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"Legacy 2" pays tribute to
the Masters of Balinese modernist woodcarving: I.B Nyana,
Tjokot and I.B Tilem. Most of the carvers from this exhibition
were Tilem's students or have been strongly influenced by
his works. |
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Ida Bagus Nyana was primarily concerned with experimenting
with mass in sculpture. When carving human characters,
he shortened some parts of the body and lengthened others,
thus bringing an eerie, almost surrealistic quality to
his work. At the same time he didn't overwork the wood
and stuck to simple, almost naïve daily life themes.
He thus avoided the “baroque” trap, unlike
many carvers of his day. |
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Cokot gained a reputation for exploiting the expressive
quality inherent in the wood. He would go into the forest
to look for strangely shaped trunks and branches and,
changing them as little as possible, transform them into
gnarled spooks and demonic figures. |
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Ida Bagus Tilem, the son of Nyana, furthered Nyana and
Cokot's innovations both in his working of the wood and
in his choice of themes. Unlike the sculptors from the
previous generation, he was daring enough to alter the
proportions of the characters depicted in his carving.
He allowed the natural deformations in the wood to guide
the form of his carving, using gnarled logs well suited
for representing twisted human bodies. He saw each deformed
log or branch as a medium for expressing human feelings.
Instead of depicting myths or scenes of daily life, Tilem
took up “abstract” themes with philosophical
or psychological content: using distorted pieces of wood
that are endowed with strong expressive powers. Ida Bagus
Tilem, however, was not only an artist, but also a teacher.
He trained dozens of young sculptors from the area around
the village of Mas. He taught them how to select wood
for its expressive power, and how to establish dialogue
between wood and Man that has become the mainstream of
today's Balinese woodcarving. |
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adapted from the opening remarks by Dr. Jean Couteau |
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