Own-owned Balance Art was an exhibition in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam during the summer months of 1952.
The exhibition featured both large and small wood and stone sculptures, paintings on cotton, panels, masks and handles. It is not known how many objects were exhibited. The accompanying booklet - the only source of knowledge about this exhibition - with its six unnumbered text pages and seventeen black and white photos is neither a catalog nor an introduction to the art of Bali, but a somewhat impressionistic, personal appreciation of Bali and its artists. The author of the book, a museum conservator, emphasizes the anonymity of the traditional artist and the rise of the young, more self-conscious innovator. If we take into account the summary text and the few pictures, it is likely that both traditional and refurbished Balican art, such as the art that developed through foreign influences since the 1930s, was shown at this exhibition.
A summer exhibition with part of its own Indonesian collection from the depots is a sign of the lean years of the Tropenmuseum, which was lost by the post-war independence of Dutch-India, its old trusted identity as a Colonial Museum. There were plenty of 'colonial' (art) objects, but few other, high-quality collections that made the new Tropenmuseum a great non-Indian exhibition. Only with the purchases and donations of Carel Groenevelt and Paul Wirz came new, large collections. Catalog
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