Mimpi Bali – Photos of Bali 1886-1952

(6/14/2008)

Maurizio Rosenberg Colorni, a life-long connoisseur of fine photography has undertaken a monumental effort to collect photos of Bali from the years 1886 – 1952 and present them at a single exhibition running daily from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. through July 12, 2008, at the Arti Foundation, Art Center on Jalan Nusa Indah in Denpasar.

The exhibition includes many images taken by unknown photographers chosen for their ability to provide historical testimony to the Island's past. The images range from professional portraits to snapshots – each with a story to tell of Bali's rich and diversified past.

Emblematic of this are the photographs of a young Balinese man who worked as a room boy at the Bali Hotel in the late 1930s who used his extra money to commission pictures of his friends that he dressed in stylish Indo-European attire, sometimes against ersatz backdrops of European buildings. The photographic depictions of the hotel room boy were significantly different from what other foreigners who were trying to catch of the "intrinsic Bali."

The photographs exhibited were unearthed from museums, storerooms, archives, private collections, forgotten photo albums and shoeboxes by Maurizio Rosenberg Colorni whose wishes to bring back to Bali's past as captured through the lenses of the photographers.