Tradition and Reputation Exhibition: Ubud, Bali

Art galleries and museums are always a must-see for me wherever I travel in the archipelago. Candika has never been big on them preferring to take a quick gander at each painting or exhibit and then sit down.

This month in Bali is promising to be a fantastic one for art lovers with the Walter Spies exhibition at ARMA in Ubud and there will be another exhibition just as interesting as the Bali Discovery points out.

More than 70 important Balinese paintings covering the entire milieu of the Island's most important schools of painting endeavour will be on display at an Exhibition "Tradition and Reputation: Exhibition of 100 years of Balinese Traditional Paintings" set for Ubud's Arma Museum July 14-23, 2006.

The exhibition to be held in both Jakarta and Bali has been collected and curated by Agus Dermawan, a keen collector of Balinese painters in his own right based in Jakarta. According to the Jakarta Post the exhibition is divided 'into 11 categories according to time, place and style.' Among the Balinese painting styles represented in the exhibition are Kamasan, works by foreign artists living in Bali, Batuan style, the Ubud Style of the Pita Maha Group, Young Artists' style, Pengosekan style, Keliki style, and Kapal style.

Gathered from important private collections the works of some of Bali's most famous artists will be included: Ni Made Suciarmi, Ida Bagus Made Togog, I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, I Nyoman Lesug, I Nyoman Meja, Ida Bagus Nyoman Rai, I Ketut Soki, I Dewa Putu Sena, I Wayan Surana, I Gusti Agung Wiranata, Arie Smit, Theo Meier, Rudolf Bennet, Antonio Blanco, Walter Spies, and Miguel Covarrubias. The two paintings by Spies and Covarrubias are on special loan to the exhibition from the Presidential Palace in Jakarta.

In conjunction with the exhibition Dermawan has compiled a 320-page, full-colour book containing all the paintings and their histories.