Susi Johnston Bali Blog

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.

Linda Garland has daringly directed the design for director Rob Cohen’s new island retreat in the far east of Bali. In case you missed it in Architectural Digest, read the story with photos here. The district around of this rustic retreat on the shores of Seraya, is looking to become the next Munduk. Only eleven people in the world will know what we mean by that. Fine. Read more…

Start Here: Too Much Text

If art works demand a seven page “curatorial essay” then perhaps there is something amiss, some loose threads in the fabric. Shall we examine some random loose threads trailing out with frayed ends from this unravelled exhibition? Bearing in mind that loose threads can be fibers broken from the fabric they should have been warped or wefted into, and they can also be long, trailing anomalous strands never intended to mesh into the main fabric in the first place, but snaked outward from it to become incidentally entangled in other stories. Such wayward strands could easily snag on dinner forks, dissertations, discourses, or discarded hairbrushes, and stay fast there forever, much to our amusement or annoyance. So here we go with loose threads splayed outwards from Tisna Sanjaya’s Cogondewah show at Kendra Gallery in Bali, which opened last Saturday, 11 July, to moderate applause. Read more…

It was a full moon, with a partial eclipse, and it was also my birthday. July 7. Auspicious, indeed. A well-chosen day for the grand opening of Oazia Spa Villas, a most unusual newcomer on the Bali spa and rental villas scene. The party was themed “white,” although it felt as if it should have been themed “white Russian” instead. Certainly a glamourous evening, and a triumph for the creators of Oazia, but one had to wonder, with so many Russians there, where was the vodka? Indonesia’s draconian policies on imported alcohol are strangling the social season. Anyone for another arak sangria?

Three cheers, nevertheless, to Oazia’s developer, Russian interior designer, Veronica Blumgren (above), for pulling off such a grand fête in the temporarily dry climate of Bali.

Clients often get us involved in designing and fabricating beds. This can lead to insomnia for all of us, including the end users of the beds. Conclusion: bed design is a nightmare. Most beds we see out there are designed for a “look,” but with little regard for how a bed is used. A bed should be comfortable to get into and arise from, especially in the dark, and in states of altered consciousness. A bed should have no sharp corners or gratuitous hard surfaces. This seems obvious. Then why are platform beds so wildly popular at present? They are ankle bangers, shin scrapers, knee-de-cappers and toe compactors. Show of hands: Who has never stumbled or banged themselves on the edge of a platform bed? Read more…

Life is complicated. We just finished (almost) building a house. Building a business. Building a gallery. Bali can be stressful. Imagine that.

I rarely long to go anywhere in particular. When you live in Bali, the travel bug doesn’t bite so hard. But now, after all this stress and the complexities of making and decorating a house, I really want to get away to something completely different. And simple.

The Perivolas in Oia on the Greek island of Santorini looks exactly right. Simple. Without the formality and rigour of a modern-minimalist tropical house, which is what I live in. That’s a change I could welcome right now. Read more…

Some three dozen masterpieces of Oceanic and African sculpture from the Barbier-Mueller Museum (Geneva) will be shown at the Met in New York, from 2 June to 27 September. The exhibition, sponsored by Vacheron Constantin, reflects the extraordinary taste and astute judgement of the two individuals who amassed the entire Barbier-Mueller collection over a period spanning eight decades.

Vacheron Constantin’s involvement with the exhibition stems from an ongoing partnership with the Barbier-Mueller Museums. Read more…

When we made our own house here in Bali, housing art was a primary part of the design program. This priority makes specific demands that call for intelligent solutions, and when they are achieved, the result is far greater than the sum of the parts. The house, the art, and the people living in it all benefit.

Architect, David Howell succeeded magnificently in this regard with the Herne Bay Residence in New Zealand. 

As he explains, “This house, for a serious art collector, is simply a series of walls. Each axis is terminated with a piece of art on a wall. Spaces between walls are filled with walls of glass maintaining the open connection to the outdoors. The requirements of wall space for art are balanced with the functional need for an open plan.”

What is called “modernism” in architecture can be a bit barren and over-blank. The term colloquially refers to almost anything that’s rigorously rectilinear and mostly unornamented. But it doesn’t have to mean aesthetic impoverishment. Frank Llloyd Wright understood this perfectly.  Case in point, the Bachman-Wilson House (1954) which has been meticulously restored by its architect-owners Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino. It’s one of Wright’s “Usonian” houses, which were conceived with a vision for a new American architectural vernacular that would be respectful of the natural environment. 

What a better world it would be if Usonia had happened, instead of random suburban sprawl and McMansionism.

Photographs by Lawrence Tarantino, A.I.A.

The seasonal winds in Bali have finally shifted and the fresh, dry season has come. It happened suddenly, as if commanded by the hand of Pascal Morabito especially for the occasion of his latest wedding to his lovely wife, Marie Ève. They are so well-matched that they simply can’t resist being wed again and again. And who ever said romance was dead? Not a bit of it.

Read more…