GELAR PAMERAN KERIS NASIONAL 2012 - short review
 

Well ...

the exhibition lasted for three days, from 20/11/2012 to 23/11/2012 in Museum Mpu Tantular, near my home in Sidoarjo

it is said to exhibit more than 600 pieces of tosan aji, as well as 50 blades, which are submitted to the Keris Making competition held in the same museum at 8th May 2012 - Sept 2012.

Blades entered the exhibition comes from 11 state museum, member of Mitra Praja Utama, representatives from 38 cities in Java, Museum Keris in TMII, Museum keris in Purworejo, and Keris's lover communities

It is sad to see that not many people wanted to see keris anymore ... I came this morning and already half of the display has been dismantled ... only about a third is remaining and can be photographed

basically the exhibition consists of 3 venue

- the collector's item venue
- the result from Keris Making Competition
- shops ... (bursa keris)

all blades are displayed in glass case with adequate lighting ... too bad I did not bring any magnifying glass with me ... it will surely be nice to see details of pamor and garap on each keris

the odd thing is they placed a label on each keris, identifying the dhapur, luks, materials used an pamor ... but no tangguh

armed only with phone camera, I took several dozens of pictures ... mostly with what left of the exhibition, several beautiful keris, details of pamor and few pictures of bursa keris - so pardon the image quality

I also took several pics as wallpapers ... :D

anyhow, can someone tell me how to upload 30 - 50 images easily ?
now still resizing the images, so it will be easy to look at ... I took more than 150 pics and this forum only allowed 5 pics in each post

anyone interested in larger quality image, just ask ... will post it or email it in its original size (no too good quality, though) :D

winner of keris making competition
by M. Jamil from Sumenep

Dhapur : Jangkung
Pamor : Lar Gangsir Agal
luk : 3

2nd and 3rd places

marketplace !! hahahaa ...

too bad I cannot take a lot of pics, as it is impolite to take pics of people's goods for sale without making any purchase :D

back to collector's item

Dhapur : Sempana
Pamor : pulo tirto
meteorite pamor

pics pics and pics ...

more pics

and still about 80 - 90 left ...
shall I continue ??

last one for today :D

Sweet !
I don't know about anyone else here, but I like looking at nice kerises . :)

I repeat the SWEET! :)
...and that i also like to look... :shrug: :)

Many thanks for posting. It is really a nice and appreciated gift !

Crazy beautiful stuff!

Beautiful pieces, please show us more! :)

glad to see the enthusiasm ... thank you for the appreciation

here's some more

pic 1 - 2
Keris Singo Barong Kilin Kinatah
pamor wos wutah
keris lurus


pic 3 - 4
Keris sardula mangsah kinatah
Pamor wos wutah
luk 7

pic 5 - 6

keris Naga Gajah Lar kinatah
pamor : miji timun
luk : 13

Keris Wulan Tumanggal Kinatah
pamor : tumpal keli
keris lurus (no luks)

1 - 2 - 3

keris jalak tilam upih kinatah lung-lungan kamarogan
pamor : wos wutah
keris lurus


4 - 5
keris naga raja lar
forgot to add notes on luks and pamor ... sorry :D
15 luks if I'm not mistaken
and this one is large ... blade length (not including deder) is around 70 cm

Keris luk 13
Nogo rojo kinatah
pamor : unknown

keris luk 15
Turonggo Dipo Kinatah
If I'm not mistaken, this one made as tribute to Pangeran Diponegoro, a hero against Dutch Occupation
Pamor : wos wutah

1st keris
tilam upih
pamor : tambal wengkon meteorite


interesting pamor on this one
dhapur brojowellah
anyone know about the pamor ??

keris jalak ngore
pamor wengkon ?? looked like buntel mayit to me
weird looking keris ...



Keris tilam sari pamengkang jagad
pamor satriya pinayungan meteorite


Keris lurus
dhapur sineba
pamor : mrutu sewu meteorite

still plenty of pics ... hope I can add more today
if not, maybe tomorrow :D
hope y'all like it

additional :D

Kolo Mino keris, with 25 luks
pamor wos wutah


the other one is old bethok keris

keris luk 15 dhapur setan kober (rare dhapur)
with ilining warih pamor

the other should be

Keris dhapur Naga Gajah pamor ganggang kanyut

last one for today

old bethok pandito kembar keris (keris sajen ?)

who can tell me what pamor on this keris ??? :D :D :D

Nice to see such beautiful work. It could be that they did not both with tangguh since so many of these are contemporary creations... :shrug:

I agree with David that the organizers were wise and honest by not specifying the tangguh of these krisses :D . For instance the kris bethok putut kembar shown on the last pictures is not old IMO (sharp edges, no wear, priests carving in modern style, new pamor creation, hilt style, etc). But I also agree that many pieces are beautiful and nicely made although too precious for my taste :)
Regards

When a tangguh is nominated for something, it is very often an opinion, sometimes just about everybody will agree with the opinion, other times nobody except the person who gave the tangguh will ever have heard of it.

Some people interpret tangguh as "style", other people interpret it as "period", or "era".

I feel that possibly the organisers of this exhibition were wise to avoid offering information on tangguh. At other exhibitions I have seen very recent keris identified as "Mataram" and Majapahit" & etc.

Some of these pamor patterns are nice and tight - I like that!

there are couple more ... and several random pics ...
do you guys want to see it ? :D

I guess so, and other stereotype, which stated that kamardikan keris is bad and lack supernatural powers, thus considered as junk blades ...

whilst I consider keris as art object and deserved to be preserved for future generations


I myself never bother about tangguh as I found it too confusing and even an expert here can and will still make mistakes in terms of tangguh ...

I just enjoy the blade ... :D

yeah, agree with that ... many are new keris, and several are oversized ones :D

too bad that representatives from Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi and Sumatra already dismantling their exhibit during my visit ...

I don't think that tangguh itself is so confusing, once we understand the indicators and the parameters that must be applied, as well as the founding logic of tangguh, it is not at all confusing, but it is very true that people are often confused by some of the opinions offered.

As I have commented previously, more than once, at the present time everybody wants to stick a tangguh on everything, and this is not at all what the system was originally designed to do.

I have seen many-many times, what we called "experts" failed to date already known old-keris

on one occasion, one "expert" from Malang is being shown 5 betok keris and he is told in the beginning of the "game" that from 5 keris presented, 2 are original and 3 are fake ... and he failed to point the original one.

I myself have already asked and shared opinions with many person and still thinks that tangguh is somewhat very difficult to discern, a person must have broad knowledge of keris type and characteristics of keris from many areas, possess enough knowledge on metallurgy, have personally handled many many many blades by himself and have direct experience from known master/s to enable himself to provide "non binding" recommendation on how old the blade is

and even then he can still made mistakes :D

so I came to a conclusion that to have more than 80% of success rate on determining the tangguh, we need to dedicate our lives on this subject :D

lastly, can we use radio carbon dating to date a keris ?? I have read several papers that this method can be used to determine age of carbon steel materials down to acceptable level of accuracy

additional pics

Keris dhapur sapokal
pamor : jala rante

Keris Bethok Sepang
(said to be old, but I doubt it :D)


Keris luk 7 Sempana Kinjeng
pamor : wulung (no pamor)

another interesting pamor

keris luk 9 Sempana
pamor : rambut daradah

miscellaneous pics

miscellaneous pics again

nice pamor

more pics ... sorry if some photos are doubled

last one I think :D

well I believe that's all I managed to capture using my phone-cam

I hope you all enjoyed the show as much as I do :D

and if there's another exhibition nearby, I will surely be glad to document and shared with all of you

thank you, for the appreciation