Bangkok over the rainbow

Daniel Monfort Gil explores Bangkok’s flamboyant gay scene in his exhibition of colourful paintings titled “Our World”, which has been extended until May 31 at Serindia Gallery OP Garden in Bang Rak.

Portrayed in comic-strip style, the works show gay couples posing for a picture in front of Hua Lampong Station and for a selfie in front of the Giant Swings. Other images show gays searching for street food in China Town, shooting water guns at Siam Paragon during the Songkran Festival and even making love in a hotel room with the skyline of Bangkok as the backdrop.

Find out more at Facebook/serindiagallery.

Fantasy on the mind

Young bisexual artist Thepmetha Thepboonta showcases his latest works in the solo show “My Fantasy World 0.000000000123456789” at the Bridge Caf้ and Art Space in Charoen Krung Road until May 31.

A graduate of Chiang Mai University’s Fine Arts Faculty, Thepmetha made his name as the “MethaGod” in his debut show “Under My Gender” at Chiang Mai’s Gallery Seescape a few years back. Curated by Linzie, the current show features three series – “Welcome to My World”, “Aesthetic of Sexuality” and “From My Second Spirit” – and features video, paintings, prints and installation.

Check it out at Facebook/Bridge Art Space.

One Child takes on the world

Bangkok-based contemporary Chinese artist Zhi Lin is showcasing his new painting exhibition “The Crowd” at the Midnice Gallery until May 31.

Black-and-white acrylics portray the story of the character “One Child” as he explores this world. Dubbed as “sick humour”, the subject matter is inspired by China’s “one-child” policy, which was launched in the 1980s, with Zhi Lin’s “One Child” character featuring in a unique outline.

The gallery is located in Diamond Apartment in Chokchai 4, Soi 18, Lat Phrao Road and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11.30am to 8.30pm. See more at http://www.Midnicegallery.com.

Life behind the mask

Social media like Facebook serve as the inspiration for veteran artist Opas Chotiphantawanon’s new solo show “100 Masks”, which is showing at People’s Gallery P3 on the second floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre until May 28. On display are 100 sculptures bearing colourful masks of new and weird creatures. Some have strange faces with horns and ears, while others boasts abstract images on their faces.

“Things that we see on the social media world are often not real. What we see is just a mask,” the artist says.

For more information, visit http://www.bacc.co.th.

In her introductory article titled “Sharing New Friendships and Visions”, Taiwan’s culture minister Cheng Li-chiun writes, “Taiwan has a long history of ties with Southeast Asia. Such relations are built upon an array of official and non-official cultural, tourist and commercial activities dating back many years. Based on this firm foundation, our new ‘Southbound Policy’ aims to share new visions, |create new opportunities and open new windows for cooperation and exchanges.

“But it is only through the human touch we can truly learn the important details of art, culture and their heritages. In order to expand the scope of cultural exchanges, and to better understand cultural differences of another, the Ministry of Culture is working to implement the New Southbound Policy through expanded people-to-people exchanges,” she continues.

Chang Cheng introduced his SEAthemed bookstore Brilliant Time. Photo Ministry of Culture, Republic of China

With that in mind, last month the ministry officially appointed 18 “key influencers on the domestic and international stages” to the second Southeast Asian Advisory Committee (SEAAC), comprising Taiwanese and Southeast Asian nationals. I was more than honoured to be part of this.

Along with members of the 1st SEAAC, in the first few days, we were briefly introduced to the past and present of Taiwanese arts and culture and explored possible ways for exchange and cooperation. We visited the National Taiwan Museum, the National 228 Memorial Museum, the Human Rights Museum, which was converted from a political prison, the National Performing Arts Centre, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), a Southeast Asian neighbourhood in New Taipei City, Huashan 1914 Creative Park (where I ran into three of my former students on a Songkran holiday trip), as well as National Taichung Theatre and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

Although I had been to Taipei on three previous occasions, a new journey always comes with new knowledge and surprises.

The first surprise I encountered is that this is a bottom-up, instead of top-down, approach to cultural exchange and cooperation. The second followed shortly afterwards and came courtesy of one of my SEAAC colleagues. Apparently the ties between Taiwan and SEA are partly based on geographical and historical grounds – in other words, Asean and the AEC could have included Taiwan.

