Made

1

• Made
• Wianta
• 1949, Bali (Indonesia)

2

• Ubud

• Sanur

• Wiantas Bali
• Population 3,891,000 (2010),
• 92.29 are Balinese Hinduism (2000)
• Most of the remainder follow Islam
• Bali is home to most of Indonesia's small Hindu
  minority. It is renowned for its highly developed
  arts, including traditional and modern dance,
  sculpture, painting, leather, metalwork
  and music. But been the largest tourist
  destination in Indonesia, there was great fear
  within Balinese society that traditional Balinese
  culture and the Balinese identity might be pushed
  to extinction.

3
Who is he?
Apuan

• Born on 20 Dec 1949 in the village of Apuan,
  Tabanan, Bali
• Exhibited at Venice Biennale in 2003
• A multi-modal artist. He works with poetry,
  painting, installation and performance art
• Strong sense of environmental awareness and
  social cultural responsibility (esp. towards
  Balinese culture)
• Fascinated by the works of Dali and Klee
  (developed his own Surrealism)

http//www.baliselection.com/balimap.html
Lake Bratan in Bedugul Bali
http//explore-id.blogspot.com/2010/07/lake-bratan
-in-bedugul-bali.html
http//www.fotopedia.com/items/6nf9pniglhbor-Aeum9
U44yKE
http//getahead.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/jun/30/
slide-show-1-travel-bali-the-island-of-the-gods.ht
m
4
Traditional Balinese Painting

• Traditional Balinese painting was understood as a
  form of prayer, if not to the Gods, then to the
  local palace, perceived as an embodiment of the
  holy. Artists would thus labor at the palace to
  demonstrate their loyalty to the king, or work at
  the temple to demonstrate their loyalty to the
  religious community. 
• As in traditional dance and wayang kulit puppetry
  the classical paintings acted as a morality play
  portraying both good and evil behavior. Heroic
  figures were usually on the right side and evil
  ones placed on the left. The Ramayana and
  Mahabharata, both classic Hindu epics, were the
  main themes for the paintings.

5
Traditional Balinese Painting

• The theme of traditional Ubud paintings was
  around the wayang, including stories of the gods
  and popular folk stories. Most importantly, this
  art was an expression of the community. Artists
  never signed their work, and they were always
  proud if their students copied their work. To
  have their work imitated meant they had attained
  the status of a guru, the highest honor for a
  Balinese.
• This collective nuance has thus become a kind of
  mainstream within the local art world, the point
  from which local artists depart and the point at
  which they converge. It is also the cause for
  lack of change and innovation among Balinese
  painters.  Artists have remained loyal to their
  collective styles, in spite of the input of
  scores of foreign artists from Java, Lombok,
  Europe and America upon their works. 

6
Traditional Balinese Painting
Oleg Tambulilingan, by Anak Agung Gede Sobrat.
Courtesy of Bali Bangkit

• The colors were muted in the traditional
  paintings but that changed with the advent of
  Ubud style paintings. Famous European artists
  such as Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet, who lived
  in Bali in the 1930's introduced vibrant colors,
  painting single scenes rather than narrative
  stories and paintings of people from everyday
  life rather than religious, heroic figures. In
  the 1960's Dutch artist Arie Smit encouraged and
  instructed many budding artists and created a
  naive style of genre painting called "Young
  Artists". Today, these famous styles have evolved
  and are exhibited in the museums and galleries
  throughout the island.

7
Wiantas Art

• Philosophical Overview
• Life as Total Artwork he sets out from this
  point to seek harmony
• Wiantas works are results of his attempts in
  producing a harmony that he feels is missing in
  reality. This harmony may be missing because of
  the Balinese cultures resistance to change.
  Balinese culture is resistant to change because
  (i) it is very strong and (ii) there is fear of
  the loss of Balinese identity.
• To Wianta, harmony is missing in reality as a
  result of the following opposing forces (i)
  Tradition/customs (Balinese) vs
  contemporary/modern, (ii) local (Balinese) vs
  foreign, (iii) local (Balinese) vs global, (iv)
  permanence vs change and (v) religious (Balinese
  Hinduism) vs secular

