ANTH ROPOS N EW YOR K NAVI G ATI N G H U MAN D E PT H I N THAI AN D S I N G AP O R E C O N TE M P O RARY A RT
CURATED BY LOREDANA PAZZINI-PARACCIANI CHATCHAI PUIPIA • CHUSAK SRIKWAN • HO TZU NYEN • JASON WEE • JEREMY SHARMA JOH N CLANG • KAM I N LE RTCHAI PRASE RT • KAMOLPAN CHOTVICHAI LAVENDER CHANG • NINO SARABUTRA • PIYATAT HEMMATAT • TAWAN WATTUYA
A N T H R O P O S T H R O U G H T H E LO O K I N G G L AS S BY LO R E DANA PA Z Z I N I-PA R AC C IA N I “He really had been through death, but he had returned because he could not bear the solitude.” Gabriel García Márquez, in One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), concisely translates into words one of many unmediated qualities of the human condition, namely solitude. Bound by secular and religious theories, the human condition, by and large, encompasses all the psychological and intellectual nuances that invariably connect us to each other. Scholars and academics have long philosophized on the human conditions—birth and death, freedom and loneliness, existence and essence. In the visual arts, following the long tradition of existentialists, from Van Gogh to Cezanne and Francis Bacon among others, the common denominator among most works relating to the human condition is autobiography. This exhibition, titled Anthropos, the Greek word for human being, reflects on the many facets of the human condition through the largely autobiographical work of twelve Southeast Asian artists. These new and recent works—from photography, oil painting and sculpture to video and mixed-media installations—probe the personal and collective understanding of the human condition as
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an unalterable part of the human being through the lens of the ever-compelling practice of artists from Thailand and Singapore, within the wider Southeast Asian region. Although clearly diverse, artists from Thailand and Singapore both offer discerning and insightful reflections about the social, political and religious dynamics complicating the human condition within their own cultures. Despite their close geographical proximity Thailand and Singapore rarely, if ever, share the same cultural platforms. Anthropos, therefore, brings them together in order to compare, contrast and explore. Anthropos emphasizes three primary elements specific to Thailand and Singapore: spirituality or moral choice, which is profoundly enmeshed in the artists’ personal and artistic growth; political conditioning or the relevance of cultural hegemony on the development of the individual; and detachment or the process by which the artist disengages from conventional cultural and social ties. Most, if not all, of the works in Anthropos are profoundly personal, and many are, in all possible permutations, self-portraits.
Chatchai Puipia’s Nakornchaisri studio outside Bangkok
Spirituality (or Life in the City of Angels) Differing in medium, execution and, possibly, intent, the self-portraits of Chatchai Puipia and Jeremy Sharma are the flesh and soul of the human being. Puipia’s figurative mode and Sharma’s abstract one both compel the viewer to close inspection by posing personal and cosmological questions. In keeping with the traditions of existentialist selfportraiture, Chatchai Puipia’s eternal quest investigates a lingering subject of concern: that is, his own image.1
Often depicted as a disembodied head, his own image, “the subject I know best,” he says,2 has become the biggest preoccupation in the artist’s several-decade career, the latter part of which he’s lived in intentional seclusion from the national and international art scene. The artist’s last solo exhibition, Chatchai Is Dead. If Not He Should Be in 2011, marked the beginning of his retreat in conjunction with the launch of his significant monograph of the same title. An honest reading of Puipia’s recent body of work, shown for the first time in this exhibition—and until now
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only disclosed to a select few—may prompt the viewer’s contemplation on the social and cultural transformation that has gripped Thailand for the last few decades. Yet, the dominating tensions in his new canvases slowly transcend the collective to reflect on the self and “the fragile interval from birth to death.”3
Just as an electrocardiogram is the recording of the human pulse, so manmade satellites record sounds emitted by celestial bodies in space. The artist complicates the latter through the use of a robotic machine that translates the sound waves into physical forms, tackling the conundrum of life and death from a cosmological perspective.
Always in command of his palette, Puipia chose the oil series Life in the City of Angels (2014) to weld his enigmatic self to a trenchant visual motif: delicate and ephemeral butterflies replace the voluptuous flowers, signature of his many portraits. “Hundreds of butterflies come to my studio—to die,” he says. Asphyxiated by the fumes of the oil paint yet seduced by the intensity of its colors, the fragile creatures are caught on Puipia’s canvases shooting at speed into oblivion. Through them he views his own death and rebirth, in keeping with the fundamental Buddhist principle of dharma. Equally related to the spiritual aspect of the human condition are Jeremy Sharma’s portraits. But are they portraits? For no human resemblance is visible in the seemingly abstract, candid reliefs of Terra Sensa (2014). Devoid of all color, the voluptuous landscape is indeed a reflection of the artist-self attuned to a wider, cosmological vision of existence. Like liquid forms taking shape, the three-dimensional reliefs—each scaled to doorway size (180 x 80 cm) to entice the viewers into an otherworld—are the visual translation of sounds emitted by pulsars, or dying stars, in the cosmos.4
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Jeremy Sharma, Terra Sensa Series – Soma, computerized rendering prior to the cutting of the foam
Informed by Buddhist philosophy are the works of Thai artists Kamolpan Chotvichai, Nino Sarabutra and, chiefly, Kamin Lertchaiprasert. Lertchaiprasert’s practice adheres to a unified view where life and art are inseparable, being one and the same.