A meeting with officials from Taiwan Film Institute. Photo Ministry of Culture, Republic of China

I have long been impressed by a Taiwanese chain of bookshops and its ability to make its stores look and feel more than just a place to buy books so it wasn’t surprising to learn that Taiwan’s book translations and publications are considered among the best of the world. What did surprise me though was the purpose of the two-year-old SEA-themed Brilliant Time bookstore. An advocate for Southeast Asian immigrants Chang Cheng, another SEAAC colleague and Brilliant Time’s owner, asks visitors to SEA bring back with them books in local languages and donate them to his bookstore, which will then loan them out for free. He also runs the Taiwan Literaure Award for Migrants to encourage SEA people to write, and to express their thoughts, in Chinese. To make ends meet, this independent bookstore organises many other small SEA-themed literary and cultural events charging nominal admission fees year-round, and I now know what will fill my bags on my next trip to Taipei.

I gave a lecture on Songkran tradition and the “sanuk” culture in contemporary Thai performing arts at National Chi Nan University. Located a hour’s drive from Taichung and 20 minutes from Sun Moon Lake, it is home to the largest community of Southeast Asian students and boasts the country’s first and only Southeast Asian studies department. Many Taiwanese students are studying Thai language there and listening to Thai pop songs. At lunch, my SEAAC colleague Yen Chih-hung showed that he could cook green curry better than me – which wasn’t a surprise. And as it was Songkran, he brought to the class a bowl of water and a branch of leaves for the traditional Thai New Year blessing. As my hair is the opposite to that of a Thai monk, I instead asked the students to pay respect to their professor in an authentic Thai way.

The programme for SEAAC members then turned more individualised and each of us had meetings with our potential partners on the subsequent days. While my filmmaker, curator, museum director and performing arts centre director colleagues were speaking in public forums, I was giving another lecture on contemporary Thai dance and theatre at the Taipei National University of Arts (TNUA), which is also a colleague in the Asia-Pacific Bond of Theatre Schools—and thanks to the SEAAC initiative, an MoU is, of course, in the process.

At the end of the official five-day programme we all could see clearly the high potential for each of us to build on the already existing “friendships and visions”.

An intercultural and interdisciplinary project

The same week at National Chengchi University, art critic and Srinakharinwirot University fine arts professor Thanom Chapakdee and playwright and director Chung Chiao gave a talk on “The Unforgettable Bru: Animisms in the Films of Apichatpong and the Bru People of the Mekong River,” linking the works by Thailand’s internationally acclaimed film director to their ongoing collaborative research.

Thanom Chapakdee and Chung Chiao at National Chengchi University.  Photo/ Ministry of Culture Republic of China

The two, who met at an academic conference, had already been in constant contact before being appointed to the 1st SEAAC last year.

Chung, whose Assignment Theatre brought the Satoyama project – a series of environmental theatre activities aimed at creating a mutual communication system between artists and the community participants, based on the development in environmental sustainability – from Japan to Taiwan, collaborated with Thanom, who has been working already with the Bru community for 10 years, in bringing the project to the Bru community along the Mekong river in Thailand this year.

Their friendship and vision are clearly evidenced in “The Water Village” project, presented in both countries and comprising theatre performance and workshop, and combining ecology and environmental issues. It links different disciplines of arts as well as artists and people of different countries.

Beyond tourist traps

Thanks to the “free visa” trial period, and consequently more direct flights between the two capital cities, Taiwan is now among the top destinations for Thai tourists, and vice versa despite the visa requirement from the other side. That, though, cannot yet be said for artists of the two countries, especially those working in performing arts.

 “Dancing with Death”, still not seen in Thailand, will be in Taipei this August. Photo Bernie Ng

There are, though, a few examples. With support from Taiwan’s culture ministry, Horse Dance Company founder and director Chen Wu-Kang is, from last Friday to this Friday, conducting a workshop at Pichet Klunchun Dance Company, and will perform with the internationally renowned Thai dancer and choreographer this Saturday at Chang Theatre. The Thai company itself is scheduled to perform “Dancing with Death”, seen already in Singapore, Japan and Australia and never in its home country, at Cloud Gate Theatre this August, as part of “Asians Discover Asians Meeting”, a new initiative by Taipei Performing Arts Centre and Taipei Arts Festival. You may remember that the artistic path of Cloud Gate’s founder Lin Hwai-min, who has been creating contemporary dance works based on traditional training, is one of the paths our Silpathorn artist is following.

