Art lover Agung Rai passes on his artistic passion to kids

Art lover Agung Rai passes on his artistic passion to kids

Text and photos by Mulkan Salmona

UBUD, Bali (JP): For many art lovers, Ubud is their first
destination when visiting Bali.

Once renowned as the center of the Balinese Renaissance of the
arts in the late l920s and l930s, the small and tranquil village
of Ubud in Gianyar regency has been transformed as a classy and
unique art center, where many local and international artists,
writers and scholars live.

Visitors to Ubud will see lines of art shops selling a wide
range of paintings, sculptures, carvings, antique bric-a-brac,
woven textiles and other fine art works.

The art village is also home to many important museums and art
galleries such as Puri Lukisan Museum, Neka Museum, Rudana Museum
and Agung Rai Museum.

Art activities have been flourishing in Ubud when a local
aristocrat Cokorda Sukawati established in the early 1930s the
Pita Maha art community with Western artists who included Dutch
painter Rudolf Bonnet and German painter Walter Spies.

Many of the Pita Maha artists' works, such as I Gusti Nyoman
Lempad's, are collected by museums around the world.

In Ubud, some museums, including the Agung Rai museum, collect
and preserve works of famous Pita Maha artists and, of course,
works of their contemporaries.

In addition to preserving fabulous art works, the Agung Rai
has other important aims.

The museum owner, Agung, said his main objective was to
preserve precious Balinese art forms and to introduce them to
young people.

"I feel responsible to increase people's awareness on the
importance of arts and to encourage children to become involved
in art activities," said Agung.

Agung said he believed that children would love and appreciate
art works if they were introduced and had wide access to the art
world from childhood.

When we visited the Agung Rai museum, dozens of children were
seen practicing traditional Balinese dances accompanied by a
gamelan orchestra in a corner of the museum building.

Under a shady tree, some kids seriously worked on landscape
paintings on their canvases.

"These children are allowed to take part in various art
activities here for free," Agung explained.

He said children could easily acquire useful art skills and
absorb different forms of knowledge if they learned these forms
naturally.

At the museum, children are free to explore and to appreciate
paintings and other art works by prominent artists such as Raden
Saleh, S. Sudjojono, Jeihan, Nyoman Gunarsa and Arie Smit.

The museum also houses rare works by Walter Spies and several
Balinese paintings from the 1930s.

Children are also taught to love nature and the environment.

The museum, which is on a four-hectare site, was constructed
with attention to traditional Balinese architectural styles. The
building is surrounded by a beautiful landscape of paddy fields,
and a river where rural villagers, and local and foreign artists
mingle.

Established in June l996, the museum currently houses numerous
classic, modern and contemporary paintings, sculptures and a vast
range of art works.

The entrance fee for the museum is Rp 10,000 (US$1.40).

"The money is inadequate to operate and to take care of art
works in the museum, which takes about Rp 45 million ($6,500) per
month," said Agung.

To support his artistic activities, Agung runs a number of
galleries, a hotel, cafes and several entertainment places to
showcase a large variety of traditional performing arts.

"I never thought of building this museum only to attract
domestic and foreign tourists or to generate a lot of money," he
said.