“The body is the museum of our life experiences. The spirit is the art expressed through social and individual practice,” he says. Strongly engaged with the collective human intent to understand life and death, his sculpture in Anthropos problematizes the voguish categorization of skull-and-bones–inspired artworks. True, the skeleton, conspicuous in at least one of the sculptures presented here, is a powerful and relatable iconography. However, is it not also the fundamental symbol of all beings before the afterlife and an allusion to the impermanence of life?5 Continuing a long tradition of Thai artists inspired by Buddhist teachings, these rough, unfinished wood sculptures, far from suggesting unconditioned predicaments, encourage intuitive responses from the viewer who, before being an art connoisseur, is first and foremost a human being. Political Conditioning (Looking Beyond Soapland) Ho Tzu Nyen, Jason Wee, and Tawan Wattuya all question the political conditioning that is organically activated in the individual by his or her culture. Stemming from his own experience as a teenager growing up in Thailand in the 1970s, Tawan Wattuya’s watercolors elaborate on the ubiquitous relationship that Japan, and other foreign cultures through history, developed with Thailand.6
Tawan Wattuya producing watercolors for his major solo show Tii Thai Krua at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (2013)
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“Growing up I was close to all sorts of manga influences from Japan,” Wattuya says, adding that when he was a teenager, Japanese adult-themed content was the only pornography allowed in Thailand. Wattuya’s works stem from this fundamental cultural contradiction in Thai society, which on one hand praises Thainess and social respectability, yet on the other, coexists with the socially unacceptable.7 Offering a menu of nudity à la Japan, the provocative watercolors of Soapland Girls (2013) offer a matter-offact commentary on the sex trade in Thailand, widely patronized nationally and internationally but never openly discussed or challenged by local tenets. Singapore artist Ho Tzu Nyen, familiar to the New York art world thanks to his participation in the Guggenheim exhibition No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia (2013), is fascinated with pre-colonial Singapore and epic myths, which infiltrate the physiology of Singapore today. From local epics to his fascination with global tales, Ho’s practice delves into human psychology to mark moments in history—and representative figures from the past—that in turn determine the present. The short film Gould (2013) is in this perspective a masterpiece. In merely one minute and 49 seconds of being physically and mentally entranced by a figure, one assumes Glenn Gould, playing the piano, the viewer is transported to an otherworldly realm.
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The original music for Gould, adapted by Ho, keeps tempo with the rising and falling motion executed by a hand maneuvering a white head against a pitch-black background. Ho draws inspiration from various sources: From Caravaggio’s decapitated head of Goliath, from the seemingly possessed Gould while performing his music, from old footage of a psychiatric doctor manipulating his cataplexic patient’s head. The hand behind the albino head, whether physical or metaphysical, appears strong and dominating. “We may read it as an overpowering hand,” the artist says, leaving an open-ended understanding of the abstract narrative. Detachment (Toward an Encounter of Titans) Offering alternative approaches to the human theme of Anthropos, Piyatat Hemmatat, John Clang, Lavender Chang and Chusak Srikwan employ the human visual signifier as a point of departure, or detachment, to negotiate conventional cultural, social and geographical ties. In his investigation of the human condition, Piyatat Hemmatat detaches himself from ordinary sight, inspecting his surroundings with a scrutinizing eye. “If we look carefully,” he says, “we may see unexpected things in our immediate surroundings.” Fascinated since youth with the Rorschach test, Hemmatat applies it to nature in the photographic essay Titans
(2014), literally mirroring the shots he has captured in his travels, uncovering surprising and powerful likenesses in nature to human anatomy.8 As dormant Titans waiting to be discovered by insightful eyes, these primordial figures are all around us. While some images uncover compelling Vitruvian resemblances hidden in nature, other shots capture occasional, ephemeral instances where astonishing morphological analogies to the human body take shape—or awaken—before the viewer.
Being Together (Family), 2010, fine-art archival print, edition 2/3, 39.3 x 62.9 inches/100 x 160 cm
Geographical detachment underlies John Clang’s artistic and personal focus. The artist is originally from Singapore but left for New York where he’s lived for
the last fifteen years. Performative and intimate, the artist’s photographic essay Being Together (Family) (2010) is a series depicting the artist’s immediate family. Because of his geographic separation, the choice of embarking on a family portrait becomes a critical point of contention; the void in the composition fuels angst, guilt and disapproval. Disconnection from social ties is threaded through Chusak Srikwan’s artistic choices. Drawing on Thai tradition, but unconventional by the standards of the international art market, Srikwan’s practice stubbornly focuses on ancient Thai nang yai puppets.9 Central to many Southeast Asian cultures, shadow puppets have been essential instruments of performance and visual art for centuries. But are they still? As globalization and indifference to tradition reaches its apex, this craft-based art practice is almost forgotten. Srikwan, nonetheless, who was taught by his grandfather and master, holds onto the practice, carving out of solid cowhide intriguing light-and-shadow figures, human bodies and mystical creatures. Far from being an exotic curatorial choice, it’s a choice made with respect and recognition for Thai history, begging the question: Is Srikwan’s practice unconventional by the standards of the art market or is the market losing track of the essence of art?
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Offering a view beyond the periphery, Anthropos beckons New Yorkers to acquaint themselves with the cultural and social threads of the contemporary art scene in Thailand and Singapore. The powers that shape the human psyche may be cultural or region-specific, but it is by questioning the essence of the human condition beyond geographical boundaries that we come to realize that human beings everywhere are one and the same. Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani, who is based in Singapore and Bangkok, holds a Master’s Degree in Asian Art Histories and is a part-time lecturer in the Singapore LASALLE-Goldsmiths Fine Arts Programme. She writes for academic journals, art magazines and symposium publications, and is an independent curator for commercial and institutional organizations in Singapore, Bangkok and New York, improving the visibility of young and emerging artists from Southeast Asia.
Chusak Srikwan’s preparatory work for his cowhide carving process
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Notes 1 As art historian David Elliott has noted, Chatchai Puipia’s repeated fascination with self-portraits exemplifies on one hand the influences and tensions between East and West in Thai culture, and on the other, the artist’s interest in his own and other people’s “otherness,” regardless of geographical boundaries, thus following a tradition of existentialist portraiture. See David Elliott, “Chatchai’s Last Masque: An Oration,” in Chatchai Is Dead. If Not He Should Be (Bangkok: Amarin Printing, 2010). 2 This and all subsequent quotes are excerpted from the artists’ conversations with the author at their studios from 2013 to 2014. 3 David Elliott, “Chatchai’s Last Masque: An Oration,” in Chatchai Is Dead. 4 During a conversation, Jeremy Sharma elaborated on the size of the works being akin to a door, the entry point of a person’s journey, as well as being the size of a coffin, the exit point of the journey of life. 5 In Kamin Lertchaiprasert’s recent solo show Before Birth After Death (2014) at Numthong Gallery in Bangkok, the artist delved into the meaning of human existence and the impermanence of life.
6 As part of King Chulalongkorn’s (1853–1910) vision of modernizing Thailand, which like Japan was never colonized, he opened the country to a number of external advisers, mostly from Europe and Japan. With time this openness has complicated Thailand’s identity. For more about the cultural and social changes in Thailand see Maurizio Peleggi, Thailand: The Worldly Kingdom (London: Cromwell Press, 2007). 7 For interesting reading on Thai culture and the contradictions woven into its social fabric, see Mawdin, “On Being Impolite,” in Chatchai Is Dead. If Not He Should Be (Bangkok: Amarin Printing, 2010). 8 The inkblot test developed by Rorschach in the early 20th century is a psychological test designed to evaluate emotional functioning and offer a glimpse of the psyche. Hemmatat extends the test to nature, thus challenging the viewer to decode, as in the inkblot test, the forms that arise from the mirrored images. 9 Nang means “skin” or “hide”; yai means “big.” Nang yai means “large shadow puppet.” It is an art form that originated in Thailand around the 15th century. The shadow play is based on Buddhist mythology, and was and still is mostly conducted in temples.