8
Wiantas Art

• Philosophical Overview (contd)
• Therefore, through his Art, Wianta advocates
  reconciling and evolving with instead of
  rejecting the unfamiliar, the new, the foreign
  and the strange
• Also, Wianta does not want to be trapped in
  Balinese Orientalism. He has lain bare the ghosts
  of his Balinese subconscious.
• Everything is part of everything.
• Calls himself Balinese artist and citizen of the
  world

9
Wiantas Art

• Background to Wiantas Artisitic Philosophy
• Born into a Hindu family and married to an
  influential Javanese Muslim lady, Wianta has
  learned that religion can create conflicts and he
  therefore prefers philosophy
• Violence 1965-Indonesia military took action
  against communists
• As a young man, he saw how people were killed or
  severely wounded.
• By the early 90s, Made had become a mature artist
  whose concern for social and political issues had
  grown to such a level that he felt an inner
  compulsion to act and begin supporting victims of
  violence, natural catastrophes and epidemics.

10
Wiantas Art

• Background to Wiantas Artisitic Philosophy
  (contd)
• Wianta faces the conflict of defining the Self
  freely but still requires society for that
  definition. torn as he is between the communal
  values in Bali and intense desire for
  self-determination.
• Peace or harmony is necessary for the Balinese.
  The Baliness crave for the state of quietness
  they crave in this Island of theGods.
• Progress towards a more advanced stage wherein
  the lust for power and desire to impose ideas or
  achieve prosperity through violence must
  disappear.
• Violence as a meeting point between desire and
  destruction.
• His philosophy of peace also reflects the limits
  of life space and the power of human ideas.

11
Reconciling Seemingly Opposites

• There is no need to talk about God, as God is
  always there in ourselves.
• His action paintings have roots in dance
  calligraphy influenced by Japanese writing signs
• Ritual-like (sakti means energy)
• Believes in the self as responsible, creatively
  competent individual
• His modernity is determined by Buddhist
  existential philosophy

12
Made Contemporary Art

• Real abundance of culture in daily life
• Constantly experimenting, trying to push
  abstraction into a new dimension
• His artworks pay attention to form, aesthetics,
  rhythm movement tackle global essential
  subject matter above, challenge the viewer by
  freshness inventiveness.

13
Change as a Permanent System

• Asian cyclical concept of time no fracture
  between tradition and modernity
• His works have no clearly recognizable start or
  ending
• Change in his work always directed forwards.

14
On Religion

• Does not identify himself with one true religion
  philosophy of life acknowledges the worth of
  every human being.
• Global symbols such as crosses, triangles,
  swastikas and mandalas.

15
Secular Themes

• Openness to other cultures
• Not only interested in possibilities offered by
  Science but fascinated by processes leading to
  scientific discoveries new technologies
• Technology is not an end in itself

16
Modernity Universality

• Looks for the fundamental elementary in all
  aspects of the visible tangible world
• Zero, the void sunya is the ultimate way of
  thought, the real knowledge which supercedes all
  time-bound opposites
• The individual as the storage room of images
• Presents an alternative aesthetic universe,
  warning of dangers of a collapsing vital
  cultural environment

17
Wiantas Art

• Specifics
• His contribution to the development of art in
  Bali is his tendency to leave out all realistic
  figurative representation while emphasizing the
  concept of space, patterned repetition and the
  strength of colour which show a structure akin to
  Bali which is fresh, glamorous and bright.
• In Wiantas works, geometric shapes are filled in
  using sigar mangsi (colour gradation) technique
  of Balinese painting.

18
Wiantas Art

• Specifics (contd)
• Some of his paintings may be described as
  Balinese Hindu abstract expressionism
• His calligraphy is inspired by various writings
  from the East which is then combined with
  repetition of dots
• In his installation work Made Wianta seems to
  make a pilgramage through space and time, beyond
  the consciousness of form and events. Wianta
  always tries to say the unsayable from the hidden
  piles of reality.

