Affandi Museum

This museum or gallery displays so many works of the late Affandi, one of the most prominent Indonesian artists, mostly known for his expressive abstract paintings.

It’s located on Laksda Adi Sucipto street. Gallery 1 only displays Affandi’s works, while Gallery 2 displays creation of other artists, and there’s also a Gallery 3 which I failed to peek in to. Across Gallery 1, there’s a café where you could hang out for a sip of coffee or two, or the Indonesians’ most favorite bottled drink called Teh Botol Sosro. Next to the café, stood a caravan-like bamboo building that now functions as mushalla, a prayer room for Moslems.

It was initially built by Affandi for his private room with his first wife who passed away before he did.

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Ullen Sentalu Museum

It is a Javanese art and cultural museum. They’ve got a lot of pictures of the Javanese royals, paintings and crafts with historical themes (some are considered as mystical), old musical instruments like gamelan, and a collection of sacred handmade batik, which the princesses had to fast for days before making them. 

The architecture of the museum is awesome, structured with stonewalls and the building is labyrinth-like. The main building is built on a lower level, it’s like you’re going into a cave. There’s also stairs and narrow pathways with fences connecting the buildings. Too bad they don’t allow visitors to take pictures at all in the museum.

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