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A N T H R O P O S A N D
C O S M O S
BY N I KO S PA PASTE R G IA D I S In a networked society, images and texts that are made in one place have the potential to reach out and interact with strangers across the world. One person’s story and private images can soon go viral and suddenly, if only for a moment or two, they can be seen everywhere. A quirky incident captured on a phone camera, an eyewitness report, or a statement that speaks to a global issue but also resonates with our personal hopes and fears, these bits of information that have been produced from far away are now capable of entering into our private sphere of attention. The person at the center of this image or story that goes global often gets lost in the network. This exhibition, which brings together artists from Singapore and Thailand, explores the tension of subjectivity as it is taken to its extreme in very local contexts, and as it is exploded as it is transported into the widest spheres. The title Anthropos refers to the figure of the human, both as a sensory material body and a creative generator of knowledge. Against this vital but small point I would suggest that this exhibition also examines the all-surrounding energy of
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the cosmos. The flow between anthropos and cosmos can also be grasped through the more familiar reference points of the local and global. Globalization has enabled an unprecedented level of growth in the speed and volume of information. It has generated both the mechanisms to coordinate the trajectories of flow and the systems for standardizing the meanings of the images and texts that circulate in the world. This means that exposure to ideas that have originated from either a great distance, or from strangers is now a routine occurrence. Does this banal and complex encounter with difference make us more aware of diversity, or is everything being funneled through a structure that is making things more simple, uniform and homogenous? While globalization has meant that access to and the accumulation of information from across the world has intensified and expanded, does this mean that we have also become more sensitive to the needs of others, more capable of translating across of differences, more able to evaluate the options, and thereby able to develop a knowledge of how local and global issues relate to each other? Have we learnt how to take care of our relations with others in the world?
These questions may assume a new level of visceral poignancy as we take off our shoes and enter a room filled with miniature human skulls. Nino Sarabutra’s installation What Will You Leave Behind? (2012) prompts a reflection on the meaning of our journeys across this world. However, it is a work that heightens the receptive function of the soles of our feet. The tingling sensation produced by the uneven surface directs our gaze downward. We stare at a series of miniature skulls. The multiplicity of small objects can suddenly become an infinite horizon. The cavity of the eyes is slightly exaggerated and the aperture becomes an abyss. At the other end of the spectrum Ho Tzu Nyen has created a video work that is an homage to the great pianist Glenn Gould. The subtle contrast between the darkened walls and the faint outline of the face creates a shimmering presence. Gould’s eccentric performances also had this presence that was both viscous in its material presence and ethereal in his gestures that barely touched a key. The combination of this sound and image is to suggest that the body, even in its most basic physical activity, can appear to be both deep inside a private world and out with the cosmos. This exhibition takes a bold move as it reflects on the way artists have sought to determine the specific and widest context of their belonging. There are works that examine very local issues, such as Tawan Wattuya’s confronting watercolor portrayals of prostitutes and schoolgirls. By contrast, Jeremy Sharma’s sculptural rendition of the electromagnetic recording of pulsars is an invitation to absorb the sensory feeling of being part
of the cosmos. These extreme points of reference are now also the subject of the art historical discourse on the context of contemporary art. Art historians have, in the past decade, paid close attention to the theoretical debates on global citizenship and then tried to match them up with the aesthetic practices of contemporary artists. The sociological debates on globalization and cosmopolitanism are dominated by normative and ethical concerns, and as a consequence most of the art historians have also focused on social issues of interpersonal care, mutual respect, compassion for the vulnerable and given little attention to the field of aesthetics. A key starting point in this sociological debate is the work by German sociologist Ulrich Beck.1 He was one of the first to distinguish between globalizing tendencies and cosmopolitan practices. He also advocated for a new methodological cosmopolitanism to overcome the nationalist blinkers in the social sciences. Beck stressed that the consequences of global mobility of people, goods and ideas were also experienced at a personal level. In ordinary settings people not only saw and felt the force of global movements, but also experienced the sensation of intimacy, entanglement and dependence with different people, complex structures and remote entities. The interplay between socio-economic structures and cultural formations also necessitated a deeper understanding of the role of affect in the global imaginary. Despite the brilliant insights into the emerging cosmopolitan forms and practices in socio-political structures, the shortcomings in Beck’s handling of the affective and aesthetic domains are also equally glaring.
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If we are to understand the possibilities for a new cosmopolitan society, then it is crucial that we identify the mechanism by which change is produced at the most basic level. A cosmopolitan imaginary would only be possible if there is transformation at both the individual level of consciousness and a collective commitment to create new institutions. British sociologist Gerard Delanty’s analysis of the cosmopolitan imagination has been a useful contribution to this field of research.2 In particular, he has focused on the stimulus that occurs in the encounter between strangers. This stimulus is interpreted as the basis for both productive transformation and reactive defensiveness. Delanty argues that the capacity to move in either direction is a result of the individual’s capacity to translate differences and a cultural awareness of the creative opportunities that arise in these encounters. In more general terms, Delanty claims that translation is vital not only for the individual’s capacity to articulate a cosmopolitan imagination, but that it is also expressive of the immanent and transformative dynamic of modernity, or what he calls, the third culture of globality. The idea that modernity spawns a third culture, one that is neither locally bound nor an empty abstraction, is also found in the writing of American philosopher Judith Butler.3 Translation also features here as a major trope for explaining the cultural capacity for “restaging the universal” in the encounter with difference. Butler argues that this encounter invariably threatens the cultural narcissism that an absolute authority rests in every local culture. However, the consequence that she
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tracks is not a simple reversion into defensive cultural authoritarianism, or the passive acceptance of cultural relativism, but an opening up to the threshold space of the “as if,” a zone in which neither the emergent difference, nor the established structure reign supreme, but both are re-imagined in the context of their interaction. French philosopher Étienne Balibar makes a similar observation on the capacity to regenerate cultural authority. 4 He also rejects the view that absolute universalism is confined to either a fixed code, or dispersed across an endless array of particularistic fragments. On the contrary, he suggests that the gaps within every culture provide the space in which difference enters, and also the dynamic for mutual transformation. As a foreign element enters in this space it is changed, and the host culture also changes through the dynamic of internalization. It is indeed paradoxical, but also very appealing, to note that a strategic version of cosmopolitanism also arises from the gaps within each culture rather than being determined through a fully furnished version of normative deliberation. If we follow this line of argument in the theoretical foundations for a cosmopolitan imagination, then the potential and possibility for dialogue with strangers is posited not simply as a cultivated form of willingness to show interest, care and obligation toward the other, but also as a consequence of constitutive gaps in our culture. As curator of this exhibition Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani has proposed the concept of anthropos as a tool to navigate the depth in the human soul. In this essay I am proposing that the fundamental quest into the interiority
of subjectivity is always coupled with an exploration of the widest possible spheres of the cosmos. It is in the combination of these two terms, the anthropos and the cosmos, that one may find another opportunity to reflect on the aesthetics of cosmopolitanism.5 The ancient Greek etymology of the term cosmos not only contained a reference to an even wider spatial sphere than our global territory, but it also pointed to the identity of the human race, and the aesthetic practice of making place attractive for another. The cosmos in cosmo-politan was not only a term of belonging in the widest possible sense, but also a reference to the aesthetic activity of bringing the other closer to you. The cosmos was both the source and expression of your own creative imagination. To make a cosmos was a world-making activity for anthropos.
