SINGAPORE, Jan 17 — Acclaimed Malaysian artist Latiff Mohidin is the subject of renowned Parisian art space Centre Pompidou’s first exhibition on South-east Asian art.
Pago Pago: Latiff Mohidin (1960-1969) opens on February 28 at its In-Focus Gallery.
The exhibition which is a collaboration between Centre Pompidou and National Gallery Singapore will feature over 70 artworks and archival materials including prose and poetry drawn from leading public and private collections in Singapore and Malaysia.
It is centred on Latiff’s formative years when he embarked upon his formal study of art at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in West Berlin from 1961 to 1964 followed by his travels across Europe and South-east Asia.
According to a press release, Pago Pago “is conceived by the curators Catherine David of Centre Pompidou and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa of National Gallery Singapore as a micro-history that situates one of South-east Asia’s leading modernists in dialogue with his Western peers”.
The exhibition also marks an extension of the ground-breaking project Reframing Modernism: Painting from South-east Asia, Europe and Beyond held at National Gallery Singapore in 2016.
Alongside the exhibition, a publication featuring critical writings related to Pago Pago is being edited by the exhibition’s curators.
A special public programme that surveys Latiff’s literary activities in the 1960s and 1970s featuring the writers Goenawan Mohammad, Idanna Pucci and Terence Ward will be held on February 28 at 7pm in Basement 1 Forum, Cinéma 2 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
