects. He reported that the weather was dreary and the sales rather dreary also. Except for the auction at Berger, across the Place du Grand Sablon from Bruno’s gallery space for the fair. Read more…
Southeast Asian Ceramics at the Sackler
Photos ©The Smithsonian Institute 2008
Clay vessels have been part of the everyday lives of the people of Southeast Asia for four millenia. Wherever there have been people, there have been pots, and the diversity of styles reflects the complexity of this region’s cultural heritage over time and across great distances.
“Taking Shape,” an exhibition of some 200 examples dating from prehistory to the present is on now at the Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC. And there’s a spiffy online gallery, too, with images of every piece in the show. The collection was given to the Smithsonian over a period of years by brothers Victor and Osborne Hauge and their wives. What the Sackler site doesn’t say is that the Hauges’ history as collectors was an interesting one.