19
Wiantas Artistic Phases

• Karangasem period (went to Karangasem in East
  Bali after short stay in Yogyakarta 1978)1978-84
  (impressed by ethnic motifs)
• Dot period 1985-90 (Batik, beads decorative
  patterns in Asean art Balinese ceremonies
  temple decorations)
• Quadrangle period 1987-90 (devoted to geometry)
• Triangle period 1988-94 (dominating triangles in
  compositions)
• Assembling period 1990 (dynamic works of acrylic
  on plywood)
• Calligraphy period 1987-1999 (Zen-inspired)
• Mixed media period 1992-present
• Installations 1995 present (Deconstruction of
  the urban landscape )

20
2 components of Wiantas Artistic Phases

1. Modern rooted in 20th Century, content is
   cosmic universal
2. Postmodern feature the interaction between man,
   nature, information technology

21
2 components of Wiantas Artistic Phases

1. Modern rooted in 20th Century, content is
   cosmic universal
2. Postmodern feature the interaction between man,
   nature, information technology

22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
Karangasem period 1978-84

• Wanted to have it out with a basic element
  meeting earth in her virginal forms
• Designed his personal motifs
• Transcended his own environment
• -spirits demons of his dreams obsessions
  surreally lyrical, representational imagery, in
  very differently Balinese images, sensitive and
  mysterious, with strength of point and line
• Started to develop a formal language by reacting
  strongly to simple forms structures

25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
Dot period 1985-90

• Characterised by multiple use of colour dots
  which shine like glittering jewels
• Like pointilism found in work of French
  Impressionists
• Dots arranged in decorative geometrical
  structures

28
(No Transcript)
29
(No Transcript)
30
(No Transcript)
31
Quadrangle period 1987-90

• Squares rectangles dominate allow him to
  experiment with structures, colour space
• Translating his ideas of repetition and balance

32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
(No Transcript)
35
(No Transcript)
36
Triangle period 1988-94

• Representations of cosmological order in Hindu
  religion

37
Dot toTriangle Period late1980s-early 1990s
Archetypes

• In the late 80s and early 90s, Wianta used
  optical effects derived from combinations of
  square, triangular and even circular shapes,
  superimposed with layers of lines in colours of
  differing graduation.
• These works revealed an organization of design in
  which line and colour were carefully measured. In
  his Archetypes series, Wianta has felt the need
  to return to my roots by painting mature
  variations of these cubic, linear and rectangular
  compositions. These forms he asserts, are the
  elemental building blocks that distinguish man
  from nature.

38
From Ornamental to Architectural

• Core artistic material in the cultural traditions
  of Bali is infused with ornamentation, decoration
  and this passion is clearly on display in the
  work of Wianta
• Offers a new dimension to the meaning of
  ornamentation
• Wiantas work reminds us of Piet Mondrians
  Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43) in so far as
  Wianta also creates a three-dimensional
  architectural space.
• Whereas Mondrian was abstracting the physical
  space of New York, the architectural spaces of
  Wianta tend more towards an abstraction of
  cultural values, representing the dynamism of
  life in Bali, Indonesia and the world. in his
  collage of symbols

39
From Architectural to Spiritual

• Circle/triangle/square geometrical or symbolic
  signs
• He transposes the vital energy, soul spirit of
  these forms into the visible world
• His paintings bear titles related to spatial
  time orders
• Colour starts to play a very special role in his
  architectonic paintings
• (Logically, he started to link 2 legendary
  Balinese traditions through a new modern
  concept kesanggingan or painting and keudagian
  or architecture. Both traditions are
  characterised by the fact that their best
  examples have always been created upon the basis
  of systematic natural connections religious
  concepts. In Bali, there is no distinction
  between sacral the profane transitions are
  smooth.

40
Summary of the above works

• He is an artist who, continually for many years,
  has been building up an artistic, cultural and
  philosophical experience based on the observation
  of elemental nature, of basic structures and
  "architectural" forms of spatial order.
• In his imaginary world the elemental, the
  original, the core of all things are in the
  centre "In order to be as close to truth as
  possible one has to get to the bottom of things.
  This is the only way I can ask the really
  existential questions and transpose them with
  artistic means into aesthetic models."

41
Interpretations of the above works

• Uses color and form on canvas.
• Colours and various geometric forms, conveying
  emotions and a deep sense of spirituality.
• Influenced by Japanese brush painting and infused
  his calligraphy works with signs and symbols
  expressing his relationship to the forces of
  nature
• His intuitive reactions to the phenomena of the
  world around him are reflected in diverse
  installation works
• During his early career, Wianta studied the
  Balinese classical wayang style of painting from
  master artists in Kamasan, Klungkung. His
  drawings of Balinese spirits and creatures has
  novel, peculiar and personalized shapes. When he
  used colours, the works were similar in structure
  to his drawings but did not have figurative
  elements. Instead, he began painting in a kind of
  abstraction that systematically used small dots
  of colour with a mixture of linear contours and
  flat surfaces. Then he went on to create
  geometrical constructions that combined
  spontaneous calligraphic strokes. His work is
  represented in the collection of The Neka Museum
  in Ubud Bali. He also does installations and
  performance art to convey his concerns about
  social and cultural change.

