Eight years ago, I was interviewed for the magazine BaliSavvy, “the official American Express® guide to the island”. I found a copy of that 2010 interview recently in an archive of the adversities I have endured since March 2010. I decided to post it here, in several installments, as … Continue reading
When Peter ten Hoopen travelled across the Indonesian archipelago in the 1970s, he was taken by the textile arts he saw along the way. Ikat weaving is a common thread that ties together the diversity of this nation’s myriad cultures and traditions, and unites the layers of history it was … Continue reading
Paul Kijlstra is a man with a passion. A passion for Indonesian nobility, its history, legacy, and all manner of material manifestations. He’s assembled an enormous collection of images illustrating all things noble, from one end of the archipelago to the other. You can browse the collection here in his … Continue reading
A dazzling textiles show opened last week at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, titled “Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade 1500 – 1800“. It’s a topic that touches on interesting aspects of Indonesian history and material culture. Unusual textiles from faraway places were hot commodities in Indonesia’s ports and … Continue reading
The Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) just acquired the greatest single collection of Indian trade textiles in the world: The Roger Hollander Collection. The museum has 70 important pieces from the collection on show now until 3 June, in a blockbuster exhibition entitled “Patterns of Trade: Indian Textiles for Export 1400 … Continue reading
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.
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
We’ve been applauding the Fowler Museum at UCLA for years. They’ve shown a keen understanding of Indonesian culture, and nobody beats the Fowler at curating and hanging a great show. Their shows always balance the aesthetic and the didactic in the best possible way. Now they’ve done it again, with … Continue reading
San Francisco’s De Young Museum has just opened a splendid little exhibition of selections from their tremendous collection of world textiles, entitled To Dye For: A World Saturated in Color. It focuses on various techniques used around the world to imbue plain thread with pure colour, including tie-dye, ikat, and … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
The Ashmolean’s Jousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art has a splendid online database of textiles. One of the collection’s superstars is this radiant sun, blazing at the centre of a 19th century Rajput royal flag. The colour is so full of muscle, it knocks you off your chair, … Continue reading
We must salute these lawyers in Bangkok, Tilleke & Gibbins, who proudly display their collection of Southeast Asian textiles online and in-office. They even put a “Textile Collection” page on their official website to show off their woven assets. The collection includes this marvelous antique head cover from Cambodia (above), … Continue reading
The Phoenix Art Museum presents an exhibition of Sumatran textiles from the collection of Dr. Thomas J. Hudak, through 4 July 2010. The island of Sumatra is far larger and more diverse than most people might think. It’s five times the size of Great Britain and Ireland combined, and is … Continue reading
John Ruddy and Kumi Masumoto (among our most favourite textile dealers), showcase an antique Sumatran prada cloth in their catalog page for the New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show 2010 (on page 85). We’ve been keen on these extremely rare textiles for over a decade, and are delighted whenever … Continue reading
Last June I heard Bill Gates bought Irma Lake Ranch in Wyoming, the property of a dear friend of mine, Roger W. Hollander. I was happy to receive the news. I loved this place passionately, and will never forget the times that I spent there. Knowing the ranch remains in private hands is somehow heartening. … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
An exhibition “Indonesian Textiles as Art” opened on 19 July at the Museum Pasifika in Nusa Dua, Bali. We were there. We saw. And we agreed wholeheartedly with the stance of Georges Breguet who mounted the exhibition, that the best textile arts of the archipelago are indeed art, and should … Continue reading
The textile traditions of Indonesia are no longer ethnographic curiosities. They are the material of couture creations that can take you from the beach to the ballroom and out on the streets of the world’s culture capitals in capital style. Not convinced? Just take a look at the chic ikat … Continue reading
In difficult times we need reasons to be cheerful, so here are some rags to be glad about. SF Tribal, a consortium of art dealers from the Bay Area, has posted a slew of new images on their group site. The ratio of textiles to objects is high. Why? SF is … Continue reading
Bird’s eye view of Fort Mason during the SF Tribal & Textiles Show 2009 The San Francisco Tribal Art & Textiles Fair is normally the most lively fixture on the tribal/textiles circuit. Held every year in February, the show draws over 100 dealers from around the world and buyers from … Continue reading
Has Chicago’s Minasian Oriental Rug Gallery gone flat? In a certain sense, yes – – they’ve hung a fabulous show of Indonesian flatweave textiles rather than their usual rugs. The exhibition, entitled “Island Magic: Court and Tribal Textiles from Indonesia” runs through the 10th of January, and was reviewed in HALI this … Continue reading
Nothing to do but quote the New York Dolls in this review. Personality Crisis. That characterises as well as anything could, Jakarta Fashion Week 2008, which ran from 20 to 24 August. That’s not to say it was a “bad” fashion week. Not at all. Genius, and talent (and utter … Continue reading
Lush, crisp, sophisticated, graphic, earthy, arresting. Antique batik at its highest levels has much to offer contemporary textile designers. Far more than one would think based on the banal repertoire of tourist batiks which are the most frequently seen examples outside of Indonesia. Visit the Honolulu Academy of Art between … Continue reading
The colour blue has calming and restorative properties. If the stresses of a roller-coaster economy and the strains of everyday life are taking a toll, visit the BLUE exhibition at the Textile Museum in Washington DC. At least visit the website, then download the gallery guide, and look deeply into … Continue reading
Find out about textiles fast. The Arthur D. Jenkins Library at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. has a fantastic online resource called “Textile Muse“. It’s a search system for going through the library’s archives to find publications and visual material related to textiles of the world. Not only does … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading