In its continuous effort to promote Southeast Asian art globally, the National Gallery Singapore is bringing Malaysian artist, and one of the region’s leading modernists, Latiff Mohidin’s series to Paris.
‘Pago Pago 2,’ oil on canvas, 85.5 x 58 cm (1965)
A part of the gallery’s first traveling exhibition, Parisians will be treated to Mohidin’s seminal “Pago Pago” which will be showcased at the famed Centre Pompidou’s In-Focus Gallery in France’s capital.
The exhibition entitled “Pago Pago: Latiff Mohidin (1960-1969)” will be Centre Pompidou’s first exhibition about Southeast Asian at its In-Focus Gallery. Opening on February 28, this collaboration marks an extension of the ground-breaking project Reframing Modernism: Painting from Southeast Asia, Europe and Beyond held at National Gallery Singapore in 2016.
“This new exhibition is a further testimony to our commitment to partner with important institutions around the world. Working with National Gallery Singapore for Reframing Modernism was truly a major event for us, and offered fresh perspectives about modern art from Southeast Asia, Europe and beyond,” Serge Lasvignes, president of the Centre Pompidou noted.
“Similarly, this new collaboration provides an invaluable opportunity for our audience to view major works from one of the most important Southeast Asian artists in today’s world, alongside the masters in our permanent galleries,” he continued.
Curators Catherine David of Centre Pompidou and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa of National Gallery Singapore conceived the exhibition as a micro-history that situates one of Southeast Asia’s leading modernists in dialogue with his Western peers.
‘Provoke,’ oil on board, 97.8 x 113.1 cm (1965)
Held in a space adjacent to the permanent galleries of the Pompidou, the exhibition is set in the 1960s when Mohidin embarked upon his formal study of art at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in West Berlin from 1961 to 1964.
Ranging from the emotional states of German Expressionism that Mohidin encountered during his formative years in Berlin to the ancestral imaginary of his rural upbringing in British Malaya, Pago Pago became a way of thinking manifested in a constellation of paintings, sculptures, prints poetry and writings.
In 1964, Mohidin returned to Southeast Asia from Europe with the hope of reengaging with a region that had been relegated to his subconsciousness. Amidst perceived communist expansionism in Vietnam and insurgencies that raged internally in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand, he remained committed towards initiating his own sense of the region.
‘Imago,’ oil on canvas, 86.5 x 69.5 cm (1968)
If the Berlin years were about the ability to translate between cultures, the years that followed presented a different proposition: to think of all matter as eternal cycles.
The poetry of the ‘Pago Pago’ years is in free verse form, while the paintings compositionally rely on thick outlines, controlled brush strokes, jagged and curvilinear edges.
“Latiff Mohidin evokes the consciousness that emerged through these travels with a phrase: ‘Pago Pago,’ a manner of thinking and working that complicated Western modernism through the initiation of dialogues with other avant-garde thinkers in Southeast Asia. This exhibition will explore all sorts of interlocking connections in highlighting what constitutes a contribution to 20th century modernism,” co-curator Shabbir Hussain Mustafa noted.
‘Pagoda 2,’ oil on canvas, 99.4 x 99.2 cm (1964)
The exhibition will feature over 70 artworks and archival materials drawn from leading public and private collections in Singapore and Malaysia.
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