Showing 71 - 80 of 258
Wake up and smell the truth
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 10/02/2016
» During a recent press tour of “Scene From A Wake” by Anup Mathew Thomas, this year’s winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation-BACC Award for Contemporary Art, there wasn’t really a tour. We were left to wander unguided, and consequently left confused, even though the Indian artist was present. The second attempt was through an email interview: “Suppose this is a virtual tour, can you take our readers through a few of your pieces in the exhibition?” Here’s his reply:
Get into the groove -- Madonna is here
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 09/02/2016
» Yes, Madonna is singing live tonight. And yes, Madonna is definitely by now somewhere in Bangkok, after photos showing her arrive at the airport on Sunday night popped up online, enough for her "children" across Thailand to swoon. As you read this, just take a moment to get this fact registered in your head the Queen of Pop is actually here on the same soil as the rest of us, breathing this same polluted Bangkok air. She could be queuing up for some moo ping for breakfast on the streets, or on the back of a motorcycle to Platinum in search for new looks, we don't know.
Blue-blood gets a taste for your blood
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 09/02/2016
» When Chulachak Chakrabongse speaks, he rarely looks your way. He could be drifting or struck by sheer boredom, but you are never offended. You're busy wondering what to make of his presence: as teen star that he once was, as a father of two, as great-great-grandson of King Rama V, as 34-year-old blues rock star "Hugo", who was with Jay-Z's Roc Nation label. Or now, in a rather unexpected turn of career path, as Count Dracula in a stage play production of Bram Stoker's classic.
Regional revolution
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 03/02/2016
» 'An art fair is always a commercial event," said Lorenzo Rudolf, founder and president of Art Stage Singapore whose sixth edition ended last month. There's not a response more apt than that to a common complaint like: "Oh, but Art Stage is too commercial." It's an art fair, and quite naturally, as Rudolf added in an interview during the fair, "the galleries come here to sell".
Wonderwalls and more
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 27/01/2016
» Since we have yet to find an art school for, or exhibitions by, the much-hyped angel child dolls, Art Matters this month is going to make do with the same old current show round-up.
(Authorised) art attack
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 20/01/2016
» Around this time in 2014, the late artist Mamafaka's one-eyed gigantic monster Mr. HellYeah, spray-painted at the ruins near BTS Ratchathewi, was "bombed" by another graffiti group. The original graffiti was done as part of the first edition of street art festival Bukruk in 2013, and when the controversy about it being defaced erupted, the unauthorised vandalism of the authorised vandalism exemplied the very essence of street art: nothing is permanent.
Bird on a wire
Muse, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 16/01/2016
» Kawita Vatanajyankur feels like an outsider wherever she is. In Melbourne, where the 28-year-old artist spent a decade through high school and university, it wasn’t really home. Back in Bangkok for four years now, and she doesn’t feel Thai, either. Who she is as an artist and the person she is as she sits down for an interview are equally in a state of flux.
Loud paintings
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 13/01/2016
» Echoing the title of Paphonsak La-or's solo exhibition "Silent No More", his opening reception at Lyla Gallery in Chiang Mai on Boxing Day last year was buzzing with locals and those who had made the trip from Bangkok. Milling around, everyone in the exhibition room couldn't possibly have avoided the huge 7m-long centrepiece that comes with a shade of blue paint that is neither gloomy nor reassuring in the background. While there's a sentence in the middle, "This image is no longer available", the bottom text reads, "Love which was woven in our society leads to a great tragedy and sorrow".
Searching for identity
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 06/01/2016
» In one exhibition room at Navin Rawanchaikul's studiOK in Chiang Mai, wooden crates used for shipping his previous artworks are piled up as a huge rectangular structure. An entrance on one side reveals an old fabric shop, with rolls of cloth of various colours, desks and measurement tools. Open for viewing for the first time late last month, the "shop" is an exact recreation of O.K. Store, Navin's family clothing store, his original home in Chiang Mai's Warorot Market.
State of the art
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 30/12/2015
» It's been an exciting year for the Bangkok art scene, with new galleries opening and quite a few collaborative projects. Life looks back at these significant incidents and picks its five favourite exhibitions of 2015