작품 상세

Age is just a number, and not a hindrance to anything, unless one is incapacitated, or even so, for many a handicap have been known to overcome the odds. Yes, there is life, as long as one Ada Mood (has the mood), for love, for living, for struggles and for play. How often, life is about the shared laughter and memories, of time spent together, usually with a sweet platter of kueh and kopi, or teh tarik to whet the appetite. To a few maybe, such shared moments can be construed as mundane, but down the road years later, they can become something poignant and meaningful. The legendary Datuk Ibrahim Hussein is incontrovertibly one of Malaysia's most internationally iconic artists. He was given the prestigious Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum in 1997, and was the first Malaysian to have taken part in the Venice Biennale, under the Smithsonian Institute Workshop programme in 1970. And he was with the world's art pantheons in the tripartite exhibition in Kuwait in 1977, the other two masters being Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. His international awards also include the XVIII Prix International D'Art Contemporain de Monte Carlo, the Order of Andres Bello of Venezuela (1993), the Order of Bernardo Higgins (Chile's highest honour to a foreigner, 1996), the Japan Foundation Cultural Award (1988), with him accorded momentous solos in Venezuela, Chile and Japan. He was accorded a retrospective by the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur in 1986. He was conferred the Datuk title three times, and awarded the Anugerah Tokoh Melayu Terbilang (2007). He had organised the Langkawi International Festival of Arts in 2000, after setting up his museum and foundation (2000) in Langkawi. With the help of his wife Datin Sim, he had also organised the Club Mediterranee Asian Arts Festival in Cherating (Pahang) and Bali (Indonesia). Ib had his art tutelage at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting and the Royal Academy in London (1963-1966). He also received a double scholarship of Fulbright and John D. Rockefeller II Fund that saw him in the United States, with two solos in New York to boot.