This lecture will discuss the work of Professor Anthony Forge in the field of Balinese painting. Anthony Forge argued that art has a visual quality, summed up by a quoted line from dancer Isadore Duncan who said ‘If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it’. His interest in art as non-verbal communication led him from the Sepik to Bali and the painters’ village of Kamasan. His work in Bali allowed him to explore the ways in which his Balinese collaborators experienced the world, and to develop new aspects of the understanding of the social meaning of art. By looking at these problems of meaning and communication in Balinese art, this lecture examines the relationship between Anthropology and Art History, with a particular focus on the responses of contemporary Kamasan artists to Forge's fieldwork project.

 

MsSiobhan Campbell is a postgraduate research student at the University of Sydney working on a project titled Collecting Balinese Art: the Forge Collection of Balinese Paintings at the Australian Museum. Her current research project enables her experiences in facilitating cross-cultural communication to merge with a long-standing interest in Indonesian material culture. 

  

 

Enquiries and Registration E: Sharon.Komidar@anu.edu.au  T: 6125 9299