Artist : I Wayan Cemul
Genre : Sculptures
Period : February 12 till April 12
Everyday, 1.00PM till 10.00PM
Location : Casa Iseabo
Jl. Laksmana 22A, Seminyak
Tel: 7856418
I Wayan Cemul is recognized by many as Bali’s most famous
sculptor, and one of Indonesia’s ‘Living Treasures’.
Born in 1927, Pak Wayan was the sole student of sculptor Kadir
(d. 1969) and, over the years, encouraged by foreign artists
such as Donald Friend, Han Snel, Arie Smit and Rudolf Bonnet,
he has continued to develop his own ‘primitive’
style, which is easily recognized by its rough-hewn, asymmetrical
lines and strong, expressive features. Known alternatively
as a ‘primitive-modernist’ and an ‘avant-gardist’,
Pak Wayan uses his great talent to produce unconventional
sculptures that are delightfully Balinese in character and
full of comical playfulness. At 78 years-of-age, Pak Wayan
continues to sculpt daily with a total dedication to his craft,
and he remains true to his creative visions. His current exhibition,
at Casa Iseabo in Seminyak, is only his second, (in 1983 he
held an exhibition in Canberra, Australia) and it is the first
time in over 50 years that he has created pieces using the
white indigenous Paras stone.
The Paras stone of Bali provides an important explanation
why temples are still being built and old temples restored,
and why stone figures for temples and houses are still being
carved. The Paras is a pale sandstone that is easily worked
while damp and is so soft that rain and heat soon erodes it.
The very impermanence of Paras, in this climate, has in itself
helped to preserve and perpetuate building and carving as
a living art. After wetting, and with chisels, the Paras can
be cut and shaped like cheese. But, while Balinese wood-carving,
or at least some of it, is imaginative and creative, Balinese
stone-sculpture has more-or-less frozen into religious immobility.
The Balinese village stone-sculptor continues to repeat the
same Gods and Demons, the same traditional figures from Hindu
Religion and Mythology, which have decorated temples, gateways
and house-courtyards for centuries.
That Balinese stone-sculpture seems to have reached a frozen
perfection is curious, for in the past, particularly in the
early years of their association with the Dutch, the Balinese
would copy anything, and, in time, breathe into that copy
some element that was truly Balinese. On temple walls, carved
on the spot in Paras, one can see many examples of breaks
from the traditional forms. Riotous scenes of sexual deeds
and misdeeds, ambitious phalluses, reliefs showing boats,
fish, animals, bicycles and planes can all be found hidden
away in secluded corners. In a temple in Singaraja there are
aging illustrations of Balinese satire. Fat Dutchmen from
the past swill beer, and try to start the engine of what we
would call a vintage car. There is even a funny scene from
a Western Film depicting a hold-up, complete with a gun. It
is this ability of the Balinese to blend Tradition with judicious
insights of the Modern that is Pak Wayan’s heritage,
and the great strength of his art.
Pak Wayan is labeled a ‘Primitivist’, in-so-much
as European Primitivism indicates a yearning for the mythical
and the magical art forms of primitive tribes, but, this is
simply a way of rationalizing or intellectualizing Pak Wayan’s
work, which obviously derives from the Balinese Hindu Religious
Tradition. Works, such as ‘Boy with Tongue’ and
‘Man with Flower’, would not look out of place
in a Balinese temple. With their bulging eyes, snarling teeth
or protruding tongue, all carved in a robust manner, these
works bring to mind the awesome portrayals of deities, heroes
and magical guardians which stand dignified on either side
of a Balinese temple gate. These works derive from an imagination
unique to Bali, which conceives the supernatural and divine
not as ethereal spirits, but as vital Super Balinese. The
more amusing side of Balinese stone-sculpture can be found
in Pak Wayan’s work ‘Boy with Tongue Right’,
in which the tongue protrudes and curls with a certain amount
of provocative lasciviousness. Claims of Pak Wayan’s
‘Modernism’ can be seen in the work ‘Boy
with Tilted Head’. The shape of the head, the lines
of the face, and, the general ambience of the work, indicates
a legacy that can be traced directly back to the paintings
and drawings of Picasso, in particular, his ‘Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon’ and his masterpiece ‘Guernica’.
Picasso would have been the first to admit that the fundamental
roots of Cubism were to be found in a ‘Tribal Primitivism’.
Over the many years of his career, Pak Wayan has been able
to fuse both his Traditional Balinese Sculptural Heritage
with an understanding of Western Art Modernism. The simplicity,
yet, sensitivity of his work, displayed in this exhibition,
‘Stone Sculptures’, personifies his outstanding
reputation, and, undoubtedly, shows that he is fully entitled
to the title of ‘Living Treasure’.
