Patiwangi, the death of fragrance

2021 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

8:57 minutes

Leyla Stevens


Leyla Stevens’s two-channel video Patiwangi, the death of fragrance is an immersive video installation that addresses erased histories. In the left channel, set in a fine museum storage facility, art conservators unfurl and inspect modernist Balinese paintings, prints, and sculptures. In the right channel, Javanese-Australian dancers, Ade Suharto and Melanie Lane, echo each other’s movements. While the conservators’ gloved hands communicate the preciousness of the artworks, the dancers’ bodies negotiate the space of the studio; their hands maneuver and manipulate each others’ bodies, while their focused eyes slice through the air. Invoking artistic ancestors on both sides of the screen, the work’s storytelling power is located in its body language. The pair of dancers use ritual movements and gestures to evoke an embodied history of Balinese cultural practice. Their actions signal a legacy of women artists in the province’s modern art history—which is absent or often misrepresented in dominant depictions and accounts. In this work, Stevens crafts a compelling counter-narrative that locates herself in a lineage of invisible, creative women. The bodily expressions of the dancers are evidence of the alternate history that Stevens represents and documents. It is time embodied and recursive; it’s the past, present, and future of Balinese and diasporic women, compellingly synthesised into a sequence of gestures.


Leyla Stevens’s research-oriented practice engages with notions of gesture, ritual, spatiality, and transculturation through moving image and photography. Drawing upon her experience as an Australian-Balinese artist, Stevens uses a hybrid form of representation that oscillates between documentary and speculative fiction to recover and restore alternative histories previously buried or made invisible by dominant narratives. Combining documentary strategies with experimental imagery that emphasizes the body and movement, Stevens installations raise questions about her own Indonesian heritage by exploring how seemingly disparate methods of image making traverse cultural identity and the archive. Stevens has come to prominence through such immersive multi-channel video installations, including her prize-winning work Kidung/Lament (2021); an exploration of political violence in Bali, and its manifestations in contemporary social life.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

Five-Hundred Twenty-Four
© » KADIST

Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis

2022

Five Hundred Twenty-Four, a single-channel video installation by Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis, features singers from over twenty Cleveland-area choirs counting numbers in an iterative process: one person sings “one”, then two people sing “two”, and so forth, to 524...

Royal Velázquez Portrait Expected to Shatter Auction Records
© » OBSERVER

Royal Velázquez Portrait Expected to Shatter Auction Records | Observer A portrait of a Spanish queen painted by Diego Velázquez, the 17th-century artist celebrated for his depictions of Spain’s royal family, is expected to shatter his auction record when it goes up for sale early next year...

Leading art collectors put pressure on Balai Seni Visual Negara
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Leading art collectors put pressure on Balai Seni Visual Negara | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles February 15, 2020 by Kathy Rowland In a first for Malaysian art history, a Collectors’ Petition signed by 55 private art collectors have warned Balai Seni Visual Negara that they will no longer be lending works from their collection to Balai in future unless Balai reinstates pieces removed from Ahmad Fuad Osman’s exhibition immediately ...

CIAS Blends Sensibilities of Tattooing, Ancient Artists in His Paintings
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

Carlos Mendes, who works under the name CIAS, is a painter and tattoo artist with a penchant toward ancient art history...

Robbie Augspurger
© » UNRATED

Robbie Augspurger — UNRTD™ Robbie Augspurger Photographer Robbie Augspurger's retro portrait style is far for limited, looking at his work it is apparent that his creative undertaking is hilarious and brilliant, down to the very last impeccable detail...

Valuable Paintings Found in Unusual Places
© » ART & OBJECT

Valuable Paintings Found in Unusual Places | Art & Object Skip to main content Subscribe to our free e-letter! Webform Your Email Address Role Art Collector/Enthusiast Artist Art World Professional Academic Country USA Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Caribbean Netherlands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Ceuta & Melilla Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo - Brazzaville Congo - Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard & McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao SAR China Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Outlying Oceania Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St...

Tell me everything you saw, and what you think it means
© » KADIST

Sin Wai Kin

2018

The video Tell me everything you saw, and what you think it means by Sin Wai Kin is from a performance series titled A View from Elsewhere...

They Were Here
© » KADIST

Elisheva Biernoff

2009

In her recent work, Biernoff is interested in investigating fictions and fantasies embedded in the remnants of consumer culture (for example magazines) or through ephemera such as postcards and old photographs...

American Artist: Shaper of God at REDCAT
© » KADIST

American Artist: Shaper of God at REDCAT Featuring newly commissioned work in video, installation, sculpture, and drawing, Shaper of God takes inspiration from science fiction author Octavia E...

In The Studio With Jakub Kubica: Between Minimalist Design And Sci-Fi Archeology
© » IGNANT

In The Studio With Jakub Kubica: Between Minimalist Design And Sci-Fi Archeology - IGNANT Name Jakub Kubica Images Clemens Poloczek Words Marie-Louise Schmidlin With a portfolio that spans minimalist furniture, functional design objects, and futuristic artworks, the practice of Jakub Kubica meets at the intersection of various disciplines...

CAMARADERIE
© » KADIST

Mahmoud Khaled

2009

CAMARADERIE is a precursor to and a blueprint for Mahmoud Khaled’s later forays into queer aesthetics and modes of visual representation...

Untitled (Wheelchair drawing)
© » KADIST

Edgar Arceneaux

2006

Untitled (Wheelchair Drawing) is a ten-foot photo transfer of the image of a wheelchair with burning embers in its seat...

Nancy Buirski, Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 78
© » NYTIMES LENS

Nancy Buirski, Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 78 - The New York Times Movies | Nancy Buirski, Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 78 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/movies/nancy-buirski-dead.html Share full article Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Nancy Buirski, an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose eye was honed as a still photographer and picture editor, died on Wednesday at her home in Manhattan...

10 Stunning Prehistoric Sculptures from The Met's Collection
© » ART & OBJECT

10 Stunning Prehistoric Sculptures from The Met's Collection | Art & Object Skip to main content Subscribe to our free e-letter! Webform Your Email Address Role Art Collector/Enthusiast Artist Art World Professional Academic Country USA Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Caribbean Netherlands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Ceuta & Melilla Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo - Brazzaville Congo - Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard & McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao SAR China Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Outlying Oceania Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St...

How Gregory Halpern Found His Voice in Buffalo
© » APERTURE

Gregory Halpern

The photographer speaks with his brother, the journalist Jake Halpern, about growing up in a city of surreal sights and memorable characters....

Jason Dodge
© » KADIST

Jason Dodge talks about his work “Above the weather” (2007)...

Pay and Display
© » KADIST

Oliver Beer

2011

Pay and Display is a film of a performance, for which there was no audience, staged in the multistory Pershore Street car park in Birmingham, a brutalist building, arguably one of the most inhospitable environments for a musical performance...

Cindy Sherman stars in Marc Jacobs campaign.
© » ARTSY

Cindy Sherman stars in Marc Jacobs campaign...

Podcast 65: M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival (Part 1)
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Podcast 65: M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival (Part 1) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Photo: Crispian Chan September 12, 2019 Duration: 20 min Podcast host Chan Sze-Wei and guest Melissa Quek discuss works they saw at the recent M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival, specifically at the platforms DiverCity, Off Stage and M1 Open Stage...

Interview with Xaviera Simmons
© » KADIST

New York-based artist Xaviera Simmons and AFRO Charities executive director Savannah Wood introduce Nectar , on view at KADIST Paris from May 6th to July 24th 2022...