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Many islands of the Malay archipelago boast colossal monuments and stone statues that can compete with the Easter Island giants; nonetheless, until today these fascinating artistic creations have remained the object of specialized studies and still largely unknown to the general public.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition beginning in Hanover, and then travelling around Europe, the volume is the first monograph entirely devoted to these singular monolithic sculptures from the islands of Nias, Sumba and Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago.
These monumental stone sculptures, for the most part dating from the 19th century, belong to cultures which, although deeply changed by their contact with the West, survive even now: they may have special magical functions, belong to colossal funerary monuments or even be connected with the complicated rituals allowing nobles to rise within the social hierarchy. Essays by Alain Viaro, Arlette Ziegler, Jean Paul Barbier and Janet Hoskins, analyse the different typologies, the meanings and the civic and religious functions of these evocative monumental sculptures through a choice of fifty works from the collections of the Barbier-Mueller Museum.