Susi Johnston Bali Blog

In Bali’s burgeoning elite residential communities from Berawa westwards, options for shopping and dining are very sparse. Villa dwellers out west face a half-hour drive on the highway to hell if they want a decent meal, an evening out, or a spot of shopping. That’s all about to change, with the arrival of Sea Sentosa, a new project now under way between Batu Bolong and Batu Mejan surf beaches. Read more…

A posse of Bali creatives and media folk have banded together to make a television content package for high-end hotels, with fresh, locally-grown features, info and advertising. Mangovision is broadcasting in several top hotel and villa resorts on the island, with more joining all the time. The focus is decidedly up-market, and hip.

Several savvy advertisers are already on board, including the likes of Milo’s, John Hardy, Dandelion and Jean-Francois Fichot. This is THE advertising platform for elite enterprises who want to target an exclusively affluent audience. So get a slice of the action with Mangovision. But don’t do it right away, or their rates will spike before I get signed up myself.

Content includes up-to-date info on events, activities, shopping, sightseeing, nightlife, and more. Feature programs aren’t hokey infomercials or fluff either. They’ve got the Blair Brothers’ Ring of Fire series, Lawrence Blair’s more recent documentaries, and programs on culture, nature, adventure, history, the environment, and other subjects of regional interest. Previously, I fretted on this blog about the sheer volume of magazines piling up in Bali. Mangovision is an interesting alternative to mountains of glossy paper. Will we soon see a Stranger-in-Paradise videolog on Mango? I hope so.

Nice original network ID animations by Armand Pranoto, btw, who has also done work locally for The Yak Awards and Dandelion. Become a Mangovision fan on Facebook.

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.

Read more…

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.

The weather in Bali has been very disappointing lately. Lie on the beach and you’re more likely to rust than to tan. So, how to predict what’s ahead weather-wise? Ask the surfers. The surf world watches wind, waves, and barometric pressure intently, and their monitoring and predictions are spot on. Just go to super surf site, Magic  Seaweed to check out Bali weather (click on “Surf Reports”). The animated pressure chart has proven highly predictive of what’s up for Bali. It’s shaded to show precipitation, and you can go forward in time to see what’s coming. Bad news – - looks like the clouds and unseasonable drizzle will stick around for a while.

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

Arch Daily has enlightened us yet again. This time with a report on the Tic-Tac House by Brazilian architects FGMF. I don’t like the name, but I guess in Portugese, it represents the sound of a ticking clock, and this house design involves movement like the hands of a clock. But it’s not just about hours, it’s also about seasons, conditions, moods and changing functions. The  concept is a “timely” one for us, so to speak.

We live on a ridge, surrounded by rice fields, near the Indian Ocean, about eight degrees south of the equator. Wind, sun and seasons play havoc here. Half of the year strong trade winds blow from the east bringing sunny weather. The rest of the year storms sweep in from the west carrying torrential rain and intensely hot, humid conditions. Year round, the afternoon sun is blinding, and our west-facing rooms get scorched. Obviously weather really matters here. Read more…

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…

The island of Bali is at risk of sinking into the Indian Ocean under the weight of all of its magazines. I put the latest issues of Bali’s mags on the bathroom scale, and it tipped almost ten kilos. How can an island so small generate so many magazines? And will there be any trees left in Kalimantan if this continues?

From broadsheet freebies to global glossies, there are more magazines on this island than its advertisers can possibly support. We wonder which ones will fold, and which will flourish?

Read on, to get the Sleeping Tiger’s take on just 26 of Bali’s bajillions of magazines. (Note: the magazine titles are links to their sites.)

Read more…

I was last in Lhasa in November 1987 and haven’t felt a great inclination to go back. Seeing recent photos and hearing the tales of friends who have been there since, I’m not sure I would feel comfortable in Lhasa anymore, so great are the changes that have re-shaped the city.

Now I learn that St Regis (Starwood Group) is opening a five-star hotel in central Lhasa (rendering above). Read more…