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“This is a story from Bali that deserves to be told in a collective manner. Ninety-nine years ago, the Moscow-born German painter Walter Spies visited the tropical island in the southern hemisphere of Indonesia for the first time, and shortly afterwards it became his new home until he tragically died during the Japanese occupation in 1942 at the age of 47.

Although Spies was friends with artists such as Otto Dix and Oskar Kokoschka, had held exhibitions in Berlin and Amsterdam, for example, was involved in the world’s first horror film, Nosferatu, and had a relationship with Friedrich Murnau, he has been virtually forgotten in Western art history.

In Bali, however, many people still remember him today. Artists take his style of magical realism as a model, dancers and choreographers are aware of Spies’ role in the development of perhaps the most popular local dance, the kecak, and collectors as well as gallery owners honour his Pita Maha initiative, the founding of an independent artists’ cooperative to curb the commercial influence of Western art dealers in the 1930s and 1940s. When a work by Walter Spies comes onto the market – as one did recently, at an auction in Singapore – it can fetch seven-digit prices.

So even well into the 21st century, there are artists whose works can be both valuable and largely unknown. It can be assumed that Spies would feature in German museums and collections today had he not left Europe for good at the age of 28.

If you compare the works from the period before his arrival on Bali with the later ones, you would hardly realise that they were by the same artist. As he usually sold his works as soon as they were finished, there are no public collections. Spies was quite well known during his lifetime. Charlie Chaplin visited him in the tropics, as did Barbara Hutton, the richest woman in America at the time. The writer Vicky Baum lived with him, and the anthropologist Margaret Mead was able to pursue her studies on the island with her husband Gregory Bateson thanks to Spies’ help.

It may therefore come as no surprise that Spies was also involved in the first tourism projects on Bali in the 1920s and 1930s. As later, in many parts of the world, local cultural heritage was presented as an attraction to travellers from distant lands. During the global economic crisis, when the colonies of the Dutch East Indies also ran into difficulties, tourism was discovered as a new source of income. Today, Bali is both a beneficiary and a victim of global mass tourism.

In this context, Villa Iseh, a small hotel in the mountains at the foot of the sacred Gunung Agung volcano, can be seen as a symbolic place. In the late 1930s, Spies built himself this small cabin in this then almost inaccessible area so that he could paint undisturbed.

After his tragic death, the house was taken over by his painter friend Theo Meier, who came from Basel and was married to a Balinese woman. Meier expanded the house and lived there for the next few decades.

It was later taken over by a local family who rented it out to wealthy visitors, including Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Roman Polanski and Emmanuelle Seigner, as well as David Bowie and his wife Iman.

The hotel, as it is now referred to – a symbol of modern society – is an ambiguous metaphor for the history of Bali over the past one hundred years.

But the story can only be told because the people on the island have remembered it. It is a shared cultural heritage between them and us; of interest is that it has been carefully preserved by the Balinese – almost forgotten in the West.

When Spies came to Bali, the social life of the locals was completely the product of their culture. Culture and life were basically one and the same. Everyone was an artist. Spies then met extraordinary talents such as the artist I Gusti Nyoman Lempad and the dancer and choreographer Wayan Limbak. Together with them and many others, Spies pursued the modernisation of Balinese art and realised simultaneously that it must be protected from the furore of Western imperialism.

When I started researching Spies on Bali some six years ago, I quickly realised that I needed the help of local artists to understand and tell the story. Thanks to the advice and support of Horst Jordt in Germany, I first came into contact with Agung Rai, the chairperson of the Balinese Walter Spies Society, and through him with a network of people in the cultural sector in Ubud and other places on Bali. I got to know I Wayan Dibia, one of the last students of Limbak, who is considered one of the most important cultural researchers, dancers and choreographers on Bali and who created a mask dance about Walter Spies ten years ago. In this piece, Balinese dance the characters of Spies, Chaplin and Margaret Mead: Westerners, their physical presence, their gestural communication, as seen through the lens of Balinese.

Even younger artists on Bali are familiar with the story of Walter Spies. Together with the ethnographer and dancer Dewa Ayu Eka Putri, the musician Tutangkas Hranmayena Putu, the artists Made Bayak and Gus Dark as well as Agung Rai and I Wayan Dibia, we have attempted over the past few years to explore this story and its impact on Balinese society today. In doing so, we have discovered both the bright and dark sides of a shared cultural heritage, characterised as much by a unique and dynamically evolving indigenous culture as by mass tourism, pollution and urbanisation.

This collaboration has resulted in both the exhibition and a docufiction of the same name. The exhibition scenography is reminiscent of Villa Iseh, the aforementioned place to which Spies, Yoko Ono and David Bowie all retreated. Gus Dark’s family comes from Sidemen, the next-closest town. His father directed the first school in Iseh and was in contact with the apparently fun-loving Swiss painter Meier. Furthermore, Theo Meier was repeatedly visited in Iseh by his fellow compatriots, particularly those from Basel. It is no coincidence that the Museum der Kulturen Basel houses one of the most extensive collections of Balinese art.

