Museum guidebook leads tour of troves

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Sun, 06/18/2006 3:00 PM  |  Life

Ni Wayan Murni, Contributor, Ubud

I witnessed this book's strange birth. The quintessentially English publisher Richard Mann of Gateway Books stayed at my Villas a couple of years ago, researching and writing Bali Off the Beaten Track.

He came up to me at breakfast one morning and said, ""Murni, I've woken up with the idea of writing the first ever guidebook to all the museums of Bali. It's never been done before.""

Shortly afterwards, Richard met Nyoman Gunarsa, probably Bali's most famous living artist, who is also chairman of the Bali Museums Association. That evening, Richard caught up with me in my restaurant and reported his evident excitement: ""Murni, do you remember my museums guidebook idea? You won't believe it, but Nyoman Gunarsa supports it and wants me to publish it.""

It was a curious coincidence that both men, from opposite sides of the world, had the same wish at the same time.

That was a year ago. It has been a lot of work, but the book has now appeared as Treasures of Bali: A Guide to Museums in Bali, and it is glorious.

There are 21 museums in Bali; some are private, like the most popular one, the Neka Art Museum in Ubud, which is encyclopedic in its range of paintings, and others are government-run, like the little-known Museum Gedong Kirtya in Singaraja, which houses a collection of 6,753 traditional lontar palm leaf manuscripts.

The museums are located all over the island, although most are concentrated in the Ubud area -- which is not surprising, as Ubud is the cultural heart of Bali. The major museums have a coverage of 12 pages each in the book, and the smaller ones have one page each.

I am not aware of any guidebook that even mentions the wide range of museums that exist here on Bali, so Treasures of Bali is a great contribution.

There is a helpful list of details for each one: address, telephone, fax, email, website, opening hours, facilities and how to get there. A floor plan is provided for every featured museum, and there are useful maps at the end of the book showing how to find them.

On the cover is a beautiful painting from the Kerta Gosa Museum.

Richard has visited all of the museums several times and has composed a narrative describing their collections. Numerous stunning color photographs illustrate examples from the collections. In some cases, there are interviews with the museum owners that outline their various philosophies, perspectives and aims.

Of course, most -- if not all -- of the museums featured in Treasures of Bali do not sell their artwork.

With your appetites whetted by all this beauty and perhaps wanting to own a piece of Balinese culture yourself, it is great that the book also contains details and descriptions of Bali's leading galleries that sell antiques, paintings, textiles, sculptures, masks and other treasures.

I am also very proud that the book features my own shop in Ubud among them.

The reviewer is the owner of Murni's Warung, Murni's Warung Shop, Murni's Villas and Murni's Houses in Ubud, Bali. She has been a consultant on an upcoming title, Secrets of Bali, and can be contacted at murni@murnis.com.

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