ELEMENTAL ART OF THE INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO

Companion to the exhibition, Elemental Art of the Indonesian Archipelago Selections from the Collection of Mingei International Museum. 2005. 250 pages. 162 color illustrations by Lynton Gardiner with a commentary, Realm of the Ancestors. Ceremonial Masks of New Britain Island by Caroline Yacoe. Foreword by Martha W. Longenecker, Founding President / Director of Mingei International Museum.

FOREWORD
Martha W. Longenecker
Founding President and Director, Mingei International Museum

Dedicated to furthering understanding of the art of the people from all cultures, Mingei International's ever growing collection is world encompassing. It is the core of all aspects of the Museum's multi-cultural program — providing the opportunity for more and more people to actually see unsurpassed and timeless beauty of useful objects integrally related to life. Each art object is an un-fragmented expression of an individual's body, mind and spirit at a particular time and place.

Through seeing these objects, viewers may recognize similarities and distinctions of cultures and individuals and be inspired to express their own innate creativity.

The art of the people is an international visual language that knows no barrier of time, place or race. Regardless of their vast diversity all forms of art share a common vocabulary of three basic elements—line, color and value—the word for dark and light through which three dimensional forms are seen and represented in two dimensional designs. These elements are endlessly related in compositions from which nothing can be added or taken away without disturbing the art form's sense of completeness and wholeness.

The urge to create visual art is ever inspired by the intrinsic beauty of natural materials of the environment that provide the means through which people give tangible form to their deepest intuitions, knowledge and understanding. Each material challenges those who use it to break through material and technique with honest expressions of enduring value.

The nature of each organic or inorganic material — from stone, clay and glass to wood and plant fibers, and the chosen technique for using that material present possibilities and limitations in determining the object's completed form.

Vast, varied and abundant are the natural materials of the earth used by the many different indigenous cultures and immigrants to the Indonesian Archipelago—the largest group of islands in the world with lush, tropical lands extending on either side of the equator for a distance equal to that from London to Moscow.

Located in the Pacific and Indian Oceans of Southeast Asia, the archipelago lies north of Australia, south of China, Vietnam and Malaysia, east of Sri Lanka and India and west of New Guinea. Since Neolithic times these easily accessible islands have been populated by a great diversity of indigenous tribes and immigrants of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Judeo-Christian traditions. Long prior to these immigrations many of the islands were part of the mainland until the end of the glacier period when mountaintops became islands in the rising sea of melting ice.

In addition to the development over thousands of years of skillful and sensitive use of the materials of their environment, the peoples of Indonesia also have created art forms using imported materials—such as mass-produced Venetian glass trade beads that were shipped f throughout the world from the fifteenth century. It is fascinating to see how distinctly different are Indonesian beaded designs, incorporating their cultural symbols, from the designs of American Woodland Indians, who used identical Venetian glass trade beads for which they traded their furs...