Kuala Lumpur - When the Raja Perempuan of Kelantan held a week-long cultural festival in New York in May this year, she invited Henry Bong to organise a parallel expo of a unique collection of Malaysian-Kelantanese textiles on the premises of the United Nations.
Bong, who has the rare gift of combining art with interior designing, gladly obliged.
The 54-year-old art dealer, art historian, businessman and a passionate lover of Malaysia‘s cultural heritage, runs an art gallery on the third level of the Suria KLCC in Kuala Lumpur.
Probably unknown to many Malaysians, Bong‘s gallery called Pucuk Rebung is a must-see for art buffs from many parts of the world. Bong gets visits not only from buyers and art lovers but also from foreign journalists who come, sometimes incognito, to his gallery to study the artifacts and feature them in a number of international art magazines.
Faces of American, European, Japanese and other Asian art collectors are not a rare sight at the Pucuk Rebung, which many visitors describe as a treasure house of Malaysia‘s cultural heritage, though Bong prefers to call it ‘my museum‘.
PUCUK REBUNG, A CULTURAL DESTINATION
Pucuk Rebung has become a cultural destination for tourists coming to Malaysia.
"We are a museum, if you like, though without the bureaucratic red tape."
"We use art to depict Malaysia‘s history. Our rare artifacts include letters from the three white Rajahs of Malaysia; we even have ceramics from the Bujang Valley dating back to the Sri Vijayan period of 14th century AD," he stated in an interview with Bernama.
Bong, whose background as a banker has served him well in dealing with the commercial aspects of his art collection, has also delivered lectures on art, culture and history of Malaysia. "In fact, I shall give a lecture on Borneo‘s history with the title Borneo, Bronze and Brassware in Brunei in December," he said.
Bong likes to describe the Pucuk Rebung Gallery Museum as a venue of cultural reaffirmation, a far cry from the picture of a museum that displays artifacts in glass show cases that are old, creaking and rusting.
Though some of the exhibits at the Pucuk Rebung are of unique beauty and rarity, Bong‘s achievement lies in the imaginative presentation of these objects which, as it were, seem to be welcoming every art lover walking into the gallery and stay on until the entire gallery had been meticulously viewed. The collections are presented in a chronological order starting from the early Hindu Sri Vijayan Buddhist links through the proto-Islamic phase and the Borneo elements to the onset of Islam and the ensuing conversion.
There are old historic pictures, Buddha statues from the Ayuthia and Rattanakosin era, heavy silver belts and buckles, and countless other objects meticulously catalogued and lined.
20 PERCENT OF EXHIBITS PERMANENT COLLECTION
While many contemporary art galleries have become commercial vehicles for the art trade, the novelty about Pucuk Rebung is that it has designated, at least, 20 percent of the exhibits as permanent collection which includes many silver items from the 19th century Swettenham collection, Sultan Abu Bakar‘s photographs, picture of Datuk Onn Jaafar, the father of Malayan nationalism, a rare letter from Tun Abdul Razak recommending Tunku Abdul Rahman to the Bar, a letter from the last White Rajah Charles Brook dated March 1, 1933, etc.
"I do get many foreign tourists, including Americans, at my gallery, asking me to ship some of the objects to them," claims Bong who has a crush on New York‘s Metropolitan Museum where he spends hours whenever he visits the Big Apple. His dream is to hold exhibitions of these artifacts in the United States and other countries to depict Malaysia‘s art, culture and history.
BONG A WALKING DICTIONARY ON MALAYSIA‘S ART HISTORY
This "walking-talking presenter of Malaysia‘s art history"; as one American visitor recently described Henry Bong, has organized a number of seminars and exhibitions.
Besides the exhibition of Malaysian and Kelantan textiles at the United Nations in New York, Bong has curated the 19th Century Exhibition and Market of Art, Antiquities and Textile Art at the Castello di Sartirana in Pavia, Italy, in 1999, Art and Nationalism: Past and Present at the National Art Gallery in September 1999; and a Glimpse of the Glory of the Brunei and Kelantan Sultanates at Istana Batu and Istana Johar in Kota Baru in Kelantan in conjunction with the visit of the Sultan of Brunei to Kelantan in March-April 1999.
BONG HAS GAINED RECOGNITION
Kelantan‘s Raja Perempuan, impressed by Bong‘s talent and passion, has been a patron of his gallery. Indeed, Bong was asked to handle the entire interior designing of the old hall of the Kelantan palace.
"I studied the architecture of the hall. I blended Malayan influences with the colonial patterns while conceptualizing the interior design," he said.
Bong designed the hall for the wedding of the Royal Crown Prince of Kelantan in 2004.
Bong is now assigned to the interior designing of the Royal Salon, the train that is being especially created for use by the Sultans and also by the Prime Minister.
This is a special carriage which will be hooked to a functional train, he explains. The train, which will be based in Kuala Lumpur, is expected to go into operation in March 2008. Bong will act as a sub-contractor on behalf of Malaysian suppliers of the train. He was successful in outbidding other powerful contenders vying for the contract.
Source: www.bernama.com.my (1 Desember 2007)
