Having the luxury of a few days in one place, I decided to take a break from commerce and travel requirements and do something unheard of in Bali – enjoy the arts. Now there was a little sarcasm in that last bit as Ubud is known as the artistic center of the island. It’s just that most tourists really only take the art factor so far as “wow that artistic batik dress will look great once I hem it a bit and get the vendor to lower their price by 50,000 rupiah”.
I had a plan and it went fairly well except for a vanished art shop, a closed palace, and a case of the afternoon crankies that vetoed my last stop of the day. I started off strong, looking once again for the Atlantis of local art stores. Finding neither the store nor a mysterious pool of water large enough to contain it I sallied forth to the lady art museum. Here is the thing about Balinese art – it’s all about the ladies. Topless usually. Pouty always. Strikingly beautiful without question. Painted by men. In the main museum here in Ubud while women are the subject of about 80% of the artwork in goddess or mortal form, only “a handful” of the artists in the museum are women. So this British chick decided to do something about it and founded her own museum for female artists. There is even a room full of artwork by 8-11 year olds to encourage them to develop their talent. Not bad.
I had another lady place to go – Threads of Life (a textile gallery celebrating the art of back straining labor/tedious drudgery known as weaving). There was an exhibit here on ikat weaving that was actually pretty interesting but that was about all she wrote. Unless you are into very overpriced textiles in which case right this way and bring your pocketbooks.
Then it was on to the men. Lempad, the architect/artist/sculptor to the royals who lived to be 118, is revered here. His house is now open to the public and is pretty interesting to see though spending more than a half hour here would be mightily indulgent. Speaking of indulgent, another personal residence turned place of interest is the Museum Blanco. Blanco is the self-styled Dali of Bali and to say he had a healthy ego would be putting it ever so mildly. He painted 3 things and he painted them over and over – topless/naked women, inanimate objects, children. Every once in a while he would do a variation on a theme – naked women obscured by inanimate objects. My last stop in the Land of Men was Symon’s Studio. Symon is an expat artist who has been bumming around Bali for about 20 years but whose work is still clearly influenced/derived from the western world. Obama done Warhol style, some nice Marilyn Monroes, and foray into homoerotic painting and sculpture that had not the hint of subtlety.
In addition to a bunch of small galleries the formal part of my day involved a trip to the only true state run museum in Ubud, the Museum Puri Lukisan (the Palace of Paintings) which is sadly a little too like the Getty for its own good – beautiful grounds but a collection that is nowhere near as impressive as it should be. It is also in the midst of a renovation which can be a muddy nasty place when it downpours, like it did all morning today.
Tomorrow I plan to conquer one more museum and a woodcarving village to the south. Plunder for all upon my successful return.
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