GELAR PAMERAN KERIS NASIONAL 2012 - short review

[satsujinken]

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 ...

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)

[satsujinken]

winner of keris making competition
by M. Jamil from Sumenep

Dhapur : Jangkung
Pamor : Lar Gangsir Agal
luk : 3

[satsujinken]

2nd and 3rd places

[satsujinken]

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

[satsujinken]

back to collector's item

Dhapur : Sempana
Pamor : pulo tirto
meteorite pamor

[satsujinken]

pics pics and pics ...

[David]

Originally Posted by satsujinken

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

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

[Jean]

Originally Posted by David

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

I agree with David that the organizers were wise and honest by not specifying the tangguh of these krisses . 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

[A. G. Maisey]

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.

[Battara]

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

[satsujinken]

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

[satsujinken]

Originally Posted by Jean

I agree with David that the organizers were wise and honest by not specifying the tangguh of these krisses . 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

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

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

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.

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 ...

Originally Posted by David

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

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

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

[A. G. Maisey]

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.

[satsujinken]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

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

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

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