Notes
Nikos Papastergiadis is professor at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. He studied at the University of Melbourne and University of Cambridge. Prior to returning to the University of Melbourne he was a lecturer at the University of Manchester. His publications include Modernity as Exile (1993), Dialogues in the Diaspora (1998), The Turbulence of Migration (2000), Metaphor and Tension (2004), Spatial Aesthetics: Art Place and the Everyday (2006), Cosmopolitanism and Culture (2012), Ambient Perspectives (2013) as well as being the author of numerous essays which have been translated into more than a dozen languages and appeared in major catalogues for the Sydney, Liverpool, Istanbul, Gwanju, Taipei, Lyon, Documenta and Thessaloniki biennials.
5 Nikos Papastergiadis, Cosmopolitanism and Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012).
1 Ulrich Beck, Cosmopolitan Vision (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006). 2 Gerard Delanty, The Cosmopolitan Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 3 Judith Butler, “Restaging the Universal” in Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, eds. Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek (London: Verso, 2000). 4 Étienne Balibar, “On Universalism: In Debate with Alain Badiou,” trans. Mary O’Neill, 2007: http://eipcp.net/ transversal/0607/balibar/en (accessed 6 June 2014).
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T H E A R T O F S T AY I N G H U M A N W H E R E V E R O N E M I G H T B E BY M AU R I Z I O P E LEG G I
New Yorkers are not strangers to shows of contemporary Asian art, even though artists from Thailand and Singapore are still far from enjoying the critical recognition and commercial success of those from India, Japan, China or Korea.1 Emphasis on nationality is admittedly at odds with the dominant conception of the art world as intrinsically transnational—even if this conception is often qualified in the case of non-Euro-American artists by reference to some aesthetic “tradition,” be it national or regional.2 One of the results of the considerable visibility Asian artists have achieved on the international art scene since the 1990s was the reinforcement of the notion of art’s autonomy from cultural and political conditioning, its assumed independence from both the market and the state.3 Ai Weiwei, to cite an artist who has recently been the object of much media attention, exemplifies—at least in Western eyes—the heroic view of the artist as champion of freedom of expression in the face of state censorship and repression.4 It is indeed ironic, as Julian Stallabrass notes in his trenchant critique of the contemporary art world, how pervasive the notions of art’s ineffability and of unfettered (male) artistic genius, which started
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forming since the Renaissance and congealed with the rise of modernism, still are today despite the iconoclastic disruption allegedly marked by postmodernism.5 This pervasiveness is even more remarkable given that in many world cultures, the modern/Western notions of “art” and “artist” had no immediate correspondent until the turn of the twentieth century. Another sign of the increasingly transnational nature of, and market for, contemporary art is the multiplication outside of Europe and North America of art institutions with their attendant curatorial apparatuses. To focus on the two countries that from where come the artists in this exhibition, Thailand’s capital possesses since 2008 the Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre (its proposed name was originally Bangkok Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Art),6 and Singapore is the latest city so far to host an art biennale, instated in 2006. And while the Singapore Art Museum hosted in 2011 a major retrospective exhibition of Southeast Asian art of the last two decades,7 a National Art Gallery, whose collection focuses mostly on artists from the region, is slated for opening in 2015 to mark the city-state’s fiftieth anniversary.
Complemented by a boom in private galleries that market art as one of the “lifestyle choices” available to affluent urbanites, increasing state support for the arts in both Thailand and Singapore as a means to boost national prestige and foster social cohesion runs, however, the risk of backfiring due to blatant political intentions and censorial interventions, not to mention the persisting limitations on public discourse in both countries.8 At the same time, one should not discount the differences that their respective political landscapes bear upon artists’ activity. For almost a decade now, Thailand has been engulfed in an undeclared, though occasionally fought (as in April-May 2010) civil war—Red Shirts vs. Yellow Shirts—which shows no prospects of resolution. The polarization of the body politic caused by this color-coded feud has affected even the art community; well-known artists such as Vasan Sitthiket and Manit Sriwanichpoom, notorious for excoriating both nationalist propaganda and consumerism, have turned into supporters of the pro-royalist faction out of scorn for the blend of populism and business embodied by the exiled but still influential ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Singapore, on the other hand, continues to be characterized by a remarkable degree of economic affluence and political acquiescence despite recent signs of middle-class disaffection with the status quo. Its ever-busy bureaucrats are intent on engineering “a visual arts ecosystem”9 in order to make blossom an art scene that, like the transnational financial institutions it is designed to leverage on and complement, would need to bear no organic relation to Singaporean society as long as it can generate economic and cultural capital.