The exhibition works by Made Bayak and Gus Dark address central themes of Balinese society today: the sell-out of the country, the resilience of its own spiritual culture in the face of the global consumer society, the threatened landscape and the genocide of 1965 / 66. These works are embedded in a cinematic re-enactment we created together of the story of Walter Spies on Bali.”

Michael Schindhelm

“I remember the first time Michael came to my studio in Guwang, initially it was just a plan to make a semi-documentary film about the ghost of the artist Walter Spies whose story today comes again to visit the place and contemporary Balinese artists. As a Balinese artist today I will certainly show my best works and talk critically about Bali, not the way it used to be/romanticised. What makes it special is that the presentation of my ideas about the situation of Bali today with its various problems and the mass tourism industry as the main motor is quite interesting. Of course, it is very different from 100 years ago when foreign artists first came to Bali and worked or collaborated with Balinese artists at that time. The terms east and west today are very different, today we collaborate in the same position, that's what makes me challenged in this exhibition.

Walter Spies and his paintings were first introduced to me from a booklet about tourism that I got at my father's small art shop in the Gunung Kawi Tampaksiring Temple area, my father and mother sell souvenirs typical of Tampaksiring village, then there were his paintings also in a music video in the 80s from singer Igor Tamerlan (a very futuristic musician) who lived and worked in Bali, the song title was Bali Vanili, in the music video there were fragments of Walter Spies' paintings that were animated so that the figure of the farmer carrying the cow in the painting was alive/moving. Later, after receiving art education, the knowledge or information about this German-born painter increased, how he collaborated in making the kecak dance, how he influenced the art style in Ubud and its surroundings with the influence of western art at that time until finally there was news about the deviant sexual behaviour of this artist until he got the nickname Mr Bondol.

They must know and respect the laws in Indonesia, we must also respect each other as human beings, it is true that our island is a tourist spot but not to be over-exploited, there are still communities who live to carry out traditions and rituals that are increasingly difficult to feel. They must know that productive land in Bali is running out, water crisis is on the horizon, social and environmental problems are getting out of control. So stop adding to our problems, stop damaging the motorbikes you rent, stop illegal climbing into sacred places in Bali, stop beating women, drivers and employees where you stay, stop having sex in public, stop producing drugs and feeding them to our youth, stop working illegally in Bali.

Art itself is life, in Bali art before becoming a profession was an offering and became part of every life movement, step and ritual in Bali. Today I think art is a ‘weapon’ to dissect various problems that are happening in Bali or in the global realm that are connected to one another, able to talk about many things and hopefully become a solution to what is happening.”

Made Bayak

“I see it as a journey of what happened in the past, shaping our future. As Michael contacted me and explained what ″ROOTS″ is all about, I was a bit shocked.

The story about an artist from abroad that miles away from his hometown finally surrenders to the exotic surroundings and nature of this village in the middle of nowhere in an era when the light source came from tiny kerosene lanterns is the story that has shaped me as an artist. Collaborating with Michael has me re-tracing my great-grandpa’s journey, discovering how art can change a small remote village to become part of the mass tourism industry.

Seeing Walter Spies' artworks at an early age filled me with excitement and raised many questions in my mind about how these masterpieces were created, the background of the painter, and more. Growing up with my grandfather's stories about the artist who lived in our village sparked my curiosity to dig deeper into this history. Walter Spies gave our village a significant role in art history, and the paintings from here and the surrounding area still retain that same vibe today.

However, how long can this last? Are we strong enough to preserve this historical place (Walter Spies’ studio) as a lasting monument, or will we eventually surrender, overwhelmed by the waves of the tourism industry? Who knows?

Bali is now becoming an international melting pot. I think people should know that the island is not no man’s land; there’s a rich culture that has evolved over time through the role played by kingdoms and traders from the East. For centuries the Balinese have had their own way of life that people need to respect.

I was born and raised in an environment where art is a daily activity. This has made Balinese culture an integral part of my work, as it grows and thrives within the community, shaped by the social life of the people themselves. Similarly, my artworks are born from and breathe with the life around them. This connection gives my art purpose, serving as a milestone in my life.

In my view, Balinese culture is as dynamic as its people. It is unbounded and evolves with the times. Traditional art can be harmoniously integrated with modern art, just as traditional painting can be enhanced with technological advances. As long as we respect the three art spaces set by our ancestors—sacred, semi-sacred, and profane/entertainment—I believe Balinese culture, with its simple rhythms, will always be my source of inspiration.”

Gus Dark

Rebecca Eigen
Exhibitions & Public Program

Christiane Pohl
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Raphael Suter
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