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ISSN 1460-8537 By Olivia Sand


Although various regions in Asia and the Islamic World have created increasing interest in their contemporary art scene (China, India, Japan, Korea, Iran, to name just a few), other countries have so far been rather neglected. However, thanks to a collaboration between the National Gallery in Singapore and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, a solo exhibition of Malaysia’s seminal artist, Latiff Mohidin, was recently featured at several institutional venues, including one in Europe – in France. Born in 1941 in Malaysia, Latiff Mohidin began drawing and painting as a child and later going abroad on various scholarships and residencies to further develop his technique and witness at first-hand the art scene in Europe and the United States. As a result, he has conceived over the years a very personal language, relying frequently on subject matter reminiscent of his native Malaysia often directly inspired by his surroundings once back home. Beyond painting, Latiff Mohidin is also a recognised poet and he has unquestionably served as a role model for many young artists in Southeast Asia, where he has travelled extensively throughout his career. On the occasion of his touring retrospective Pago Pago, Latiff Mohidin spoke with the Asian Art Newspaper about his journey in the art world.


NEWS IN BRIEF


18 November 2018. Tis first-ever international ceramics event presents 37 Indian and 13 international artist projects, 10 collaborations, 12 speakers, a symposium, film screenings and workshops for adults and children. Breaking Ground has developed and grown under the advice and experience of Peter Nagy (Director, Nature Morte gallery), Ray Meeker (Co-Founder, Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry,) and Pooja Sood (Director General, Jawahar Kala Kendra). Te triennale is setting the ground for a continuing three-year cycle of art shows to celebrate the vast possibilities of the medium of clay. More information, indianceramicstriennale.com


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DALLAS ART MUSEUM Te museum announced the establishment of a new endowed curatorial position – Dr Heather Ecker has been appointed as the DMA’s first Marguerite S Hoffman and Tomas W Lentz Curator of Islamic and Medieval Art, bringing nearly two decades of diverse curatorial, teaching, and institutional experiences to the role. Dr. Ecker took up her post on 30 July. With the long-term loan of the Keir Collection in 2014, the DMA became the third largest repository of Islamic art in the United States. Tis is in addition to its growing collection of European medieval art. As the new Marguerite S Hoffman and Tomas W Lentz Curator of Islamic and Medieval Art, Dr Ecker will oversee the presentation, research, conservation, and growth of


ASIAN ART SEPTEMBER 2018


the Museum’s holdings in these areas, including the Keir Collection, which encompasses almost 2,000 works that span 13 centuries of arts from the Islamic world.


JAPAN HOUSE, LOS ANGELES At the end of August, Japan House opened their third facility in Los Angeles – the others are in Sao Paolo and London. Organised by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs it seeks to ‘foster awareness and appreciation for Japan around the world by showcasing the very best of Japanese art, design, gastronomy, innovation, and technology’.


MYSOREAN ROCKETS, INDIA


A stash of the hundreds of 18th- century rockets have been excavated by the Indian Department of Archaeology in Nagara village in Shimoga district, in the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka. Over a thousand rockets belonging to an 18th-century Muslim warrior king, Tipu Sultan, were found in an abandoned well at the end of July. Te powerful ruler was killed in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war in 1799 after a string of victories in battle against the British East India Company. He is credited with developing an early, indigenous rocket known as the Mysorean rocket, a prototype of British Congreve rockets used in the Napoleonic wars. According to archeological records, the fort area in Shimoga was a part of Tipu Sultan’s


kingdom and the rockets were used in the wars that the ruler fought against the East India Company.


MFA, BOSTON Te Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), has received a grant of $1 million from the Tokyo-based Ishibashi Foundation to fund a new curatorial training opportunity in the field of Japanese art. Over the next 10 years, the MFA will host five fellows, who will each serve as the Ishibashi Foundation Assistant Curator for Japanese Art for a two-year period. Te fellows will collaborate with the museum’s curatorial staff on a wide range of projects, including planning for exhibitions in Boston and Japan, cataloguing the collection and researching acquisitions. An international search for the first Ishibashi Foundation Assistant Curator for Japanese Art is currently underway. In 1890, the MFA became the first American museum to establish a Japanese collection and appoint a curator specialising in Japanese art. Today, the museum houses a Japanese collection of nearly 100,000 objects – considered the finest and most comprehensive holdings of Japanese art outside of Japan – providing an environment rich with resources for young scholars interested in pursuing curatorial work.


HARVARD ART MUSEUMS Te Harvard Art Museums have announced the appointment of Soyoung Lee as the institution’s new Chief Curator, effective


24 September. Lee comes to Harvard from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where she has served as curator, associate curator, and assistant curator in the Department of Asian Art. Lee joined the Met in 2003 as its first curator for Korean art and has organised a number of acclaimed international loan exhibitions At the Harvard Art Museums, Lee will be a key member of the senior leadership team; she will oversee the museums’ three curatorial divisions (Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art, Division of European and American Art, and Division of Modern and Contemporary Art), an active exhibition programme, and the stewardship and development of Harvard’s world-class collections.


CHINESE PAINTING DONATION, MFA BOSTON Te MFA has received a significant gift of a 17th-century Chinese masterpiece, 10,000 Miles along the Yangzi River ( Wanli Changjiang Tu) (1699), from Wan-go HC Weng. Te prominent collector, whose family has owned the 53-foot-long scroll since 1875, has donated the work to the museum on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Created by Wang Hui (1632–1717), the most notable painter of his day in China, the landscape painting evokes a journey along Asia’s longest waterway, the Yangzi (Yangtze) River, and incorporates references to China’s great artistic and poetic traditions.


LATIFF MOHIDIN


Asian Art Newspaper: Troughout your childhood you used to be known as the ‘magical boy with the gift in his hands’. Did you not feel considerable pressure as an artist? Latin Mohidin: Yes, I was known as the boy with that ‘gift’ when I was 10 years old. Looking back, I did not feel any pressure and if there was any, in my opinion, it was a good pressure. In fact, it is a gift and this gift means energy. I think it is precisely that gift that fuelled me to produce so many exciting art works over the past 67 years.


AAN: Have your various scholarships in the West (Berlin, Paris, New York) been instrumental in shaping your technique? LM: Tey have, indeed. All these wonderful and precise art techniques I learnt from the West inspired and urged me to work continuously, series after series, shifting from one painting to another, morphing from one media to another, from one dimension to another. But, you know how it is with materials and techniques: sometimes you work with ease, other times with considerable struggle. As a student in Berlin in 1960, I was first taught to study closely the different techniques and materials used by various artists; Ten, I was asked to imitate those techniques, particularly the ones by the great masters all the way from the classical periods to modern times. What I liked most were the techniques that involved drawing. My old professor often told me that


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