Behind the superficial opposition one can observe between government control and artists’ aspiration to autonomy (and social recognition), looms the rather more complex dilemma between, on the one hand, the preservation of social order through a bureaucratically regulated regime of consumption (of which art production and reception is part), and on the other hand, the assertion of individuals’ identity as citizens and not mere consumers. In this context, even more than its idealistic naivety, one may doubt the very viability of the idea that “art is what makes us human—or at least allows us to ask and understand what it means to be human.”10 Can an exhibition titled Anthropos foreground, however timidly, a way out of this dilemma? The works presented here depart from both the shallow satire—tantamount to celebration—of consumer culture typical of much recent art from East Asia, and the political commitment of the previous generation of Southeast Asian artists. Setting the tone are Chatchai Puipia’s oversized self-portraits, which in the past communicated, with their expressionistic palette, a mix of angst and alienation, but here seem to hint at a contemplative state, possibly born of self-transformation (as the butterflies seem to symbolize). Likewise, the rest of the works explore the domain of sensations and emotions—from carnal depravation (Tawan Wattuya) to spiritual elevation (Kamolpan Chotvichai), from corporeal and relational bonds (Jason Wee, John Clang, Ho Tzu Nyen and Chusak Srikwan) to metaphysical yearnings (Jeremy Sharma, Piyatat Hemmatat), and from life’s transience to remembrance and oblivion (Nino Sarabutra, Kamin Lertchaiprasert and Lavender Chang).
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While only few of these works engage vernacular imagery and art-making practices, they also eschew the aesthetic uniformity of programmatically cosmopolitan art. Rather, they invite us with uncommon directness, even candor, to reflect upon our common condition of being human—a condition that, for all its physical and psychic groundings, maintains at its core an ineffable quid that makes it the inexhaustible subject of artistic representation. Maurizio Peleggi is associate professor of history at the National University of Singapore, and the editor of the Journal of Southeast Asia Studies. He is the author of several academic articles and book chapters on the art and cultural history of Thailand, and of Thailand: The Worldly Kingdom (2007), Lords of Things (2002) and The Politics of Ruins and the Business of Nostalgia (2002). Notes 1 Seminal in the American context was the exhibition Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions, held at the Asia Society, New York, in 1996. Curated by Apinan Poshyananda, the exhibition featured works by artists from Southeast Asia as well as India and Korea. 2 Gennifer Weisenfeld, “Reinscribing Tradition in a Transnational Art World,” Transcultural Studies 1 (2010), pp. 78-99.
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3 One may cite German cultural theorist Theodor W. Adorno in this regard: “Its [art’s] autonomy, its growing independence from society, was a function of the bourgeois consciousness of freedom that was itself bound up with the social structure. Prior to the emergence of this consciousness, art certainly stood in opposition to social denomination and its mores, but not with an awareness of its independence.” Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, ed. and trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), p. 225. 4 See, for example, the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012), by American journalist and filmmaker Alison Klayman, winner of the Sundance Festival Special Jury Prize; and Barnaby Martin’s book, Hanging Man: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei (London: Faber and Faber, 2013). 5 Julian Stallabrass, Art Incorporated (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); republished as Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). One of the most cogent critiques of postmodernism from a Marxist perspective remains Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003 [1991]).
6 Initiated in 2000 but stopped soon after, the project for BACC was resumed in 2005 under the government led by Thaksin Shinawatra, who was removed from power by a military coup in September 2006. BACC finally opened in 2008 with an exhibition of photographs by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn (the much beloved daughter of the incumbent King Bhumibol). 7 Guest-curated by Iola Lenzi, and entitled Negotiating Home, History and Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia 1991-2011, this exhibition was on show at the Singapore Art Museum from 12 March to 26 June 2011.
and Censorship in Singapore: Catch 22,” ArtAsiaPacific 76 (Nov/Dec 2011). Thailand’s lèse majesté law, which criminalizes verbal and visual criticism or satire that target the throne and its associates, is mirrored by the use of libel suits to silence the government’s political opponents in Singapore. 9 The phrase is Eugene Tan’s (an art history Ph.D. and an official of the Singapore Economic Development Board), as quoted by Jason Tedjasukmana, “Singapore Aims to be Arts Center,” http://www.destinasian.com/publications/ singapore-aims-to-be-arts-hub/ (accessed 20 May 2014) 10 Lingham, “Art and Censorship in Singapore.”
8 In the wake of the destruction in downtown Bangkok caused by the clashes between Red-Shirt demonstrators and police and military forces in May 2010, BACC mounted an exhibition entitled Imagine Peace, which in the words of its organizer, Professor Apinan Poshyananda, aimed at “bring[ing] back peace by using art to heal suffering spirits and reconstruct the burned city.” Phatarawadee Phataranawik, “Artists can help the country unite once again,” The Nation, 29 May 2010. The third edition of the Singapore Biennale in 2011 saw the removal of pornographic magazines from the installation “Welcome to the Hotel Munber” (2010), by Simon Fujiwara, which denounced the persecution of homosexuals in Spain under the Franco dictatorship. See Susie Lingham, “Art
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C HATC H A I P U I P IA Chatchai Puipia was born in Thailand in 1964. He graduated in painting at Silpakorn University, Bangkok. He is one of the most influential and prominent figures on the Thai art scene and also one of the most reclusive. In 2011 Puipia decided to retire from the public art scene. His last exhibition was in 2011, when he released the monograph Chatchai Is Dead. If Not, He Should Be. Solo exhibitions include Across the Eyebrows and into the Ears, Vermont Studio Center Art Gallery, Johnson, Vermont; Paradise Perhaps 2, Ise Cultural Foundation, New York, 2001; and Over Look, Open Art Space, Bangkok, 2001. Since 2001 Puipia has elected not to do solo exhibitions. Selected group exhibitions include Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions, Asia Society and Queens Museum of Art, New York, 1996; Art in Southeast Asia 1997: Glimpses into the Future, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Love, Tachikawa, Tokyo, 1998; Shanghai Biennale 2000, Shanghai Art Museum; Five Continents and One City, The Third International Salon of Painting, Museum of Mexico City, 2001; and the Singapore Biennale 2006. Puipia’s work is in the collections of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; Silpakorn University Art Gallery, Bangkok; Singapore Art Museum; and Thai Farmers Bank, Bangkok.
