Balinese art - the journey begins

I am starting this blog to give a behind-the-scenes look at the work that goes into developing a major art exhibition at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco on Balinese art. I am the education director at the museum, and will visit Bali with two of my colleagues this summer to conduct research, take video and photos, and meet with artists we might invite to present programs when the exhibition is on view in 2010.

I have been reading about Balinese dance and offering making--expressions that are a daily practice for many Balinese. These ephemeral arts will comprise two integral parts of the 2010 exhibition, which, of course, also features the richly textured visual arts of Bali. This approach embraces the fact that Balinese music, performance, and visual art usually work in concert together, rarely in isolation. For example, shadow puppets are seen in the context of a puppet play with live music, narration of the puppet master, and audience reaction. Although the puppets have strong aesthetic power on their own, when seen in a play by lamplight in a Balinese village they transport the viewer to another world.

The witch Rangda (see image) may often be seen performed in dance dramas in Bali by a person (I think usually by a man) wearing a terrific costume, with padded, comically pendulous breasts, vicious fangs, wild, matted hair, and claw-like nails. To read more about Rangda in dance, see http://blog.baliwww.com/dance-drama-music/851/



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Image Information:

The witch Rangda, approx. 1800–1900
Indonesia, Bali
Painted wood
Gift of Thomas Murray in memory of his father Eugene T. Murray
Asian Art Museum, 2000.37

In Balinese mythology, Rangda is a powerful, frightening witch associated with the warlike Hindu goddess Durga.

Rangda appears in one of the best-known Balinese ritual dance-dramas as the black magic–wielding opponent of the lion-monster barong ketet. The costume representing Rangda, like this sculpture, emphasizes her shaggy hair, bulging eyes, curving fangs, pendulous breasts, and extremely long fingernails.