Exhibition explores fascinating 'Ramayana'

I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Ubud, Bali

Once a year, if you are lucky, an art museum nearby will come up with a good exhibition, one that fills you with a sense of wonder, excitement, and, simultaneously, satisfy your thirst for both the trivial and the important.

This year, it is the Neka Art Museum in Ubud that still has the guts to pamper to art enthusiasts with that kind of exhibition. In cooperation with the KOMANEKA Fine Art Gallery, the museum has organized Ramayana in the Arts of Asia; Bali, India, Thailand and Burma exhibition, which will runs from Aug. 25 to Sept. 11.

With Bali's art scene increasingly dominated by art exhibitions featuring megalomaniac painters only wanting either to sell their works at the highest price possible or getting themselves up into the shallow, yet, coveted celebrity status, or by aspiring young painters too poor to elude the quick, cold cash traps laid by the so-called Mafia art collectors, the Ramayana exhibition is truly the refreshing breeze most people have been waiting for for so long.

"We would like to commemorate the Neka Art Museum's 20th anniversary in a way that will remind us of the principal purposes of it's existence, which, among other things, are to preserve the legacy of our cultural richness, and to promote cultural literacy and understanding. I believe this exhibition will serve that purposes," museum founder Suteja Neka said.

The exhibition features around 100 paintings from the private collection of the museum's curator Garret Kam, who for years has traveled extensively across Asia to satisfy his curiosity for the age-old love affair between the Ramayana story and the region's various art-forms.

"Limited research time and lack of local language proficiency prevented me from truly getting as deep as I wanted to. War is another major obstacle. In Cambodia, for example, when I visited that country, 90 percent of it's artists had been wiped out by the Khmer Rouge, and I only managed to find, and interview one mask-maker," Garret said.

"In other places, I could get my hand to the local text of Ramayana, but failed to acquire the painting that depict the text's variation," he added.

To solve the last problem, in 1994 Garret started trying to convince the Balinese traditional painters at Kamasan village to portray stories from Ramayana texts of foreign origins, like Thailand's version or Cambodia's version of Ramayana.

He began feeding the local artists with various interesting variations of stories, which could not be found in the Balinese's Geguritan Ramayana and Kidung Ramayana.

Initially, it was a difficult thing to do. But, eventually, many Kamasan painters, including the 56-year-old master-painter of Kamasan style I Nyoman Mandra, could not resist the temptation of experimenting with the new stories.

In the exhibition, 50 Kamasan style paintings are featured alongside 22 Indian Patachitra (paintings made with mineral and vegetable pigments on cloth thickly primed with tamarind seed glue and powdered seashell) of Orissa, and Madhubani (paintings made on the walls of houses using earth and vegetable pigments, or made with pigments mixed with milk on commercially primed cloth) of Mithila, Bihar.

It also exhibits several Shwegyido (decorative cloth applique panels done on velvet with embroidery, colored cords, sequins, beads, glass and rhinestones, figures usually are stuffed with cotton padding for a three-dimensional effect) of Mandalay, Burma.

Art enthusiasts will also have a chance to view Indian Talapatta and Balinese Prasi, both are etched drawings on dried palm leaves.

An avid researcher, Garret finally presented his findings on Ramayana to the public in 2000, when he published the 292-page book Ramayana in the Arts of Asia, which is the base of the ongoing exhibition.

Previously, Garret has also authored and co-authored several books, including Perceptions of Paradise: Images of Bali in the Arts (1993), From Ritual to Romance: Paintings Inspired by Bali (1994), The Development of Painting in Bali: Selections from the Neka Art Museum (1998),

"The Mahabharata is only known in India, Java, and Bali. Furthermore, the story has undergone only a slight, if not at all, variations in those three regions. On the contrary, Ramayana has traveled to almost every region in Asia, and the story also has undergone several major changes, which resulted in the existence of various interesting variations of the story nowadays," Garret said, justifying his fascination of Ramayana.

In his book, Garret recorded more than 150 different Ramayana literary texts currently in existence in at least 37 regions all over Asia -- from the predominantly-Hindu areas in India, to China, Japan, Mindanao, Tibet up into the predominantly-Islam area of Kashmir, Pakistan and Persia.

The early 4th century Paumachariyam, the Jain religion's adaptation of the Ramayana epic, is the obvious example of one of the story's major variations. Since killing is a sin in Jainism, then, instead of Rama, it is his younger brother Lakshmana, who fights Ravana to the death. Consequently, Lakshaman is punished for the killing he committed. In Paumachariyam, Rama and Sita remain celibate, which is a Jain virtue, adding doubts not only to Sita's chastity during her captivity, but also regarding the paternity of the sons born to her.

"In Maharadia Lavana, the Maranao people of Mindanao's version of Ramayana, Rama succeeds in claiming Sita back before the war even starts. However, Rama decides to continue with the war in order to punish Ravana," Garret said.

Some of these interesting variations are presented in the exhibition. For example, in the work by the 36-year-old Pande Wayan Sumatra and his 62-year-old mother Ni Made Masih. Sumatra made the composition and details, while his mother gave the final touch of coloring to the painting.

They took up an episode from Kamban Iramawataram, the Tamil's Ramayana, which portrayed the abduction of Rama and Lakshmana by Mahirawana, the powerful son of Ravana. Both heroes were held captive inside Mahirawana's magic box. Needless to say that this episode does not exist in the Balinese texts of Ramayana.

"Since the episode is portrayed in our traditional Kamasan- style painting, it certainly will make it easier for the Balinese people to comprehend it. And, that's exactly what this exhibition is trying to achieve; to communicate the diverse cultural richness of the Ramayana text to the general public," Suteja Neka said.

The Kamasan master-painter I Nyoman Mandra, on the other hand, features his work in an episode from Reamker, the Khmer and Cambodia's Ramayana, which depicts the unfortunate Sita being banished by her husband Rama, after the latter found out that Sita has kept a portrait of Ravana under the couple's mattress. Well, a bit soap-opera like, but the painting is beautiful, nonetheless.

The Ramayana epic originated in India, where the poet Valmiki may have composed it in Sanskrit sometime between 400-200 BC. Valmiki's Ramayana represents a compilation of various oral and literary traditions, including Vedic myths from the 12th century BC. Nearly 25,000 verses are divided into around 700 chapters and grouped into seven books.

"This is the kind of art exhibition that any art enthusiast should visit. It is rich, diverse, beautiful, and, most importantly, very informative," Bali's noted painter Nyoman Erawan said.