Adventure in the World of Painting, Pasifika Museum, Bali, Indonesia

Idbackpacker.com (Indonesia Backpacker) – Bali is not only known for having beautiful natural tourist destinations, but also has a few museums that store a lot of arts in it, one of them is Pasifika Museum.

Sundays is a day when many of tourism spot in Bali is always packed with a sea of people. But this one seems not too popular destination on the island. I only seen two security guards who were chatting in front of the gate when I looked for a place to park my motorbike. “Just directly parking your motorbike inside” one of the security guard told me. Okay, this place seemed too quiet for a destination that is located on the international island such as Bali.

Entering Pasifika Museum’s lobby, I was greeted by a nice receptionist. He was told me where is the place to buy the tickets, after I asked where is the tickets counter located. “Over there, just walk straight, you’ll find the ticket counter ” the receptionist told me.

The visit to Pasifika Museum is a first one for me, also for my sister. My sister really liked painting. She said came to Bali without visiting arts museum is not perfect. Well, she likes art, unlike me who always beach oriented and sunset oriented (i’m nature lover). Occasionally trying to enjoy different destinations such as Pasifika Museum , could be fun too. Or at least I can try learning to admire hundreds of paintings exhibited in this museum.

Ticket prices shown in Pasifika Museum admission is 70,000 rupiah’s per person (around 8 USD), but it turns out that we only pay 70,000 rupiahs for two people. Apparently the price was for foreigner, local people like us only pay half of it, Yay! Glad to be local :p. And now i discovered why Pasifika Museum look so empty. Ticket prices are too expensive, for local people like us. As I recall the price of museum admission in Jakarta is no more than 10,000 rupiahs (around 1 USD). In the end, i thought that the price isn’t too expensive after all. Why? This museum was still very well maintained, with hundreds of beautiful paintings to enjoy in it. 8 USD is still acceptable :)

Pasifika Museum also have this kind of thing, artifacts and unique stuff

Uniquely, Pasifika Museum is divided into several rooms to classify the origin and type of painting was made. I counted eleven in total, with each uniqueness.

Room I: Indonesian Artist

In this room exhibited dozens of paintings painted by Indonesian artist. And most of the paintings are from Bali. Well, you know yourself that Bali was the storehouse of art, it is no wonder.

Room II: Italian Artists in Indonesia

In this section exhibited paintings italian artist who stray into Bali (or they try finding inspiration in bali? :D ). So the majority of the objects are Balinese stuff, and painting that particularly caught my attention is the painting of Balinese dancers. Somehow they looks really beatiful :)

Room III: Dutch Artists in Indonesia

The room is almost the same as the room II, the difference is all of the painting made by dutch artist :)

Room IV: French Artists in Indonesia

Well, in this fourth room i found painting objects that are not from Bali, I saw a painting with Javanese dancer as objects. It seems that French artist not only try finding inspiration around Bali, but also stray into Java as well.

This Pasifika Museum’s collection is a little bit scary, it is Leak and friends :D

For some of the next room, it is room VI – XI i am not giving much attention, a little bit tired, also too busy to creating my own artwork (read: busy photographing :D). The list of the remaining room are as follows :

• Room VI: Temporary Exhibition
• Room VII: Artists on Indochina Peninsula: Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia
• Room VIII: Artists on Polynesia and Tahiti
• Room IX: Premier Art of Vanuatu and the Pacific Islands Paintings of Aloi Pilioko and Nicolai Michoutouchkine
• Room X: Tapa of Oceania and Pacific
• Room XI: Asia: Several artworks on Japan, China, Thailand,Malaysia, and Myanmar and the Philippines

Although the size of Pasifika Museum is not too large, Walking around in all of it’s arts room can make you tired. Luckily in the middle of this museum have a nice garden to rest. There is also a cafe there. But if you want resting in the museum garden, I recommended you bringing your own food and drink when visiting this Pasifika Museum.

Done walking around eleven art rooms of Pasifika Museum, we were stopped by the receptionist before exiting. It turns out we were told to sign the guest book and give some comments. Just as i thought before, from dozens of people who sign the guest book, most of them were foreigner. Most of comments are written in English. Well, not many local people like this kind of tourist destination. Then i just write “Excellent collection, nice one to visit again” Hehee!

Happy Adventure, Traveler!!
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