Agung Rai Museum: A wealth of Balinese culture

Agung Rai Museum: A wealth of Balinese culture

By Benito Lopulalan

UBUD, Bali (JP): Some people follow their dreams. Others
discover, or invent dreams in order to have a fulfilling life.
Bali's artists are fortunate to have someone with a strong
determination to make their dreams come true.

Agung Rai has been dreaming of his own museum of arts for a
long time.

"It has to be Balinese in nature and international in
gesture," he said in a Bali-based travel magazine in 1992.

This year, his dream has finally come true. Although the Agung
Rai Museum of Arts hasn't been formally opened, Bali's atmosphere
combined with international influence can be seen in the
building, its landscaping, and most of all, its programs. The
museum is situated southeast of Ubud, Gianyar.

"Perhaps the first reason to choose Ubud is because it is his
place of origin," Kadek Adnyana, art observer, says.

Kadek refers to the Balinese belief of karawitan (origin). To
some extent, the modern meaning of this belief has resulted in
the development of many villages, because many Balinese seem to
compete to develop their respective villages. Building their own
villages is a matter of pride in the eyes of tradition.

Agung Rai was born in the village of Peliatan in Ubud, in
July, 1955. He became acquainted with the arts from an early age,
especially after he learned painting from Anak Agung Gede Raka
Turas and Nyoman Darmana. He was interested in becoming a good
painter but his artistic tastes developed faster than his skills.
He decided that he would never be a painter whose standards were
as high as his self-demand. His disappointment with himself
drained his inspiration. He abandoned the desire to become a
painter.

Instead, Agung Rai decided to help many of his friends and
relatives who didn't have enough time to paint because they were
busy selling paintings. In 1968 he took several works from his
teachers and friends to sell to tourists. At that time, tourists
usually came to villages to watch dance performances. One of
those performances was in the village of Mas, a neighboring
village of Peliatan. Agung Rai went there by bike, taking as many
paintings as he could carry. Even though there were not as many
tourists as there are today, Agung Rai could sell all the
paintings for US$1 each.

The first success in Mas made him dream of becoming more
developed in his choice of living. He extended his operation to
Kuta, as a street peddler, selling all kinds of crafts. Several
colleagues from this Kuta period remember that Agung Rai was a
successful street peddler. He could sell anything in his hands.

Along with the increasing number of tourists, Agung Rai spent
more time in restaurants with foreigners. By listening and
talking to them, he learned English and built friendships,
which later gave him stronger confidence to build his own
business. He also started collecting his favorite art pieces.
After seven years he built three rooms and invited people to stay
and enjoy his art collection. Gradually, he was able to provide
accommodation for his visitors. Now these simple rooms have been
replaced by a well-known hotel, the Puri Indah.

"I always hold on to my dreams," he says. "What else did I
have except dreams?"

It is clear that for Agung Rai, Kuta was only a temporary stop
on the way to understanding more about his own business.

"For many Balinese entrepreneurs," he says, "Building a
business away from the village of their origin is the last
option."

His marriage, and the birth of his first child in 1978,
strengthened his desire to stay close with the family in his
village. He built a structure in Peliatan, which later became the
Agung Rai Fine Art Gallery.

In 1978 he began dreaming of a museum. His enthusiasm to learn
only enhanced his dream.

"I like to travel and compare the arts in Bali with those in
other societies," he says.

Learning brings vision. The need to learn abroad has helped
develop him further, not only in spatial awareness, but also in
ideas. His dream for a museum became clearer and he did anything
to realize it.

"The picture of a museum in my head became very clear after my
visit to Europe," he says.

The learning process also brought about the notion of the
"meeting of cultures". It might be derived from his journeys, his
cosmopolitan friends and the notion of akrab (closeness in
trust), which is very important in a Balinese neighborhood. For
Agung Rai, such a closeness can also be applied to cultures.

"A meeting of cultures can develop cultures," Agung Rai says
convincingly.

Agung Rai told me this for the first time several months ago,
after the performance of Tuju Taksu, a contemporary mask theater
which was inspired by Bali and created by a female theater
company.

"Without the meeting of cultures, this kind of performance
would not have existed."

"Without cultural meetings, there would not have been museums
in Bali. Museums are not an indigenous concept of Balinese
culture," he asserts.

This notion is obvious in his museum building, with its
harmonious blend of architectural concepts from Europe and Bali;
an evidence of the understanding of the core of the notion.

"We should preserve our culture, that is a must," he insists.

For this reason, Agung Rai has invited many old dancers and
painters to perform or exhibit in the museum complex.

"I have seen many societies that do not develop their
cultures, they even let them decay," he says.

However, the meaning of preservation for Agung Rai is not only
keeping the cultural heritage, but also preventing it from
stagnation. Consequently, preservation, or cultural continuity,
goes hand in hand with any effort to develop it. In Agung Rai's
opinion, developing culture and creating something new is very
important for the preservation of culture itself.

"Development without the preservation of culture is like
harvesting fruit without fertilizing the roots," he explains.

Within this philosophy, a museum for Agung Rai goes beyond
being a place for remembering the beauty of the past, but also a
fertile center to cultivate "a new fruit from the same tree and
the same roots".

By implementing the notion of cultural meetings, the
preservation of culture can be more effective. When his museum,
in cooperation with the Goethe Institute, arranged the
restoration of the paintings of Walter Spies, a famous German
artist who lived in Bali in the 1930s, Agung Rai once again
mentioned that restoring paintings is beyond the Balinese
culture.

"It is not important where the skills come from," he says.
"The restorers help us to preserve our historical documentation."

The Agung Rai museum also used the opportunity to train young
Balinese artists in painting restoration.

The museum organizes exhibitions, dance and music
performances, education and training, painting lessons, seminars
and workshops, and provides a library and study room. Besides
regular events, such as traditional performances on its stage,
the Asparagus Cafe, it has held many events. In June, it housed
the Fourth International Bamboo Conference. The latest event was
the 100 years commemoration of Walter Spies in September and the
exhibition Images Of Power, which displayed Balinese paintings
from the 1930s made for Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead. Both
are famous anthropologists who did research in Bali during the
period.

"I hope that through this museum and all its activities, we
can create a culture-sphere in modern Bali," Agung Rai told
several artists during an informal meeting recently.

A cultural space in Agung Rai's perspective is a place where
people can discuss culture, the arts and the social environment.

"Or being introduced to culture, not only by seeing paintings
but also by meeting people."

This belief is realized in the architectural concept. Within
the museum complex there are two restaurants, the Kokokan Club
Thai Restaurant and L'Asparagus Cafe, and a coffee shop, Warung
Kopi, surrounded by paddy fields.

"Not everybody likes paintings, we should give them a chance
to feel first," he said.

Accommodation is provided by the Puri Indah Hotel. The aim of
all the facilities is to create an artists' community in the
museum area.

"The facilities are built to create meetings in a leisurely
atmosphere," Agung Rai says. "Previously, we had banjars and
palaces for that purpose, now we have museums."

Also for that reason, Agung Rai has bought the paddy fields
around the museum.

"The arts in Bali grow as an agrarian culture, like the paddy
in those fields," he says, pointing to the rows of green paddy.

According to Agung Rai, once the sphere of culture develops,
we will witness the growth of another dream: A better future for
Balinese arts.