The Art Factory: Art as a Medium for Change

The Sounds of Penggorengan

variable size

The Eye

60x80cm

acrylic and spray paint on canvas

2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

24 December 2009

“Art Café, Seminyak opens multimedia experimental exhibition

‘Seni Sebagai Media Perubahan’ (Art as a Medium for Change)”

The Art Café in Seminyak, Bali will feature a provocative new exhibition during the month of January by Gianyar-based artist Made Muliana Bayak. “Seni Sebagai Media Perubahan,” or “Art as a Medium for Change” is a multimedia undertaking featuring paintings, three-dimensional works, and sound installations, opening in the Art Café’s new gallery space on 9 January 2010.

The exhibition’s opening features a collaborative sound installation that explores the relationship between visual and musical arts. Made Muliana Bayak has teamed up with American composer and Professor of Music Dr. Kristian Twombly to create “an immersive sound happening.” Twombly is visiting Bali with the aid of a grant from his university to create new works with local visual and performing artists. During the exhibition opening, two microphones will record an improvised guitar solo by Bayak and random live sounds extracted from the exhibition hall. Combined with rhythmic patterns prerecorded from the artists’ natural surroundings and processed by Twombly, the artists present an interactive, multimedia experience.

The concept for “Art as a Medium for Change” arose out of Bayak’s career-long exploration of the versatility of Balinese visual arts. As a graduate of the island’s prestigious arts college, the Indonesia Institute for the Arts (ISI), Denpasar, Bayak observes a tendency to support artistic endeavors with a high market value over more experimental works, at the expense of artistic diversity. Painting styles more likely to sell within Bali’s tourism trade, for example, overshadow others, as students are encouraged to master these more mainstream genres. Rather than suggest this trend is right or wrong for Balinese art, the pieces featured in the exhibit reflect Bayak’s query, “Do we only want to make money with our art, or do we want to do something more?”

But provoking thought about artistic objectives is but one kind of change Bayak’s exhibit suggests. The artist also hopes to facilitate positive social changes, particularly in his hometown in Sukawati, Gianyar. Bayak will donate a portion of proceeds from pieces sold during the exhibition to help fund critical education initiatives for underfunded schools.

Bayak’s work has been featured in exhibitions for the National Gallery, Jakarta; Culture Center of France, Jakarta; Taman Budaya, Jogjakarta; Museum Negeri Bali, Denpasar; Gaya Fusion of Sense Gallery, Ubud; Klinik Seni Taxu Art Space, Denpasar; Nava Gallery, Denpasar; Taman Budaya Art Centre, Denpasar; and Indonesia Institute for the Arts, Denpasar. He held his first solo exhibition, “Art for Artist’s Sake,” in 2008 at Sika Gallery, Ubud. Special installations include the Indonesian Art Festival in Surabaya, International Earth Conference in Nusa Dua, and a recycling initiative, “Clean Up Bali,” at the Radisson Hotel in Kuta. Bayak is also lead guitarist for the well-known Bali-based indie band Geekssmile.

“Art as a Medium for Change” will open Saturday, 9 January 2010 at 7:00 pm and will run through 31 January 2010.

For more information, contact

Art Café

Jalan Sari Dewi 17 (opposite the Elysian)

Seminyak, Bali

0361 736 751; 081 139 6361

iloveartcafe@gmail.com