A question remains here whether our Ministry of Culture is aware of these exchanges and cooperation, sees how, on a larger scale in relation to Taiwan’s Southbound Policy, it is in fact directly linked to our (re)focus on AEC neighbours and consider how they can further support this people-to-people relationship.

I recently jokingly told an international gathering of theatre artists and scholars in Berlin that I was from Bangkok, Thailand, not Taiwan. Loud laughter followed. The fact that this joke still works says a lot about the two countries, which have been linked for many years, and not only by direct flights or common misunderstanding by colleagues from other countries.

STUDENTS in Kasetsart University’s “Scrap Lab” recently earned scholarships worth a total of Bt110,000 from the Onyx Hospitality Group after winning awards for their ecologically minded designs.

Group president and chief executive Peter Henley presented the students with the scholarships and trophies as part of its “Arts for the Planet” project, which aims to demonstrate the potential of “upcycling” – finding new uses |for cast-off materials – and to |foster innovative ways to tackle the waste issue.

Onyx collaborated with the non-governmental organisation Tlejourn and the Scrap Lab, which is part of the Faculty of Architecture at Kasetsart and incorporated the project into its curriculum.

The students spent weekends learning about waste-management issues and were directly involved in cleaning up a canal and other activities. They then experimented with ways to develop useful products from waste material under the supervision of Associate Professor Singh Intrachooto, head of the Creative Centre for Eco-design and the Scrap Lab’s founder, and Dr Nattapong Nithi-Uthai, founder of Tlejourn, which makes footwear out of ocean debris.

Funding and other support |for the programme came from |Kiat Siam Leatherware, Hawaii |Thai Furniture and ERP. The |students visited the companies’ |factories to learn how their |designs might find practical |business applications.

Four of the eight teams were selected as the winners by a reviewing panel.

Piphat and Chawanlapa took the top prize with their “Beep Beep” plant pots and candleholders.

The Best Design Award was presented to Piphat Thongta and Chawanlapa Darachart for their “Beep Beep” plant pots and candleholders fashioned from sponge, synthetic rattan, dacron, wood, aluminium and concrete. Each student received a scholarship worth Bt40,000.

Seksit Pakdee and Guillaume Bichon won the Inspiring Design Award with a range of “Fantasteak” items including this chair.

The Inspiring Design Award was given to Seksit Pakdee and Guillaume Bichon for their Lego-inspired “Fantasteak” chair, desk lamp and photo frame made with plastic boards, bottle corks, teak and leather scraps. Each received a Bt30,000 scholarship.

A Creative Design Award went to Nutkritta Nilkamhaeng and Lucie Lauwerier for their “From the Bin to the Sky” kites.

Creative Design Awards went to two teams. Nutkritta Nilkamhaeng and Lucie Lauwerier’s “From the Bin to the Sky” kites in various shapes were created with rope scraps and drinking straws. Marie Le Gouellec and Pattanayu Thongloi’s “Metisse” wall partitions were comprised of scrap rubber sheets and foil. The members of both teams received scholarships worth Bt20,000.

Marie Le Gouellec and Pattanayu Thongloi also won a Creative Design Award for their “Metisse” room partitions.

The show, which is titled “Yayoi Kusuma: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow”, will run from June 9 to September 3 at the National Gallery Singapore.

The exhibition will focus on the immersive and expansive nature of Kusama’s work through paintings, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations and designs. It will also feature her famous “Pumpkin” sculpture, Dots Designs and the Infinity Mirror Room, a mirror-lined chamber housing a dazzling and seemingly endless LED light display

Find out more at http://www.YourSingapore.com.

One of the most anticipated contemporary performance arts festivals in Thailand, the event seeks to strengthen connections between a network of performance arts communities in Thailand and in Asia. This upcoming festival consists of three noteworthy performances: “Len Likay, Play of My Life”, “Open Water” and “Beloved.”

Theatrical actor and director Pradit Prasartthong will stage “Len Likay, Play of My Life,” a contemporary performance reflecting on his role as a performer and the difficulties he’s faced as an artist during 30 years of unrest, form May 26 to 28 at 8pm.

At 4pm on the same dates, “Open Water (Work in Progress)” will be performed. This collaboration between Thai artist Jaturachai Srichanwanpen and Singaporean talent Tan Shou Chen looks at the theatre world in both countries. The performance will elaborate on a lecture about how the two collaborate and conduct research.

