Bali The Imaginary Museum

Download or read book Bali, the Imaginary Museum written by Michael Hitchcock and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photography has long been associated with travel in Bali, and the images favoured by the tourism industry were often those that dwelt with the exotic and more extreme aspects of the indigenous culture. Bali was seen as the meeting-place of the South Seas and the mysterious Orient, an islandof bare breasts, exotic dancers, and malevolent witches. The establishment of colonial rule saw the birth of Bali as a romantic holiday destination. Walter Spies, the German artist who lived on the island in the inter-war years, challenged the more lurid aspects of Bali's image, and together withBritish writer and dance critic Beryl de Zoete helped to transform Bali's image in the eyes of the West. Their classic Dance and Drama in Bali (1938) has never been surpassed.In this book, the authors present many hitherto unpublished photographs (now in the Horniman Museum Library) dealing with rural life in Bali, the dance-drama traditions of the island, as well as a series showing Spies and de Zoete conducting research in Bali. The photographs, which are accompaniedby an informed text, are not only of aesthetic interest, but also reveal much about the work of Spies and de Zoete and their relationship with Bali.