Robert Rauschenberg and Asia

'Merantau' & Its Frictions: Dialogues with Rauschenberg, ROCI, and Malaysia

This series of programmes positions Robert Rauschenberg's ROCI MALAYSIA (1990) exhibition as a historical catalyst for an open dialogue. Using the regional lens of merantau (mobility, transformation, and cross-cultural encounter), these programmes create a live conversation between Rauschenberg's archival legacy and contemporary Malaysian practitioners exploring images, material waste, sound, and space.

June

Curatorial Walkthrough

with Russell Storer

Sunday, 14 June 2026, 2.30pm (Level 5)

Join us as we walk through the Robert Rauschenberg and Asia exhibition with Russell Storer, Senior Curator and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs, M+. Free entry.

Please note that this event is fully subscribed.

July

The Material Combine: Sifting Image Saturation

Workshop by members of Chetak 12

Saturday, 11 July, 2.00AM - 5.00PM

A silkscreen workshop inspired by Rauschenberg's foundational concept of the 'Combine' and his practice of silkscreening found media images directly onto alternative, everyday surfaces like tin-plated steel during his Malaysian tour. Fees to join: RM120. Email info@ilhamgallery.com to register.

Taming Babel: Translation, Nation, and the 1990 Narrative

Talk by Pauline Fan

Saturday, 18 July, 3.00PM

The original dual-language (Malay/English) 1990 ROCI MALAYSIA catalogue featured side-by-side essays by local poet-writer Haji Muhammad Salleh and American curator Donald Saff.

This talk by writer and translator Pauline Fan centres on the creative and political complexities of translation. The speaker will discuss how fluid, multi-vocal regional identities are translated into national narratives, looking at both the institutional challenges and the poetic possibilities when different cultural languages collide in a single book.

August

The Souvenir of Solidarity: Logging, T-Shirts, and the Outsider Gesture

Talk by Wendy Sia/Gerimis Art Project

Saturday, 1 August, 3.00PM

Referencing Rauschenberg's Hutan Belantara/ Virgin Forest (1990) work, and the "Save the Forest" T-Shirts he purchased in bulk as an act of solidarity during his research trip to Sarawak in 1989, the talk will explore how art engages with environmental crises. Wendi Sia from the Gerimis Art Project will share their collaborative archiving practices, opening up a broader conversation on how local indigenous communities and international artists can meaningfully speak to ecological grief and land rights together.

Art as a catalyst for social change

Lecture by Jo Kukathas

Saturday 8 August, 3.00PM

What is the purpose of art in society? One of Rauchenberg's fundamental beliefs was that art should serve as a catalyst for social change. This lecture by acclaimed theatre practitioner Jo Kukathas aims to explore the role of art in the formation of a more humane and inclusive dialogue.

September

Vernacular Cosmopolitanism vs. The Global Art Jet

Talk by Dr. Sumit Mandal (Author of Becoming Arab: Creole Histories and Modern Identity in the Malay World)

Saturday, 12 September, 3.00PM

An exchange exploring two different forms of cosmopolitanism. This talk places Rauschenberg's vision of a structured, traveling global art exchange into a friendly dialogue with Dr. Mandal's extensive research on perantau (historical migrant) networks - such as Hadhrami, Bugis, and Minang traders - who created organic, unsponsored, ground-up cultural mixing across the Malay world.

An American Pragmatist: Robert Rauschenberg in Malaysia and Singapore

Lecture by Kathleen Ditzig

Saturday, 26 September, 3.00PM

The Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI)'s presentation in Malaysia in 1990 was not the first nor the first nor last presentation of Robert Rauschenberg's artwork in Southeast Asia. His work was presented in the region in travelling group exhibitions of American Art in the 1960s and 1970s, and was presented in Malaysia through the 1990s. In 1997, Kuala Lumpur-based TAKSU gallery and Singapore based Wetterling Teo Gallery collaborated on the presentations of a solo exhibition of the artist's work in Malaysia and Singapore. The press release described Rauschenberg as an "American Pragmatist." Focusing on the presentation of Rauschenberg's art in Malaysia and Singapore, this lecture traces the discursive framing of Rauchenberg as an "American Pragmatistic" in relation to the evolving local and international urgencies that defined the presentation of Americn art in Southeast Asia at the end of the Cold War.

Research for this lecture was enables by M+ Museum's Rauschenberg and Asia and a fellowship at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives in 2025.

Kathleen Ditzig (PhD) is a Singporean is a Singaporean curator and art historian whose work examines the infrastructure and geopoliticals of art worlds, and the legacies of the US Cultural Cold War in Southeast Asia.

The Migrant Teahouse by Dari Dapur

Saturday, 17 October, 3.00PM-5.00PM

Sunday, 18 October, 3.00PM-5.00PM

Connect over tea from six different communities, whose journeys across generations have shaped Malaysia's rich cultural landscapes.

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