42
(No Transcript)
43
Assembling period 1990

• Series of rhythmic forms with vibrant colours
  against monochrome backgrounds
• Focused on contrasts between dimension space
• Deconstruction plays a major role

44
(No Transcript)
45
(No Transcript)
46
(No Transcript)
47
(No Transcript)
48
(No Transcript)
49
(No Transcript)
50
Calligraphy period 1987-1999

• Range from carefully controlled style to the
  dynamic, ink-splattering style of great Zen
  calligraphers
• Analogous to music or nature
• Dances around his canvas moves in body in a
  dynamic way
• Represents icons of a higher universal culture
  rather than icons of mass culture
• Represents the depths of virtual space using
  optical effects derived from combinations of
  square, triangular, even circular shapes,
  superimposed with layers of lines in colors of
  differing gradation
• Borrowed pre-existing material drawings,
  writing, music, culturally meaningful signifiers,
  all as references to form to be deconstructed and
  remade into other, different forms.
• Each work becomes a text open to interpretation,
  an elemental sign or set of signs, becomes
  itself.
• It could be that there is an empty bubble devoid
  of meaning within and this may well be the place
  where we find a mere fragment of a reflection
  that will itself visit our thoughts.

51
Calligraphy period 1987-1999

• Some of his large calligraphic paintings are
  reminiscent of the work of the American artist
  Jackson Pollock, who created paintings by
  dripping paint randomly on large canvasses laid
  on the floor. 
• The difference is that while Pollock often
  painted while drunk on alcohol and created
  canvases full of beautiful randomness, Wianta
  paints sober and his paintings are concentrated
  studies.

52
(No Transcript)
53
http//ohousegallery.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archi
ve.html
Rain Biography - 240 x 360 cm - Mixed Media -
2008
54
http//ohousegallery.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archi
ve.html
Civilization Warrior - 240 x 360 cm - Mixed Media
- 2008
55
Mixed media period 1992-present

• Powerful images with strong contrasting colours
  reveal his concern for social environmental
  problems
• Mixed media period 1995-1999 (Deconstruction of
  the urban landscape )
• Coarse materials such as steel, copper, wire,
  nails

56
Installation 1995-present

• Glassroom, vairabel, objek video, 2008
• A mattress is a private space, but when we see
  there are shards of broken glass there, we feel a
  hot, angry, violent energy there, he said. 

57
Installation 1995-present
http//ohousegallery.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archi
ve.html
Glass Room - 100 x 200 x 35 cm - Mixed Media -
2008 
58
Space On Space, 2009 At the Gaya Fusion (an art
gallery in Bali)

• Art in the exhibition space is an unchanging
  spectacle. It is the framing of a psychological
  image. It is an event that turns the visual
  elements in art works into actors arranged by
  somebody who calls himself an artist. In truth he
  is more a director than an artist. Wianta
  considers staging of art works within a gallery
  space as staging an event. 

http//www.mbulle.com/editorial/made-vianta-gaya.a
sp
59
Space On Space, 2009 At the Gaya Fusion (an art
gallery in Bali)

• All of the Gaya Fusion wall space, measuring
  approximately 1600X1200X450 cm is covered with
  abstract op images. As many as 3000 images made
  using acrylic on plywood measuring 35X45 cm are
  attached to the walls. Wianta hopes to produce a
  work that psychologically impact the audienceas
  they enter a space thus filled with these images.
  
