Showing 1 - 10 of 39
Remaking the scene
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 21/12/2016
» It has been a busy year for the Thai art scene, with well-known artists taking turns treating Bangkok viewers to their latest works, new galleries welcomed and old ones closing down, and politics remaining deeply embedded in artistic expression.
The elephant in the room
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 17/11/2016
» Last weekend, Something Missing, a performance by South Korea's Theatre Momggol and B-Floor Theatre, which won Best Movement-based Performance from the International Association of Theatre Critics (Thailand Centre) last year, was back at Thong Lor Art Space for its second instalment, called The Rite Of Passage.
Where time and space cease to exist
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 02/11/2016
» How do we picture the world and ourselves? That is one of the key questions asked in "An Atlas Of Mirrors", the fifth edition of Singapore Biennale, which opened last week at various venues with the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and SAM at 8Q as the main spaces. As many as 63 artists and collectives joined and the result is a gushing forth of narratives -- collective and personal, historical and contemporary, factual and imaginary.
What's in a name?
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 02/11/2016
» For "smooth cultural integration", Thai international study agency Smart NZ Education advises that students with nicknames like Poo, Pee and Porn consider alternatives. The issue made headlines earlier last month after a report by the New Zealand Herald indicated that students might get "harassed if nothing is done". That's not unlikely, despite the fact that "faeces", "urine" and "pornography" -- the formal English words for the aforementioned nicknames -- weren't exactly those parents' intention when their children first came into the world.
Importance of moving on amid our grief
News, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 28/10/2016
» It has been two weeks now since the passing of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. For many of us, everything is still surreal wherein time is no factor. Since that fateful afternoon, the whole nation has turned black. "You'll no longer see what you have seen, but what you haven't seen before," someone wrote on his Facebook post. This is precisely the case.
By approval
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 26/10/2016
» The most pressing issue in the capital's art scene this month is, of course, the well-being of some hundred carp put in the temporary pool as part of photographer Rapat Bunduwanich's "Photo Festival", a show whose title tricks us into thinking that there are other people in the show.
Personal scars, political history
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 12/10/2016
» In "Under The Same Sky", the latest exhibition at Nova Contemporary by photographer Tada Hengsapkul and artist Chai Siris, personal history and that of the world entwine. In no way does the show appear to strive at having these narratives untangled.
Never forget
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 05/10/2016
» In a stage performance that just finished its run on Sunday, performers re-enacted scenes in which victims were hunted, beaten and strangled to death. In an art exhibition opening tomorrow, we'll see in paintings traces of atrocious scenes in the foreground while the surface is heavily smudged with paint, to the point of abstraction.
Abstraction remains our faulty coping mechanism
Oped, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 30/09/2016
» A theatrical performance, Fundamental, which lends its physical movements and body language to reconstruct Thailand's hushed-up history of the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy students on Oct 6, 1976 has attracted the regime's attention.
A circle of abstraction
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 20/07/2016
» Currently standing at the centre of Gallery Ver is one half of a table tennis table folded up, and it has come to embody the essence of the artist Udomsak Krisanamis's latest solo show "Paint It Black". On it are layers of gauze and circling strokes of black paint, plus a wasp's nest. The insect's lodge wasn't the artist's plan but he kept it anyway.