Mapping a Singapore childhood
Latiff Mohidin exhibition at National Gallery singapore features a new section dedicated to the Malaysian artist’s early days across the causeway.
ONE of the most endearing items on display at Latiff Mohidin: Pago Pago, which recently opened at the National Gallery Singapore, is a hand-drawn map of the Kampong Glam neighbourhood.
It is a detailed depiction of the Malaysian artist’s memories of the neighbourhood where he grew up during the 1950s, complete with annotations for his favourite restaurants, from a nasi rawon shop to outlets still extant today, such as the Islamic and Zam Zam restaurants.
The map, along with an entire section dedicated to the 78-year-old artist’s childhood in Singapore, is new to the show, which the gallery co-curated with the Centre Pompidou in 2018.
It was the Parisian museum’s first solo show dedicated to a South-east Asian artist. The Singapore show is on till Sept 27.
Dr Eugene Tan, director of the gallery, notes: “Latiff Mohidin is known as a Malaysian artist, but his work epitomises what modernism in South-east Asia is all about. We have expanded this exhibition to include very important and interesting aspects of his move to Singapore. This early part of his artistic development is very key.”
Latiff came to Singapore from Negri Sembilan, aged nine, with his mother to join his father. The latter ran a boarding house, catering to pilgrims on their haj journey, at 15 Java Road.
In the exhibition, early highlights like Reading The Quran (1959) and Joget (1960) are part of the artist’s personal collection. They show how Latiff Mohidin drew inspiration from the everyday.
Reading The Quran captures a scene from his childhood. Latiff ’s mother would take over the boarding house outside the haj peak season to teach the Quran to neighbourhood children as well as conduct sewing classes for women. Joget similarly captures a familiar neighbourhood scene in 1960s Kampong Glam.
Senior curator Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, 35, who co-curated Pago Pago with Centre Pompidou’s Catherine David, says within months of Latiff ’s arrival, his teachers at Sekolah Kota Raja (Kota Raja school) recognised his talents.
The young boy became something of a “national project”, says Mustafa, as Latiff was mentored by local luminaries including writer Abdul Gani Hamid, founder of Angkatan Pelukis Aneka Daya (Artists of Various Resources), as well as pioneer Nanyang artist Liu Kang.
Both Malay-and Chinese language newspapers wrote stories about this child prodigy, who used to sell his paintings outside Raffles Hotel to tourists. Latiff’s parents were not wealthy, but supported their son’s artistic endeavours.
In the attic of his father’s boarding house, Latiff had a small studio where he worked.
Mustafa adds that the sights and sounds of Kampong Glam inspired the artist: “Pak Latiff had this fantastic expression: he called it half craft, half art.
“This is how he remembers his childhood in Singapore. He would walk around the neighbourhood, observe people, scavenge objects and things to make art.”
The children’s activities for this show are inspired by these recollections.
Latiff, who is also a poet, was trained in Germany and travelled widely not just in the West, but also in South-east Asia.
His famous pagoda series, for which this exhibition was named, was an illustration of his cross-cultural influences.
Pago Pago, Mustafa explains, rose out of Latiff’s wordplay on “pagoden”, the German word for pagoda, and pagar pagar, an architectural feature of Minangkabau houses.
His mother is Minangkabau, a matrilineal society which also has the concept of “merantau”, of leaving home to travel, which Latiff interprets differently.
Mustafa adds: “He translates it as leaving the familiar behind.”
The peripatetic artist certainly had more than his fair share of the unfamiliar, beginning with his move to Singapore as a child, arriving in Germany in 1961 on a scholarship in time to see the Berlin Wall going up and observing the post-colonial, Cold War upheaval in South-east Asia.
Mustafa notes: “Pago Pago as a body of work comes together during the Vietnam War. The works are not about the war. The works are about an individual trying to make sense of this region.”