L.I.N.E From Point To Point, Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka, 1993, p. 110
Pago Pago To Gelombang, Singapore Art Museum, p. 169
L.I.N.E From Point To Point, Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka, 1993, p. 105
Provenance
Private collection, Kuala Lumpur
Description
There were three major places where Latiff Mohidin executed his prints from the celebrated Pago-Pago series, which incorporated architectural and botanical elements of the Nusantara and hybrid historical-natural Indo-Chinese sites. The two works are totemistic architectonic stack-ups, one more structured with sharp horn-like protrusions and the other like a tangled weave of pliant clumps. These two lithographs were done during his German tutelage at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Berlin, while he was in Cologne. Latiff had told his researcher cum printmaker, Juhari Said, that the Cologne print studio was Kunstkabinett Koln. Imago and Imago 66 can be found on Pages 110 and 105 respectively of his book, L.I.N.E.: From Point To Point (Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka,1993). The other two print studios were in Atelier la Courniere in Paris and the Pratt Graphic Centre in New York. Juhari Mohd wrote in his paper, Malaysian Printmaking: Latiff Mohidin Mystery Graphic Art, that the seeds of Pago-Pago were already in Latiff Mohidin’s consciousness even before he travelled to Indo-China, especially Thailand and Cambodia, on his return from studies in Europe in 1964, and “even as he was experiencing snow.”
Latiff Mohidin is a national treasure in paint, print (printmaking), bronze (sculpture) and letters (poet, essayist and translator), being fluent in three languages – Malay, English and German. He started as a hobo, where he created the iconic Pago-Pago Series (1960-1969), the headlined mega three-month exhibition held at the prestigious Pompidou Centre in Paris in 2018, and organised by the National Gallery Singapore and Pompidou. Latiff was awarded a major Retrospective at the National Art Gallery Malaysia in December 2012 to June 2013, his second. His art studies were at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunst in West Berlin. He won the John D. Rockefeller III Fellowship to study at Pratt Institute in New York (1965), and the French scholarship to study printmaking at the Atelier Lacouriere-Frelaut in Paris (1969). He was also won 2nd Prize (Graphics) in the 1968 Salon Malaysia. In literature, he won the SEA Write Award twice (1984 and 1986) and the Malaysian Literary Awards from 1972 to 1976, and he was also appointed Guest Writer at Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 1988.