Sense of art flows in Wianta's heart

By Putu Wirata

DENPASAR (JP): "I work all the time. My artistic creativity never goes on holiday," seems to be Made Wianta's motto.

The exhibition of his work, In the Cycle of Time, on display at the Museum der Kulture in Basel, Switzerland, until March, is a clear manifestation of this.

The invitation to hold the exhibition came from Urs Ramseyer, a Swiss art curator who lives in Sidemen, a small village in Karangasem, East Bali. The aim is to bring together the East and the West.

Wianta represents the East, while Andreas Straub flies the flag for the West.

The title In the Cycle of Time was chosen by Ramseyer for reasons of realism and culture. He wants people to be conscious about the meaning of time and their position in time. This is based on the Hindu concept of time, called Catur Yuga in Bali, a separation of time into four periods, Kreta Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga and Kali Yuga.

In the Kreta Yuga period, people live a holy life peacefully, while holiness and perfect knowledge appear. It is followed by Treta Yuga when honesty starts to decline, resulting in the need for sacrificial rituals to protect the desired universal balance.

The Dwapara Yuga period encompasses the decline of faith and good deeds, followed by the appearance of jealousy and greed. These three periods are followed by the Kali Yuga period, in which we now live.

Conflicts, war and killing will take mankind to its destruction and catastrophe. But Hindus believe that Kalki Awatara -- a prophet wearing a white cloak and riding a white horse -- will appear to secure this world from destruction, and take people back to the right way of living.

In fact it's just a philosophy of time. But history has taught that there are different times for birth, growth and death.

Made, born in Apuan village, Tabanan, Bali, looks at time anthropomorphically.

He is actually a trainee priest in Pura Pucak Padangdawa, Tabanan, and is supposed to hold the position to replace his dead father. But Made refuses to become a priest because he thinks an artist is a "priest of culture."

For Made time is a place where he lives and works, and he follows the above process.

And because the process will keep on going as long as he lives, he thinks that "art never ends as long as there is life." Art is like taking breath, a continuous process that one is sometimes unaware of, because of its routine.

Breathing will never stop, unless a person dies.

How does Made present this philosophy in his art? In a special room with white walls in the Museum der Kulturen -- about 20 meters by 20 meters -- Made placed black, red and yellow umbrella frames and around the room in a seemingly random arrangement.

All the umbrella skeletons are rotated automatically by a machine. They take the form of a cycle and this is connected to the cycle-time concept, according to Hindu teaching.

Or perhaps people remember the tedung-tedung (holy umbrella in Hindu ceremonies) and the various colors in Hindu temples when there is a ceremony.

So, the form of Made's work in In the Cycled of Time reminds us of his Balinese cultural background. But, although Made still believes in punarbhawa -- the reincarnation concept of Hindu Bali -- his works aim to portray life in the future.

"What I did yesterday, let it be my past. ... I won't repeat it again.

"The work I create today or tomorrow, is my life of today and tomorrow. I will never repeat, and I will never try to change or improve my works of yesterday," said Made, who returned to Bali in November after living in Basel for two months to set up the project.

He studied at the Indonesian Arts Institute in Yogyakarta. In the 1970s he went to Belgium to work as a batik painter in a restaurant. He later returned to Indonesia and lived in Bali. His wife works in the Karangasem Agriculture Agency.

During this period, Made studied Kamasan painting techniques and began his innovative surrealistic painting with Chinese ink on paper. It became known as his "Karangasem period."

Soon after moving to Denpasar in the 1980s, Made began using pointillism techniques, and then combined these with triangular or rectangular forms.

Another interesting thing about Made is that he has written poems. His collection Korek Api Membakar Almari Es (A Match Burns A Refrigerator), edited by Afrizal Malna, was published last year.

He wrote the poems anywhere, at anytime, and on various materials such as on scraps of paper, tissue paper, sandals, chairs and tickets.

In his studio in Denpasar, he has amassed about 7,000 sketches, none of which will be sold.

"I work all over the place all the time, like breathing. I will just end when my breathing stops," adds Made with a hearty chuckle.

What Made says however is not a new concept.

All Balinese artists live naturally. There are thousands of traditional dance and drama groups in Bali. The artists perform at night; in the morning they also work as farmers, architects, or laborers.

Made, who was born in Apuan village in 1949, has such experience, dancing in the night as a baris (warrior) dancer and helping his father in the rice fields in the morning. Art and life is a unity; it is like breathing as long as life goes on.

What makes him different from other Balinese artists is that he chose to pursue his education in Yogyakarta and work in Belgium instead of becoming a priest in his village.

Art critic Jean Couteau says that what Made has done in his life can be described as priestly tasks. "But he is a priest of culture," Couteau added. And this is an entirely Eastern world concept.

So, the question for the exhibition now is, what is innovative in Made and Straub's work?

Can the West receive an Eastern concept of art, and what will the artists do with it? We don't know and cannot answer the question now, because for more than 50 years, modern Balinese art has been looking to the West.

Eastern artists still use Western terms like naturalism, realism, abstract, expressionism, surrealism, Dadaism, and so on.

And so does Made. But because he is supercreative and a genius, art lovers hope to see a new vision in his art.

They hope he will engineer a breakthrough in Western perceptions of Eastern art.

Made refused to comment on the people's hopes. "Its up to the public, how to appreciate my artwork. For me, it finishes after I touch it with my last brushstroke."