17/09/2025
Cover of KL Lifestyle September 2025
Abdul Latiff Mohidin
The Soul Of Southeast Asian Modernism
Latiff Mohidin is widely regarded as one of the most important voices in Southeast Asian modern art, celebrated for his ability to weave together tradition, memory, and innovation. Emerging in the 1960s with his groundbreaking Pago-Pago series, Latiff pioneered a distinctly regional modernism that did not merely imitate Western trends but reinterpreted them through the lens of local landscapes, cultural heritage, and philosophical depth. His work embodies the soul of Southeast Asian modernism because it bridges the global and the local, fusing modernist abstraction with motifs drawn from the region’s nature, myths, and histories.