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Home » Photo Gallery, Photo News

Legong Legacy  

by on Saturday, 12 June 2010No Comment | 541 views

Photo Exhibition by  I Ketut Widiatmika – Legong Legacy
Inauguration: Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 18:30 pm
To Public: 11 –  20 June 20, 2010 from 10:00 to 18:00 pm
Venue : Bentara Budaya Bali
By Pass Ida Bagus Mantra
Ketewel, Gianyar, Bali

Looking at photography was like looking at something by using a certain frame. One of the frames that we could use was as stated by Paul Messais. He described that pictures produced by man, including photography works, can be seen as readable visuals. In other words, those pictures could be read. As the consequences of that opinion, pictures were one of the ways to speak and to convey something. If languages could be seen as a product of thoughts, then ultimately became a product of culture, which was the same with the presence of the pictures.

What had been stated by Paul Messais was in line with what was raised by Emma Dexter. “Drawing is a feeling, an attitude that is betrayed in its handling as much as in the materials used”
Or as emphasized by San en to Yuliman, a fine-art critic: “The first thing to remember in discussing about pictures was the word “picture” had a vast and wide scope of understanding. What we saw on the television screen when the engine of an airplane was turned on, what we saw on the cinema screen when the movie was played, those were the same with the pictures seen in the newspapers and magazines, paintings, maps, site plans, graphs, and others. All of those in Indonesian we call “gambar” or pictures.

It did not mean that the extensive meaning of the picture did not have consequences. It had consequences and at the same time also had a blessing. Gambar or picture – once again – in this case included photos, were the texts that readable, a narration, a message. Photography works as texts was an axioma of cultural studies, which dragged the meaning as everything in order to build a meaning through a defining process. The photography works by I Ketut Widiatmika were the texts like stated by Paul Messais as a readable visual. We could feel the possibility of the readableness when we looked at a work of photography. The photographer also had a desire to convey something to the viewers through his works. The Legong, as the subject, was a representation for Widiatmika.

As the representation, the photography work by Widiatmika did not present as an effect of representation as some of the signs in his works did not give any explanations or not reflecting the objects by direct reflections. His works were able to develop imaginations, intuitions, desires, illusions, messages, and many others. Shortly said, Widiatmika wanted to compose a meaning. The meaning could be achieved well if the viewers took part actively in giving the meaning to those works. If later, after reading the pictures there was a bias, those would be the richness of the reading results. At least, the reading efforts could stand independently for the viewers themselves. Therefore, the results would not stop there. The process would happen over and over again. The process would result in the diversity of reading as they were processed in different condition, timing and space.

The essay of the curatorial titled “Framing the Beauty” was not intended to limit the viewing that would lead to the limitation of meaning. The word ‘framing” had been used to help and to assist me in viewing Widiatmika s works. “Framing” was more like a point of view, to focus the discussion about photography. The viewers had the right to use or discharge those frames. Everybody already had in their own mind their own horizon of expectations.

Therefore, the works of  Widiatmika, once again, was his representation about Legong. His works were not about capturing the moments like other photos of documentary and journalism. They were more of Widiatmika s ways in seeing the Legong. It was started by his amazement to that secular dance. Then supported by his imagination, illusions, narration and desires, he built a reconstruction approaches with specific intentions, as well as the presence of the intellectual approaches. In short, the efforts to build all of those series, several kinds of approaches were used to achieve a specific representation.

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