By Jennifer Jett
Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, a world-renowned American collector and curator, traces her interest in textiles back to a childhood discovery: a hatbox full of ribbons collected by women in her family, starting from her great-great-grandmother, that she found in the attic of her house.
“I became very fascinated and loved to play with these ribbons,” she said.
“And somehow, I think having that opportunity to play with these beautiful ribbons as a child touched me in some way that I’ve just continued working with textiles for my entire life.”
When she got married, Kahlenberg’s grandmother gave her a quilt, embellished with these ribbons.
She still keeps the wedding present to this day.
“To me, it has a relationship to the passing of textiles from one generation to another, [like] in Indonesia and other places as well,” said Kahlenberg, who was in Jakarta this week to promote her new book, “Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles.”
She worked with fabrics in London and Washington, DC, before landing a job as a senior curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she organized the first major exhibition of Indonesian textiles in the United States.
In 1978, she founded the Textile Arts Gallery with her husband in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she is currently based.
Kahlenberg said building a collection of textiles or artwork required a certain push to “take a plunge.”
“The first plunge is the commitment. It’s saying, ‘Yes, this is something I want to spend my money on.’
It’s making a decision to buy something that you like and want to know more about,” she said.
“I think it either leads on to something more serious or you say, ‘Oops, I made a mistake,’ ” she added.
Kahlenberg bought her first textile more than 30 years ago in Basel, Switzerland, where she was studying Indonesian textiles at a museum.
“I was walking down the hill from the museum, and there was this shop with all sorts of old things — not necessarily just from Asia or Indonesia,” she said.
“I saw this piece in the window and I had just been looking at the museum textiles, so I knew that this was a really wonderful piece. It was expensive for me at that time, but I was so attracted to it, I said, ‘I have to have it.’ ”
Since then, Kahlenberg has amassed more than 350 woven pieces, mostly ceremonial costumes.
One early piece came to Kahlenberg by chance.
While attending a funeral in Toraja, South Sulawesi, she met a young man whose family wanted to sell her a balled-up piece of cloth caked with mud just as she was about to leave.
“This textile had obviously been kept somewhere and got dirtier and dirtier,” she said.
“Because I had very little time and it was in such bad shape, I knew that I couldn’t actually even start to open it because that could easily damage it.
"So I just bought it as is, and the people who were with me thought I was crazy.”
When Kahlenberg returned to Jakarta, she set about washing the cloth, despite protestations of the house staff.
She said it took several days before the fabric was completely cleaned and softened.
The piece, which was traded to Toraja from North Luwu’s Rongkong district, turned out to be a ceremonial headcloth, or mbesa tali tau batu , from the 16th or 17th century. The piece is pictured in the 408-page book, along with other rare finds.
Kahlenberg has written previous books on Indonesian textiles based on her countless trips to the country, as well as books on Native American textiles.
Her newest book, which Kahlenberg co-edited with Ruth Barnes, is epic in scope and took years to complete.
She and Barnes relied not only on their own expertise, but that of multiple industry experts who contributed essays on various regions and themes.
Kahlenberg and Barnes said they came up with the book to promote the viewing of Indonesian textiles from an art history perspective and to encourage further research on the subject.
“I wanted it to be a book that had lasting quality, had new information and that would be really wonderful on all levels, not just visual levels,” she said.
“But the information would be good and people could really learn from the book.”
As its title suggests, “Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles” includes descriptions of textiles that are 500 years old or more based on carbon dating.
At a symposium in 2003, Kahlenberg first suggested that some Indonesian textiles might be older than generally thought, even if the country’s hot and humid weather could contribute to the breakdown of fibers over time.
“Everybody always said there was nothing older than the 19th century. It’s too hot, too humid, it can’t last,” she said.
“Every textile that would go into an exhibition would say: ‘19th century?’ There was always a question mark.”
The evidence Kahlenberg and Barnes present in the book could completely change the way people think about Indonesian textiles.
Their approach is anthropological, studying how textiles are made today and how they were made in the recent past.
Kahlenberg said the fact that Indonesia had a long history of textile production meant scholars could think about the pieces in terms of art history.
“Now we can look back and say, ‘How does this relate to other artwork of the same time period in Indonesia?’ ” she said.
Southeast Asian textiles are similar in many ways because they have similar roots, Kahlenberg said, but Indonesian textiles share several unique traits.
These include their use of gold, a weaving technique known as the drawn line, and the lack of a signature that could be used to identify the weaver.
Indonesian textiles also tend to use the same four colors: red, brown, indigo blue and white.
Unlike brightly colored textiles in other countries, which people immediately take a liking to, Kahlenberg said Indonesian fabrics were not as popular because of their drab hue.
“Indonesian textiles aren’t that accessible to a lot of people because they’re duller,” she said.
However, the narrow color palette doesn’t seem to limit weavers’ creativity.
“It is astonishing what can be done with red, blue and white by Indonesian weavers and dyers,” Kahlenberg writes in the book.
In Bali, for example, vibrant red and gold silk textiles make the wearer stand out against the lush landscape so as to better attract the attention and assistance of the gods.
Kahlenberg said she wanted to ensure the continuation of textile arts, not just as souvenirs for tourists but as a great Indonesian art form.
“Collecting textiles has enriched my life, particularly in Indonesia, because it has given me the opportunity to learn about a new culture,” she said.
For those interested in starting their own collection, Kahlenberg said the trick was to distinguish the artistic from the ordinary, which required patience and a good eye.
Great textiles, she said, capture our attention and evoke emotions.
“I think the first step is looking as much as possible and learning as much as possible, and then making a commitment, buying something and putting yourself on the line,” she said.
Kahlenberg said she was on the hunt for her next great find, scouring textiles everywhere from flea markets on Jalan Surabaya in Jakarta to shops overseas.
“You never know,” she said.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com
