Balinese traditional arts, culture exported to Helsinki

By Putu Wirata

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): With the country still in the grip of the economic crisis, Indonesia's trade has generally suffered a sharp decline. Bucking the trend, however, is the trade in arts and culture, which has become an attractive commodity both in the local and foreign market. However, to ensure that culture is effectively promoted, brochures alone will not suffice.

"Of no less importance in (promoting culture) is sending cultural missions, such as arts exhibitions, to other countries," Agung Rai, 44, owner of ARMA museum in Ubud, said. He recently returned from Helsinki, where a number of works of art from ARMA's collection, along with other Balinese works of art, are on display in an exhibition which kicked off on June 12 and will run until Aug. 22.

Balinese art is no stranger to Finland, with quite a few Finnish people having visited Bali and purchased Balinese works of art. The exhibition at Hameenlinna Art Museum is centered around the theme, Life in Paradise: Balinese Art and Culture.

The exhibition is displaying the works of 41 famous Balinese artists from ARMA's collection, in addition to a number of Balinese works of art collected by Finland's National Museum and a number of Finnish private collectors. The exhibition includes paintings, old photographs, keris (double-bladed daggers), leather puppets, statues and woven cloth.

"We are organizing this exhibition not only to promote culture but also to get across to the Finnish people a concept of Balinese life," Agung Rai said, adding that many cultural observers have said the Balinese community and their environment make up a living museum.

Indeed, the Balinese had no concept of what a museum was until colonial times, when Kirtya Museum was established in Singaraja, Buleleng, in 1928 by order of Dutch residency head L.J.J. Caron. The first museum devoted to paintings was established in Ubud in the 1970s, while ARMA Ubud saw the light of day in 1996. Agung Rai intentionally designed his museum as both "a museum and life itself".

"Painting collections in my museum have their origin in the life and culture which continues to be preserved and at the same time develop," he said.

It is this concept which has led the museum to serve not only as a building to house paintings, but also a stage where children from Peliatan village, where ARMA is located, can take lessons in dancing and gamelan.

In this light, the works of art on display at Hameenlinna Art Museum are arranged to depict the procession of tradition to modernity.

"In Bali, we are familiar with the tradition of very beautifully engraved leather puppets. Then there is the tradition of leather puppet drawing in Kamasan village, which is still alive and kicking today. However, modern Bali also has painter Nyoman Gunarsa, to whom leather puppets are the source of inspiration, but who expresses this inspiration in spontaneous freedom and with modern esthetics," Agung Rai said, adding that there was a clear relationship between tradition and modernity. It is a reality that traditional culture still exists in the lives of the Balinese, who are at the same time heading toward modernity.

"As the cultural leap toward modernity does not do away with tradition, what you see in the museum is really the reflection of what you can witness outside of it," he said.

Every time he is invited to organize exhibitions abroad -- in Japan, Australia, the United States and Europe, to mention only a few places -- he consistently clings to his concept of the coexistence of tradition and modernity.

"It is not enough for me simply to display items from ARMA's collection. I also find it necessary to display the culture which serves as the source of inspiration for the items in the collection. In this way, cultural promotion and appreciation will effectively take place," he said.

He said the people in Finland had enthusiastically welcomed the exhibition, the first Balinese art exhibition to be held in Finland. He said the Balinese art troupe now performing in Finland was not as complete as the one he usually took with him to overseas exhibitions. Last year, he said, the gamelan group from Peliatan village performed for close to two months in a small city near Tokyo, and every day hundreds of Japanese came to the performance. "Even though we are in the grip of the economic crisis, we can still export our arts and culture," he said.