Singapore museum to give Bush glimpse of pan-Asian art

SINGAPORE, Nov 15 (Reuters) What are the must-sees for a busy American tourist on a whistle-stop tour of Southeast Asia? For US President George Bush and his wife Laura, they include Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum.

Bush, who will be in Singapore tomorrow en route to an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vietnam, will help put the spotlight on a relatively new cultural institution, possibly the only museum in the region to take a pan-Asian approach.

Singapore's position on one of the world's busiest shipping lanes has allowed it to prosper from centuries of trade between China and India, and exposed it to a wide range of cultural influences. This makes the city-state -- with its Chinese, Malay and Indian population mix -- the perfect location for a museum focused on all of Asia, not just its own hinterland, experts say.

''Virtually all the other museums in Asia are national museums,'' said Robyn Maxwell, the senior curator of Asian art at the National Gallery of Australia. ''They have fabulous displays of their own national art history, but they probably don't have enough funds or the inclination to set up an Asian art museum.'' While museums such as Taipei's National Palace Museum, Danang, Vietnam's Cham Museum, and Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji focus on national history, the Asian Civilisations Museum may be the region's only one-stop shop of Asian culture in its entirety, although it has little or nothing from Korea and Japan.

The museum -- in a former colonial building with cream-and-ivory walls -- opened in 2003 and stands just metres from where British explorer Stamford Raffles landed in 1819.

Its renovation was part of the wealthy city-state's drive to boost its arts scene and inject some buzz, at a time when many of its neighbours in Southeast Asia were struggling economically.

While the museum's collection of more than 1,300 artefacts is relatively small compared to other established museums, its displays range from Chinese sculptures to Southeast Asian textiles and a simulated interior of a South Asian mosque.

Guides say that the must-see exhibits include the seated Kushana Buddha, made of reddish sandstone in the temple city of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India in AD 96-97.

They also recommend a 17th-century Qing dynasty collection of ceramic vases, inkstones and seals donated by the late Tan Tsze Chor, a Singapore collector of traditional Chinese art.

''This museum is the first in the region to present a broad perspective on pan-Asian cultures and civilisations, highlighting the multi-ethnic society that makes up Singapore,'' Steve Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, said at a pre-trip briefing.

Jack Lohman, director of the Museum of London Group and chairman of the UK unit of the International Council of Museums, ranks the Asian Civilisations Museum among the world's best.

''It's not a museum of the past, it's a museum of the future.'' REUTERS PB PM1613