• Transforming exhibition space into a more
  event-oriented space is clearly necessary these
  days, if only because it reflects the popularity
  of the spectacle this century, now that the age
  of listening has been replaced with the age of
  seeing - with all of its looking, watching,
  observing, invigilating, peeping and glancing
  that dominates daily life
• (from Yasraf Amir Piliang, Multiplisitas dan
  Diferensi Redefinisi Desain, Teknologi dan
  Humanitas, Jalasutra, Yogyakarta, 2008, p. 261)

http//www.mbulle.com/editorial/made-vianta-gaya.a
sp
60
Dream Island, 2003 Video projection and
installation In the video, sequences from news
reports about the bombings in Kuta are combined
with scenes from a slaughterhouse, in which the
artist pours blood over screens showing pictures
of the attack. These pictures hang on the walls
of another, darkened room. Visitors can only see
them with the help of the flashlights provided. A
kind of tomb has been built in the center.
61
Installations 1995-present

• Thee-dimensional art has gained particular favor
  in Indonesia where the wealth of traditional
  symbolism makes possible all sorts of meaningful
  encounters with objects. Wianta's installations
  are not so much intellectual constructions as
  immediate interventions-or responses, as he puts
  it, to elements in his surroundings. They are the
  three-dimensional equivalent of his "action
  painting
• Wianta 's installations are therefore simply
  another kind of response" to the world of things
  around him-and, as always, it is not the result
  but the process that concerns him.

62
Performance Art/Happenings

• Art and Peace on Padang Galak Beach in Sanur,
  Bali
• In December 10 1999, on the occasion of World
  Peace Day, he organized a monumental Millennium
  Performance. This massive performance was a
  reaction to the violent movement that ousted
  President Suharto in 1998. He integrated the
  following into an artwork
• 2000 young dancers dressed in white danced
  against black sand (a choreographic answer to the
  foaming waves of the sea)
• 2 helicopters
• hundreds of assistants
• Seascape
• Sky
• A 2000m-long white banner with poems and messages
  of peace written in various languages from all
  over the world and with Wianta's own
  calligraphies and characters painted in black
  unfurled by the people in this work.

63
Art and Peace

• The Art and Peace performance is not a reaction
  against violence and oppression but a conscious
  effort by an artist to create the conditions and
  atmosphere for peace.
• The performance is a kind of ritual offering to
  the Balinese.
• It combines literature, poetry, dance, painting
  and technology and tackles one of the most
  explosive themes of our era namely violence.
• It builds on the wayang kulit, the traditional
  shadow puppet theatre of Indonesia that has been
  used since ancient times to criticise political
  and social situations and in which the dalang or
  puppet master as well as the clowns try to offer
  solutions.

64
Symbolism in Art and Peace

• Helicopter dance
• Also technologyAlso messenger of peace
• Also mythical symbolism of deities in Sea
• 2000 METRE LONG CLOTH peace/innocence/virginity
• Wind symbol of power
• Movements Nature
• To him, peace has so many connections with
  teenage and life, fraught as it is with fighting,
  narcotics, free sex and crime
• A healthy, artistic and meaningful activity

65
Street

• With the "Street", Wianta wanted to show us that
  art can change a non-place into a stage suitable
  for propagating an artistic message about the
  state of consciousness in a changing society.

66
Other Installations/Happenings

• His environmental awareness has materialized into
  several art instaltations/happenings such as
  "Forest and Life" in Apuan, Tabanan (1999) "Sound
  and Nature" in Apuan, Tabanan (1997) "Water,
  Fire, and Air" in Apuan, Tabanan and Gajah Wong
  river, Yogyakarta, Central Java (1995).
• His strong sense of social responsibility
  prompted him to hold several exhibitions to
  donate his paintings for sate in support of many
  social causes. These include a fundraising
  exhibition together with other artists at the
  Bali Cliff Hotet to help poor regions of Bati
  (1995) and the sale of several paintings to help
  AIDS research in San Francisco and the earthquake
  victims of Flores, Indonesia (1993). Since 1992,
  through his "Wianta" Foundation, he has
  collaborated with the Ford Foundation to help
  preserve endangered traditional art and culture
  in Bati. And, in 1991, he staged an "Art Camp" in
  Apuan to bring together many Indonesian and
  international scholars and contemporary artists.
• http//www.madewianta.com/biography.php

67
references

• http//www.scribd.com/doc/9557671/MADE-WIANTA-RETR
  OSPECTIVE-EXHIBITION-1970-2000
• http//www.indo.com/featured_article/diversity.htm
  l
• http//www.baliadvisor.com/shop-bali-paintings.htm
  l