Christie's Gallery Talks offer Previews to Sales

By Yenni Kwok

JAKARTA (JP): Only a prestigious name like Christie's could make the rich and wealthy stay, enduring mosquito bites and the humid temperature of the non-air-conditioned Museum Seni Rupa Jakarta.

Who would not anyway? Christie's Gallery Talks, held every Tuesday and Wednesday night, are not just a rare opportunity to listen to world class art experts in this economically booming but culturally deprived city. They also offer a sneak preview into some items to be offered at Christie's auction houses in Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The talks, organized by Museum Seni Rupa and Museum Universitas Pelita Harapan, include topics such as the passion of collecting art, Indonesian tribal art, Javanese landscape pictures and early Chinese blue-and-white porcelain.

Michael Findlay, of Christie's in New York, kicked off discussion with his Passion and Patronage talk. This gave a general insight into why people collect art and, being an expert on impressionist and modern paintings, Findlay gave examples of impressionist art collectors.

His 60-minute talk was accompanied by slide pictures of art collectors and pieces that they possessed, such as Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Degas and Vincent Van Gogh.

There are two types of collectors Findlay said. The first type is somebody who has an ambition to fill their house with art collections. They would have a temporary madness to buy art works for a period of time and then stop.

The second type is a person who has an addiction and passion to buy art works throughout their life. Billy Wilder, a well- known director whose movies include Sabrina and The Apartment, was an addicted art collector. When Findlay visited his house, he saw paintings stacked against the walls and chairs. "He lives to buy paintings," Findlay said.

People collect and become a patron of arts for different reasons. The passion might come from a pure love of art, an investment promise or social status.

Findlay's talk was followed by Jop Ubbens, an Amsterdam-based Christie's expert for Indonesian and Southeast Asian pictures. Speaking English in a thick Dutch accent, he struggled to explain 19th century Javanese landscape paintings to the audience, including Raden Saleh's works.

His talk preceded an auction of Southeast Asian pictures to be held in Singapore today. Raden Saleh's oil on canvas painting, titled, Lions and a Snake Fighting outside a Grotto in a Tropical Landscape, is the highlight of this auction. Signed and dated 1839, the painting's estimated value is between S$800,000 and $1,200,000.

Other famous painters -- Walter Spies, Wilem Gerard Hofker and Adrien-Jean le Mayeur de Merpres -- accompany Raden Saleh in the Indo-European categories with their paintings on Balinese objects. Other categories include Singapore-Malaysian, Indonesian modern and contemporary, Filipino pictures and a Vietnamese section.

Ceramics

The next day's talk highlighted only Asian arts. Anthony Lin, a Chinese ceramics expert from Christie's in Taipei, lectured about 14th and 15th century blue-and-white porcelain. This was also an introduction to Christie's Singapore imperial porcelain of the late Qing dynasty.

Indeed, blue-and-white ceramics was considered very important, and many were made exclusively by order and quality control from the imperial palace. A recent archeological excavation found a large number destroyed and buried because of defects.

The style differed over the two centuries. Once detailed, dense blue decorations on white dominated, but this later became rather loose and relaxed. Dragons, a few with five claws to symbolize the imperial power, and floral designs were favorite decorations.

The influence of Islam also appeared in the 15th century ceramic jar. Its dense and heavily influenced Islamic mosaic elements were in contrast to the Chinese elegance and restrained styles.

The blue-and-white style featured prominently to the 18th century. "Most of the 18th century products are copies or prototypes from the 14th and 15th centuries," Lin said.

Bruce Carpenter, the only non-Christie expert, gave the closing talk on Indonesian arts. Indonesia's diverse culture has also lead to diverse art forms, said Carpenter, an Indonesian art expert living in Bali.

"A Bima shadow puppet from the Mangkunegaran gives a little hint about Indonesian art," he said.

Strange enough, however, many cultural links have been found between regions in Indonesian tribal arts. A statue from Leti Island of South Moluccas, for example, has an earring that resembles a preclassical Javanese earring. This is evidence of a possible relationship between Leti and Java islands a long time ago.

The influence of the west is also evident. A statue from Nias that represents an ancestor has a smiling face and a natural look, instead of an abstract one. All of this hints to a western- art influence, and it should not come as a surprise. After all, Nias is located in Malacca Strait, a passage of trade for centuries.

The tribal arts discussion was also promoting Christie's auction sales on 250 ethnography pieces from Africa, Oceania and Indonesia.

Lord Hindlip, chairman of Christie's International, said by 2009, 60 percent of the world's consumer spending will be in the Pacific region, from Singapore to Japan. Sixty percent of last year's painting sales in Singapore were bought by collectors in Jakarta, hinting at a growing interest in collecting art pieces here.

But nobody has ever forgotten the stolen Basuki Abdullah's painting that ended up in Christie's auction in Singapore last year. Nonetheless, Hindlip says it is very seldom that a stolen piece ends up at a Christie's auction because they work extensively with the Art-Loss Register and Interpol police.

There is also reasonable logic behind this. With all the pieces published in Christie's pre-auction catalogs, hardly any thieves are stupid enough to sell their stolen pieces through Christie's.