Sun, 23 Sep 2001

Balinese art to go under hammer in S'pore

A collection of paintings by pre-World War II Balinese modernists is scheduled to be auctioned by Christie's in Singapore at the end of September. The planned auction has been criticized both for the quality of the works and the decision to sell the paintings shortly after they were exhibited in several museums around the world.

The Jakarta Post contributor Amir Sidharta spoke with Leo Haks, the owner of the collection, via e-mail about the auction. The following is an excerpt of that interview.

Question: Your collection is called Pre-War Balinese Modernists: 1928-1942. What makes this period so significant?

Leo Haks: Bali had had little contact with the outside world, apart from trade, until the beginning of the 20th century, when it became part of the Dutch East Indies. In the 1920s, the first passenger vessels started to call on Bali on a regular basis and by 1930 tourist arrivals could only be counted in hundreds per year.

Bali soon became noticed by an international group of people interested in the arts, as they realized here was an island with an unusually gifted people, where artistry is concerned. It drew people from all over the world to study this island and its people, and artists of all disciplines converged on the island to create a vibrant artistic climate.

Traditional painting in Bali was more concerned with the adornment of temples, palaces and court houses, much less for personal use. Also, the themes used in these paintings were mostly derived from classical literature or folk tales. Now, the artists, influenced no doubt by foreign concepts, began to move away from this tradition and paint with their own creativity.

It seems they liked this as there was considerable production and the quality of painting became very high. It may also be said that the visitors introduced the Balinese artists to new materials and techniques.

The date of 1942, when Bali became involved in the war, is significant since there were no more visitors arriving in Bali after that and, hence, the artists turned to other activities.

Is your collection comprised of other private collections that you acquired, or were the works purchased directly from the artists?

The answer is that I never purchased a single one of these paintings in Indonesia or, for that matter, from the artists themselves. If they would still have had some, they would be family pieces. But mostly, from what I know, there are not many left in Bali.

How does this collection differ from other collections of Indonesian art, for example the Margaret Mead collection, the Hohn collection of Batuan paintings or Agung Rai's collection?

Of the 188 paintings in this sale, over 100 were initially purchased by Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead during their fieldwork in Bali from 1936 to 1938. From the literature, the paintings in the Hohn collection are all post-1942. ARMA Museum has a number of fine pieces which can compare with pieces in the sale.

Some observers and critics have said the paintings in your collection are nothing more than tourist art with little artistic value. How do you react to that?

It is for each to create his or her opinion. What we have done is to exhibit the paintings in locations where people may realize they are something special.

That they are tourist art is, in some sense, correct in that the paintings were made to be sold to visitors. I cannot quite see why that should be a point of criticism, as we know many of the collectors like Bateson and Mead, Charlie Chaplin, Dr. Ernst Schlager, Theo Meier, Rudolf Bonnet, to name some of the people who collected them, could not be called tourists in the way we interpret the term today.

As for artistic value, let me provide one way that you can assess the quality of these paintings: photograph a detail from a painting, a person, animal, tree or whatever; a small detail of, say, 5 x 5 cm, then project this onto a large screen and one notices the outlines remain sharp and defined. That is a typical quality inherent in the Balinese paintings of the 1930s. This is not the quality one normally associates with tourist art.

There has been some criticism of the auction because some of the works in your collection were included in the Magic and Modernism exhibition which toured the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Museum Puri Lukisan in Ubud, Erasmus Huis in Jakarta and the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden in 1999 and 2000.

Critics believe you attempted to add value to your collection with the exhibitions and now you are taking your profit. What do you say about this?

My simple answer is that if you look at the estimates given for the paintings, this argument barely holds true. When buying or collecting art, a fundamental consideration is "what is the price-quality ratio?" In other words, look at what has been sold at auction in recent years, its quality or price, and compare it to what is on offer here.

This may be a comparison with works by any artist, Oriental, Occidental or otherwise, as long as they have a Bali subject and are from the same period. Doing that, my argument should soon become clear.

I feel that many people in the art world who count, know who I am and what I stand for. They will be familiar with the various books I have written and projects I've been involved with, and know that, especially in the case of the lexicon, if I were in it for the money, I would never have undertaken that.

Then what were your actual intentions in exhibiting the works and compiling a CD-ROM and catalog for the collection?

Since the paintings of the 1930s were not well known, we wanted to introduce this art to the world, first by way of an interactive CD-ROM, then by way of four exhibitions and an accompanying book. It was intended to draw people's attention to this art.

It is more for the love of the art and to try and get the artists the recognition they had not received until now. In fact, this (lack of recognition) is so bad that, for several of the painters presented in the catalog, we have been unable to find out when they were born or even if they are still alive.

In your opinion, should the collection return to Indonesia?

This is for Indonesian people to decide.

In my opinion, as a collector and dealer in art for quite some years, I dare say that the work of the pre-War Balinese modernists will find, if it hasn't already, its way into the annals of international art history. I cannot see this to be true of any other type of artistic expression coming from Indonesia. Sure, there are your textiles and early bronzes, but art attributable to individuals, no, or at least, not yet.