Life in the City of Angels: The Night Traveler, 2014, oil and pigments on canvas, 72.8 x 64.9 inches/185 x 165 cm 19
Life in the City of Angels: Heatedly Smile Disease, 2013, oil and pigments on canvas, 78.7 x 70.8 inches/200 x 180 cm 20
Life in the City of Angels: The Healing, 2014, oil on canvas, 72.8 x 62.9 inches/185 x 160 cm 21
C H U SA K S R I KWAN Chusak Srikwan was born in 1983 in Songkhla, Thailand. He received a BFA and MFA at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, where he is currently a full-time lecturer. Srikwan’s preferred medium is leather, which refers to Thai shadow puppetry practice. He uses Buddhist iconography, which is familiar to most Thais, thus producing works with easily recognized messages. His work has been featured in national and international exhibitions and art fairs. Solo shows include Gifts from My Grandma, Whitespace Gallery, Bangkok, 2011, and Shadow play—Dharma, Ardel Gallery of Modern Art, Bangkok, 2010. Recent group shows include Delirium & Obsession, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok, 2013; Thai Transience, Singapore Art Museum, 2012; Cut Thru: A View on 21st Century Thai Art, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, 2012; and Traces of Siamese Smile: Art + Faith + Politics + Love, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2008.
Man with Strength, 2014, cowhide, 66.9 x 66.9 inches/170 x 170 cm
Woman with Gentleness, 2014, cowhide, 59 x 47.2 inches/150 x 120 cm 23
H O TZ U NYE N Ho Tzu Nyen, who was born in Singapore in 1976, makes films, videos and stages live performances related to historical and philosophical texts and artefacts. Ho has had one-person exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide, 2007 and 2010; Artspace Sydney, 2011; and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2012. He represented Singapore at the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011. Group exhibitions include the Bienal de São Paulo, 2004; Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan, 2005; Singapore Biennale, 2006; Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2007; Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, 2009; No Soul for Sale, Tate Modern, London, 2010; Auckland Triennial, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2013; and No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2013. Film festivals include Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes International Film Festival, 2009; the Venice International Film Festival, 2009; and the Sundance Film Festival, 2012. Ho was the subject of profiles and retrospective screenings at the transmediale 09, Berlin, 2009, and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany, 2013. Ho’s theatrical performances have been staged at the Singapore Arts Festival, 2008; Esplanade—Theatres on the Bay, Singapore, 2007, 2012, 2014; KunstenFestivaldesArts, Brussels, 2006 and 2008; and Theater der Welt, Mülheim, Germany, 2009.
Gould, video still, 2014, HD, 1 minute, 42 seconds 25
JAS O N WE E Jason Wee was born in 1979. He is an artist and a writer who lives in Singapore and New York. His art practice is concerned with the hollowing out of singular authority in favor of multiple perspectives. He traces the arc of our changing histories and spaces, transforming these changes into visual and written materials. Wee founded and runs Grey Projects, an alternative art space and residency focusing on emerging and experimental practices and curatorship. He is also an editor for Softblow.com poetry journal and is a contributor to Petite Mort (New York, Forever & Today, Inc.). He was a 2005-2006 Studio Fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. In 2010, he co-curated the acclaimed Beyond LKY exhibition and in 2011 co-organized The Future of Exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore. In 2011, he published My Suit (Singapore, Math Paper Press). Wee has shown his work at the Chelsea Art Museum, New York, and Photo New York; Casino Luxembourg, 2009; Institut fßr Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart and Berlin; Singapore Art Museum, 2007 and 2008; and the Singapore Biennale, 2006. Artist-in-residencies include Artspace Sydney, 2007; International Symposium on Electronic Art, 2008; Tokyo Wonder Site Aoyama, 2009; Contemporary Art Japan, Tokyo; and Gyeonggi Creation Center, Korea, 2013.
Self-Portrait (Falling Dogman), 2014, watercolor on canvas, 90.5 x 59 inches/230 x 150 cm
Self-Portrait (Hanging Dogman), 2014, watercolor on canvas, 90.5 x 59 inches/230 x 150 cm 27
J E R E MY S HAR M A Jeremy Sharma was born in 1977 in Singapore where he currently lives. He has an MA degree in fine art, 2006, from LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts/Open University, United Kingdom. He works primarily as a painter but his body of work encompasses video, photography, drawing and installation. His practice investigates the notion of art as a reflection of a conscious life in the age of mechanical, industrial and digital reproduction and interconnectivity. Solo exhibitions in Singapore include Exposition, Grey Projects, 2013; Apropos, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts, 2012; Variations, Art Forum, 2011; The Protection Paintings—Of Sensations and Superscriptions, Jendela, Esplanade, 2008; and End of a Decade, The Substation Gallery, 2007. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Italy, England and the United States. Sharma is the recipient of the Royal Overseas Travel Scholarship Award, United Kingdom, 2007; Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Arts Award with art collective Kill Your Television, 2005; and the Studio 106 residency award, Singapore, 2004. His work is in the collection of the Singapore Art Museum; the National Library Board, Singapore; Ngee Ann Kongsi, Singapore; and Societe Generale. He teaches in the Faculty of fine arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.
Terra Sense Series, 2014, high-density polystyrene foam, 70.8 x 35.4 x 7.8 inches/180 x 90 x 20 cm 29
JOHN C LA N G John Clang was born in Singapore in 1973. He lives in New York and Singapore. He works in photography and film, focusing on time, displacement and existence. His photographs examine and raise questions about the world he lives in, offering not pictorial documentation but an intimate reflection of his mind. He has had solo exhibitions at Bank Art Gallery, Los Angeles, 2003; Jendela, Esplanade, Singapore, 2004; The Substation, Singapore, 2007; 2902 Gallery, Singapore, 2010; and Pekin Fine Arts, Beijing, 2012 and 2014. In 2013, more than ninety of his works were exhibited at the National Museum of Singapore. Clang has participated in group exhibitions at the Singapore Art Museum, 2009; Annexe Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, 2010; mc2gallery, Milan, 2010 and 2012; National Museum of Singapore, 2010; 2902 Gallery, Singapore, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 2011; Kennesaw State University Art Museum, Georgia, United States, 2012; and Centre for Contemporary Culture, Florence, Italy, 2014. His work is in the permanent collections of the Singapore Art Museum and National Museum of Singapore. In 2010, Clang became the first photographer to receive the Designer of the Year award at the President’s Design Award, the most prestigious design accolade in Singapore. He was also a finalist for the 2010 Sovereign Asian Art Prize.
Being Together (Parents), 2010, fine-art archival print, edition 2/3, 39.3 x 62.9 inches/100 x 160 cm 31
Being Together (Family), 2010, fine-art archival print, edition 2/3, 39.3 x 62.9 inches/100 x 160 cm 32
Being Together (Dad), 2010, fine-art archival print, edition 2/3, 39.3 x 62.9 inches/100 x 160 cm 33
K AM I N
LE RTC HAI P R AS E RT Kamin Lertchaiprasert was born in Thailand in 1964. He lives in Chiang Mai. Throughout his career he has worked in a variety of media, producing paintings, installations, prints and sculpture.
