Balinese art to go under hammer in S'pore

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.