by Koos van Brakel
Bali attracted 15million tourists annually before Covid. But already in 1908 the tourism bureau in Batavia, promoted Bali as a paradisiacal island, untouched by Western civilisation.
This publication shows that although modern Balinese sculpture has its roots firmly in Balinese culture and tradition, it would not have emerged without the colonial context and increasing tourism. In this sense, one could argue that modern Balinese sculpture originated at the intersection of cultures, the Balinese and the Dutch.
After the conquest of Bali by the Dutch, the loss of patronage by the kings was compensated for by the production of objects for sale to European and American tourists. This development led in South Bali in the 1930s to a new form of woodcarving. The modern sculptures were not religious, unpainted, with smooth, flowing forms and little to no decoration or detailing, and represented for the greater part scenes from everyday life. Traditional community art was partly replaced by a commercial and more individual art. These sculptures were not bought by Balinese people, but were made purely for export and sale to Western tourists and members of the upper crust of colonial society.
It was the artists’ association Pita Maha (1936-1939), founded in Ubud, that promoted modern Balinese art and looked after the material interests of its members. The Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet played a central role in Pita Maha. This artists’ association organised exhibitions in the Dutch East Indies and abroad and positioned modern sculpture and painting as art and logically connected the names of the artists to it. Before, “Art for art’s sake” was an unknown concept in Bali; artisans did not make objects without a function
Thanks in part to the support of the Marinus Plantema Foundation, this publication makes both the rich collections of modern Balinese sculpture in Dutch museums and the documentation in Dutch archives and museums, accessible to an international audience, interested scientists and students, first and foremost in Indonesia.