Selected solo exhibitions include Non-Being by Itself, The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2013; and the 31st Century Museum of Contemporary Spirit (Laboratory), School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2011. Selected group exhibitions include Satanni (collaborative art project), If the World Changed, Singapore Biennale, Singapore Art Museum, 2013; Thresholds: Contemporary Thai Art, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York and Hong Kong, 2013; Thai Transience, Singapore Art Museum, 2012; Biennale of Sydney, 2012; Water and Land—Niigata Art Festival, Japan, 2012; Art Domain Migration: ASEAN and China, The Fourth Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, 2011; and Negotiating Home, History and Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia 1991–2011, Singapore Art Museum, 2011. Lertchaiprasert’s interest in collaborative art led him to cofound The Land Foundation in 1998 and the 31st Century Museum of Contemporary Spirit in 2011. Both are in Chiang Mai. His work is in the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Singapore Art Museum; Bangkok University; and The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo.
Impermanent (Anijja), 2010-2012, wood, 67.7 x 14.1 x 11.8 inches/172 x 36 x 30 cm 35
Desire, 2010-2012, wood, 66.5 x 37.7 x 37.7 inches/169 x 96 x 96 cm 36
Dhamma-Doing, 2010-2012, wood, 70.4 x 11.8 x 12.5 inches/179 x 30 x 32 cm 37
K AM O L PA N C H OT VI C HAI Kamolpan Chotvichai was born in 1986 in Bangkok, where she currently lives. She received her MFA degree at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, and has since been awarded numerous art prizes and scholarships. Chotvichai challenges the limitations of paper in her artwork through the use of simple tools. One of her techniques is cutting, to dissolve her own image, which is printed on paper. It’s based on the Buddha’s teachings on anatta (no self). Kamolpan Chotvichai has participated in numerous exhibitions and won many prizes and bursaries, including first prize (printmaking) in the 58th National Exhibition of Art, Bangkok, 2012. Her most recent solo exhibition was EMPTINESS, Ardel Gallery of Modern Art, Bangkok, 2013. Group exhibitions include Anthropos Bangkok, Numthong Gallery, 2013; Anthropos: Navigating Human Depth in Thai and Singapore Contemporary Art, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore, 2013; The 4th Contemporary Young Artists Exhibiton, Los Angeles, 2013; and the International Women Arts Exhibition Lights of Women, Gwangju Museum of Art Kum Namro Wing, Metro Gallery, Korea, 2012. Chotvichai was invited to participate in ON PAPERS, a paper art workshop that was part of ON PAPERS—Paper & Nature exhibition at Tama Art University Museum, Tokyo.
Person, 2014, C-print and hand-cut canvas, 43.7 x 45.2 inches/111 x 115 cm 39
Suffering, 2014, C-print and hand-cut canvas, 53.9 x 32.3 inches/137 x 82 cm 40
Sorrower, 2014, C-print and hand-cut canvas, 41.3 x 33.8 inches/105 x 86 cm 41
L AV E N D E R C HAN G Lavender Chang was born in Taiwan in 1989. She graduated from the Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design and Media, Singapore, in photography and digital imaging. Chang has a strong interest in contemporary conceptual photography. Her artwork is a reflection of her sensitivity toward the nuances surrounding her. She focuses on these subtle experiences, to create images that invite further contemplation, suggesting the passage of time and faint traces of her mortality. Her work has been exhibited at the International Orange Photo Festival, China, 2010, and the Kuala Lumpur International Photo Awards, 2011. She received Gold and Silver awards at The Crowbar Awards, 2010 and 2011, and she is the winner of the Noise Singapore Prize, 2011. Chang was one of the nominees for the documentary photography and photojournalism-focused Platform 10, Singapore. Chang is also one of the winners of 2012/2013 Young Talent Programme, and had her winner’s solo show at ION Art Gallery, Singapore, 2013.
Unconsciousness: Consciousness #1, 2011, transparency and lightbox, edition 1/2, 14 x 11.4 inches/35.6 x 29cm 43
Unconsciousness: Consciousness #5, 2012, archival fine-art inkjet print, edition 1/2, 39.3 x 49.2 inches/100 x 125 cm 44
Unconsciousness: Consciousness #10, 2013, archival fine-art inkjet print, edition 1/2, 39.3 x 49.2 inches/100 x 125 cm 45
NINO SAR A B UT R A Nino Suwannee Sarabutra was born in Thailand in 1970, where she currently lives. She studied ceramic arts at Silpakorn University, Bangkok. In 2006 Sarabutra set up her own Bangkok studio while running a small advertising agency. Her work explores human emotions and existence. Her latest solo exhibitions include What Will You Leave Behind?, 2013, and Live, Love and Let Die, 2011, at Ardel’s Third Place Gallery, Bangkok. Group exhibitions include Anthropos: Navigating Human Depth in Thai and Singapore Contemporary Art, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore, 2013; Southeast Asian Ceramics, DAO ART SPACE, Xi’an, 2012; and Southeast Asian Ceramics exhibition, 2012, and permanent collection, FULE International Ceramic Art Museums, Fuping, Shaanxi, China. She was artist-in-residence at Fuping Pottery Art Village in Shaanxi and SurVivArt—Art for the Right to a Good Life, Galerie Meinblau, Berlin, 2012.
What Will You Leave Behind?, 2012, unglazed porcelain, dimensions vary 47
Death-Alive, 2014, acrylic and fired clay on wood, 39.3 x 39.3 inches/100 x 100 cm 48
What Will You Leave Behind?, 2012, acrylic and fired clay on wood, 39.3 x 118.1 inches/100 x 300 cm 49
P I YATAT H E M MATAT Piyatat Hemmatat was born in 1976 in Bangkok. He received a BA in fine art from City and Guilds of London Art School in 2001, where he developed a passion for photography. He went on to complete his MA in fine art at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London in 2002. In 2010 Hemmatat founded RMA Institute, Bangkok, a creative space that mounts exhibitions and hosts workshops. Hemmatat’s body of work includes photographic essays of sociopolitical commentary, abstract experimentation and curated collections from his ongoing practice. Solo exhibitions include Landscape, Serindia Gallery, Bangkok, 2014; 3rd Eye Trilogy: The New Dawn, Serindia Gallery, Bangkok, 2013; 11:11: Recent Photographs by Piyatat Hemmatat, H Gallery, Chiang Mai, 2012; Apasmara, Galleri Dong Xi, Vestfossen, Norway, 2011; Apasmara, Le Déco Gallery, Tokyo, 2010; Impromptu, Jazz Gallery, Bangkok, 2009; Civilisation, 44 Art Gallery, Bangkok, 2009; and Verve, 44 Art Gallery, Bangkok, 2008. Selected group exhibitions include Faith & Fairy Tales, ADM Gallery, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2014; Picture Perfect: A Photography Series Exhibition Part II: Supernatural, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, 2013; Cut Thru: A View on 21st Century Thai Art, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, 2012; Thai Photography NOW, Nikon Salon Ginza, Tokyo, 2010; and Rupture—Cause and Effect, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, 2011.
