Taro's Travels

It seems like Yogyakarta's Batik Sellers will do almost anything to get a sale. An old resident of the Kraton referred to them as the "Batik Mafia" (he'd worked as a tour guide, and said that back in the seventies there were far more Australian tourists than there are now). There are a few approaches used - "Government Art Gallery", "Special Exhibition", "Last day of ... ", etc. The idea of the 'Batik Mafia' is to take you one of Yogya's many galleries and collect a hefty commission of the inflated price of the Batik painting (they don't sell sarongs). Becak drivers will also try to steer you to them.

The afternoon I arrived, I went with a fellow guest at Nuri Losmen to the "Gallery of an Art School". Since then, of course, I've learned that the chances of it really being the gallery of an art school are fairly low. Once you see a number of galleries you see some of the same artists cropping up. At that gallery, the paintings were labelled with letters not prices, which facilitates multiple price lists. The other day as I walked from the Kraton's archaeological museum down to the Taman Sari (the water palace - though it's now dry), a man named Bandi latched onto me as a guide. After about 10 minutes of guiding (he did show me Taman Sari's former mosque which is entered via unmarked tunnel) I ended up at his "home" where there was a large number of batik paintings for sale... he originally claimed to have been going home from the museum but after leaving he headed straight back to the museum... ah well live and learn. There are also many shops and stalls selling Batik clothing.

They make Batik in Solo as well, but the sales tactics are a far less high pressure, and the Batik appears to be all for clothing (I don't recall seeing a Batik painting). Apparently the use of Batik for artwork purposes is only a few decades old.