Dr. A. A. Made Jelantik, renaissance man supreme, doctor of dharma, aesthetician, and one of most decent human beings I have ever met, has left us. He passed away just after midnight on Tuesday, 5 September 2007. His body will remain at his home in Renon until the 10th of September when he shall be brought to his childhood home of Puri Agung in Karangasem.

Dr. A. A. Made Jelantik. Photo courtesy Roy Tee & Ann Bouwma

The ritual kingsan ring geni (or bequethal to the fire) shall be performed on 13 September in Karangasem. This ritual is the burning of the body, but is not considered as a cremation by the Balinese. The crematory rituals will be held at an undisclosed future date.

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Princeton, N.J., October 31, 2006 — Clifford Geertz, an eminent scholar in the field of cultural anthropology known for his extensive research in Indonesia and Morocco, died at the age of 80 early yesterday morning of complications following heart surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Geertz was Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he has served on the Faculty since 1970. Dr. Geertz’s appointment thirty-six years ago was significant not only for the distinguished leadership it would bring to the Institute, but also because it marked the initiation of the School of Social Science, which in 1973 formally became the fourth School at the Institute.

Dr. Geertz’s landmark contributions to social and cultural theory have been influential not only among anthropologists, but also among geographers, ecologists, political scientists, humanists, and historians. He worked on religion, especially Islam; on bazaar trade; on economic development; on traditional political structures; and on village and family life. A prolific author since the 1950s, Dr. Geertz’s many books include The Religion of Java (1960); Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1968); The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (1973, 2000); Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali (1980); and The Politics of Culture, Asian Identities in a Splintered World (2002). At the time of his death, Dr. Geertz was working on the general question of ethnic diversity and its implications in the modern world.

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Marc Jurt 1955-2006

Marc was born in Neuchâtel (Switzerland) in 1955. At nineteen he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Geneva, specializing in the study of engraving. He quickly became very successful and had more than hundred one-man or group exhibitions all over the world, a continuous success until his too early death two weeks ago.

In 1980, he spent nine months in Bali where he created engravings, drawings and photographs. He became interested in Balinese culture, particularly its temple festivals, music, and ritual dance. Studied the art of engraving on lontar palm leaves, composed small pictures by juxtaposing the leaves and gluing them to wood. During the next 20 years, he was a regular visitor to Bali, especially in 1985 when he stayed six months in a house in Sayan and carried out a lot of new creative productions. The main event linked to his special relationship with Bali was the solo exhibition of 150 paintings, objects, engravings, and monotype prints which was held at ARMA in 1997. In the catalogue of this exhibition entitled Anatomies of the Invisible, Diana Darling writes about his work : For Marc Jurt, the concern is with the inner energies of nature, with what is concealed by appeareance. He contemplates, rather than investigates, what is enclosed by a seed pod or wrapped in an offering. He is inetrested in the ambiguity of meaning behind coincidence. If he dissects, it is not to expose reality – as in the scientific engravings of earlier Europeans – but to expose the mystery of reality.

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