- The New Zealand artist uses the story of her grandfather’s final painting to explore the effects of colonialism ... with a little help from her gamelan orchestra.
Review of Sriwhana Spong's exhibition 'Ida-Ida" at Spike Island, Bristol, UK – telling tales of Bali with PG tips and a GoPro, written by Eliel Jones, published in The Guardian.
Excerpt: "In a low-lit bedroom in Sriwhana Spong’s ancestral family home in Bali hangs a painting by her grandfather, the artist and tailor I Gusti Made Rundu. It is his last work, and the only one the family owns – although it almost slipped out of their hands. Not long after the artist’s death, Spong’s father was offered 20m rupiahs (around £1,000) by an unknown buyer who had mysteriously heard of the painting’s existence. But he refused to sell it.
This moment in Spong’s family history is related in her new film The Painter-Tailor, which is part of the London-based New Zealand artist’s solo exhibition. Featuring sculpture, film and live performance, the show is a microcosm of her multifaceted practice, brought together by the narrative surrounding her grandfather’s painting. In the film, Spong’s father seems happy with his decision not to sell the piece, saying: “If I didn’t keep it, we’d have nothing to talk about.” We get to see the perspectives of other family members, who are enlisted as the camera crew. A GoPro records the viewpoint of one of their dogs.
The playful familial complicity of the film’s participants contrasts with the outsider gaze of a foreign photographer whose black-and-white images of Bali we see being flicked through. The photographs, from the 1930s-60s, focus on Balinese customs – styles of dress, dances, rituals, art and portraits. At one point, we see Rundu with Spong’s father when very young. The artist’s sister found the image catalogued in the New York Public Library. Spong prompts us to think about the creation and distribution of images – not just about who makes them and why, but about the act of looking and the effects of colonisation in modifying traditions of image-making in Indonesia."
Read the full review in The Guardian.
Sriwhana Spong is represented by Michael Lett in New Zealand.