"Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles:
Selections from the Mary Hunt Kahlenberg Collection"

with
Sandra Sardjono
Assistant Curator of Costume and Textiles, LACMA

         Please join Sandra Sardjono, Assistant Curator of Costume and Textiles, for an in-depth look at the current exhibition Five Centuries of Indonesian Textiles: Selections from the Mary Hunt Kahlenberg Collection. Indonesia’s rich and diverse textile traditions are highlighted in this exhibition featuring forty-six pieces dating from fifteenth through twentieth centuries.  The cultural origins and influences of the varied ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups inhabiting the many islands of Indonesia are seen in a dazzling array of abstract, figurative, and geometric design motifs produced by such techniques as wax-resist dyeing (batik), warp- to weft-resist dyeing (ikat), beading, and gold patterning.  An introductory lecture about the historical aspects of these artistic expressions will be followed by a private gallery tour.

Sandra Sardjono graduated from New York University with Masters degrees in art history and conservation. From 2001- 2006 she worked as a textile conservator at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution in New York. She moved to Los Angeles to assume her current position as Assistant Curator of Costume and Textiles in September 2006. Her research interests range from technical structure of velvets from Italy to the Islamic world, and to Indian trade cloths and Indonesian textiles. In the fall of 2009, she will begin a PhD program in the History of South and Southeast Asian Art at UC Berkeley with a proposed dissertation on early Indonesian textile and their relationship to India. TMA/SC is very excited for Sandra, but will be extremely sorry to lose her at LACMA, as she has been such a good friend of our rug & textile society.