Titans, no. 18, 2014, Chromogenic print, Kodak Endura paper on Dibond, edition 1/1, 21.7 x 66.9 inches/55 x 170 cm 51
Titans, no. 28, 2014, Chromogenic print, Kodak Endura paper on Dibond, edition 1/1, 21.7 x 66.9 inches/55 x 170 cm 52
Titans, no. 33, 2014, Chromogenic print, Kodak Endura paper on Dibond, edition 1/1, 21.7 x 66.9 inches/55 x 170 cm 53
TAWAN WATT UYA Tawan Wattuya was born in 1972 in Bangkok, where he currently lives. After graduating from Silpakorn University, Bangkok, he started his watercolor practice focusing on social phenomena inside and outside Thailand. More recently, Wattuya has started experimenting with oil on canvas exploring issues of identity. Wattuya has exhibited widely, establishing himself as one of the most prominent artists of his generation. Recent solo shows include Like a Virgin, Alliance Franรงaise de Brisbane, Australia 2014; Tii Tai Krua, The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2013; Fading Nostalgia, Gallery Yang, Beijing, 2012; Superheroes and the Unreachable Fantasies, DCA Gallery, Brussels, 2011; Okinawa Part 2, Tsuchi Gallery, Naha City, Okinawa, 2010; Bimbos, Stars and Super Heroes, Toot Yung Gallery, Bangkok, 2010; Uniform/Uniformity, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok, 2010; and Siamese Freaks! A Modern Courtyard of Miracles, Numthong Gallery, Bangkok, 2007. Selected group shows include Anthropos: Navigating Human Depth in Thai and Singapore Contemporary Art, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore, 2013; Uncensored, Numthong Gallery, Bangkok, 2013; Cut Thru: A View on 21st Century Thai Art, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, 2012; Dialogues Belgian and Thai Art and Design Exhibition, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2011; City of Angels/ Identity Crisis, Toot Yung Gallery, Paris, 2011; When All You Got Is Given, 68 Square Metres Art Space, Copenhagen, 2011; and KOZA A.I.R, M&A Gallery, Okinawa City, 2010.
Saya, 2013, watercolor on paper, 39.3 x 27.5 inches/100 x 70 cm
Chinatsu, 2013, watercolor on paper, 39.3 x 27.5 inches/100 x 70 cm 55
Soapland Girls #1, 2013, watercolor on paper, 39.3 x 78.7 inches/100 x 200 cm 56
Soapland Girls #2, 2013, watercolor on paper, 39.3 x 78.7 inches/100 x 200 cm 57
AC K N OWLE D G M E NTS My heartfelt thanks to Sundaram Tagore for inviting me to curate this major exhibition at his New York galleries, indeed a great honor and a pleasure. His unconditional belief in the richness of the Thai and Singapore art scenes, his trust in my passion and dedication to the artists, and his full support made this project possible. I have learned a lot from our journey, as I always do from every curatorial project. Thank you. I am grateful to the staff of Sundaram Tagore Gallery, both in Singapore and New York, for their great support and collaboration at all levels. Special thanks go to the catalogue editor, Kelly Tagore, and catalogue designer, Russell Whitehead, for making this publication possible, and to the guest writers: Professor Nikos Papastergiadis and Professor Maurizio Peleggi who have kindly contributed their insightful essays. My sincere appreciation goes to the artists, who have believed in Anthropos New York from the beginning. They have entrusted to me their works, giving me the honor of featuring them in this exhibition. I also wish to acknowledge the generous support of the National Arts Council of Singapore. —Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani, curator
S U N D A R A M TA G O R E G A L L E R I E S Established in 2000, Sundaram Tagore Gallery is devoted to examining the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures. We focus on developing exhibitions and hosting not-for-profit events that encourage spiritual, social and aesthetic dialogues. In a world where communication is instant and cultures are colliding and melding as never before, our goal is to provide venues for art that transcend boundaries of all sorts. With alliances across the globe, our interest in cross-cultural exchange extends beyond the visual arts into many other disciplines, including poetry, literature, performance art, film and music. new york new york hong kong singapore
547 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 • tel 212 677 4520 fax 212 677 4521 • gallery@sundaramtagore.com 1100 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10028 • tel 212 288 2889 57-59 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong • tel 852 2581 9678 fax 852 2581 9673 • hongkong@sundaramtagore.com 01-05 Gillman Barracks, 5 Lock Road, Singapore 108933 • tel 65 6694 3378 • singapore@sundaramtagore.com
President and curator: Sundaram Tagore Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey Director, Hong Kong: Faina Derman Designer: Russell Whitehead Printed by First Printers Singapore
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Art consultants: Teresa Kelley Bonnie B. Lee Sarah Miller Deborah Moreau Benjamin Rosenblatt Raj Sen Melanie Taylor
Text © 2014 Sundaram Tagore Gallery Images credits: Cover and pp. 3 and 19–21 © Chatchai Puipia; p. 8 and 23 © Chusak Srikwan; p. 25 © Ho Tzu Nyen; pp. 4 and 29 © Jeremy Sharma; pp. 7 and 31–33 © John Clang; pp. 35–37 © Kamin Lertchaiprasert; pp. 39–41 © Kamolpan Chotvichai; pp. 43–45 © Lavender Chang; pp. 47–49 © Nino Sarabutra; pp. 51–53 © Piyatat Hemmatat; pp. 5 and 55–57 © Twan Wattuya. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-692-23865-3 Cover: Chatchai Puipia, Life in the City of Angels: War Zone (detail), 2014, oil and pigments on canvas, 70.8 x 61 inches/180 x 155 cm