Showing 1 - 10 of 21
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.
Examining identity
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 16/11/2016
» A lot is going on in "Continuum: Acculturating", the latest exhibition at The Art Center at Chulalongkorn University. Jakkai Siributr, Jedsada Tangtrakulwong and Piyatat Hemmatat show different interests and practices, and with "acculturation" as the key idea, the result is three separate and complicated realms. In them, narratives and cultural identities -- those of the artists' origins and from the new environments they are looking at -- are constantly shifting and integrating.
The politics of love
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 08/09/2016
» Thanapol Virulhakul, critically-acclaimed stage director and choreographer, has a way of giving space a certain significance. His take is usually minimalistic, the stage bare and his actors assigned with limited set of movements, and it is the relentless repetition of those elements that would slowly make up the storyline and become part of the blow in the end.
Roving eye
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 13/04/2016
» After a trip to Saatchi Gallery, a major exhibition by 23 artists called "Thailand Eye" has finally made it home to Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, where it will continue through August. When the exhibition first opened late last year in London, it created a buzz, with these 23 artists being selected from a longlist of as many as 200. The exhibition is the final instalment of a series of three cultural events marking the 60th birthday of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the first two being a khon performance at the Royal Albert Hall and the Thai Film Festival at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in June last year.
Art as a political act
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 18/03/2016
» It was with a feeling of nausea and disgust that Chiang Mai-based artist Mit Jai Inn spent one month working on his new series of abstract paintings, now on display and part of the exhibition "Wett" at Gallery Ver at N22 in Bangkok. Mit's series is entitled "Junta Monochrome" -- obviously not for the works themselves -- for the art space has exploded with every colour imaginable; rather the title conveys the artist's contempt for the reality outside: a junta-ruled country where things are either black or white, where if you're not a khon dee (good person), the artist says, you are inevitably the bad guy.
Through the lens
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 29/07/2015
» The photography scene in Bangkok used to be about specialised venues such as Kathmandu Photo Gallery, Serindia Gallery or RMA Institute. Or maybe a handful others if just pinning photographs on walls counts as an exhibition.
Stage whispers
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 27/05/2015
» The artistic career of Thanapol Virulhakul, director of the critically acclaimed contemporary dance performance Hipster The King, is a work-in-progress. It started out with a thesis project at Thammasat University's Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, in which he made Buddhist amulets out of chocolate, sold them on the street and filmed reactions of passers-by and amulet experts.
A cultural crossroads
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 28/01/2015
» In the trailer for the currently running Channel 3 TV series Bang Rajan, the formidable Somchai Kemglad bellowed: "I'll fight with my body and blood for the my fellow Thais, for them to be at peace, whether awake or asleep."
Making connections, not cash
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 21/01/2015
» Artist Pisitakun Kuantalaeng, 28, was once a Yellow Shirt. In less than a decade, Pisitakun went from a fervent supporter of anti-Thaksin politics and airport seizures to an artist who took to the streets after the junta seized power last May.
Revisiting truth and integrity
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 29/08/2014
» At the ending of the 1937 novel Khang Lang Phap (Behind The Painting), author Kularb Saipradit, also known as Sri Burapha, wrote: “I die without the one who loves me, but my heart is fulfilled that there’s someone whom I love.”