“Open Water” uses Water Myths as a starting thematic point. As a destructive force, water floods, destroys, and demolishes. As a birth force, it grows, rejuvenates and revives. Water, both life-giving and life-taking, is a recurrent trope in Singapore and Thailand culture.

“Beloved”, which will be performed from June 2 to 4 at 8pm, examines the history of ritual lovemaking. Inspired by an Angkorian custom recorded in the thirteenth century – in which the Khmer king made nightly sexual unions with a naga to ensure fertility of the land –“Beloved” situates the love between men in the ritual-poetic space in which Khmer dance is set, mirroring and shaping, stretching and rechoreographing the image of the ultimate social order.

A panel discussion on Asian theatre will be held on June 4 at 2pm.

Tickets for “Beloved” and “Len Likay, Play of My Life” are Bt550 while those for “Open Water” are Bt350 An advance ticket package for all three shows is Bt1,000 and available through May 20. Visit http://www.BangkokTheatreFestival.org or call (095) 924 4555.

“Viva Arte Viva”, which opens Saturday in Venice,  is “a passionate outcry for art” in a world “full of conflicts and shocks”, curator Christine Macel said ahead of the opening.

Macel, chief curator of the Pompidou Center in Paris, has brought together 120 artists from 50 countries — with the emphasis on rediscovering great artists who may have been overlooked, rather than blowing the trumpets of rising stars.

“The Biennale challenge is to give as global a picture as possible of the artistic situation” across the world, she told AFP.

Among those exhibiting are pioneering US fiber artist Sheila Hicks, West German-born American Kiki Smith and Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, the man behind the vast sun at Britain’s Tate Modern in 2003 and the New York waterfalls in 2008.

– Music and gold –

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France’s Loris Greaud pays homage to the city’s famed glass blowers — forced by the Venetian Senate in 1291 to settle on Murano island to protect the industry’s secrets — by bringing a disused furnace back to life in “The Unplayed Notes Factory”.

Swiss-born Julian Charriere, perhaps best known for dying the feathers of live pigeons in bright colours and releasing them into Venice’s Saint Mark’s Square in 2015, brings visitors “Future Fossil Spaces” — towers of salt bricks extracted from deposits in Bolivia.

Some exhibits are dotted around “La Serenissima”, “the most serene” as Venice is known.

Visitors should take to the gondolas for the best view of the glinting “Golden Tour” (1990) by US artist James Lee Byars, which stands proudly on the canal front next to the Peggy Guggenheim museum.

Alongside the contemporary art exhibition, 85 countries are putting on their own national pavilions at the Biennale.

The French one will be a recording studio with classical, baroque, electronic and folk instruments, which will host over 100 professional musicians from different countries during the exposition, with visitors able to drop in on some lively jam sessions.

Several countries will be showing for the first time in the northeastern Italian city, from Antigua and Barbuda to Kazakhstan and Nigeria.

– Green lights, disco beat –

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However it is impossible to escape the modern world’s problems altogether, even at the Biennale.

“The Pavilion of Joys and Fears”, for example, explores “new feelings of alienation due to forced migrations or mass surveillance” in a world shaken by conflicts, wars, increasing inequality and the rise of populism.

But the topics are approached with humour or warmth, aimed at energising those suffering from 21st century blues.

“At a time of global disorder, art embraces life. Art is the last bastion,” Macel says.

At the heart of her show lies Eliasson’s “green light” installation, where refugees and visitors come together in a workshop to assemble lamps designed by the artist and share stories.

As the worst migrant crisis since World War II rocks Europe, it represents the metaphorical green light he urges his homeland and other countries to give to taking in those fleeing conflict and persecution.

In the wake of the US presidential election, American artist Charles Atlas presents the large-screen video work “The Tyranny of Consciousness”, in which drag queen Lady Bunny bemoans American politics to a disco beat.

The Golden Lion for lifetime achievement goes to the pioneering US feminist performance artist Carolee Schneemann, famed for using her body to examine the role of female sensuality and the overthrow of oppressive social conventions.

The Venice Biennale is held on odd-numbered years. This year’s event will run until November 26.

NO DOUBT the low membership fee can take part of the credit, but the long queues that form every day at the newly opened Bangkok City Library bode well for future of the written word in a country that up until recently had not been known for a reading culture.

The new library marks another step forward in the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s efforts to live up to its selection as the World Book Capital for 2013, an initiative set up by Unesco to acknowledge a city’s programmes dedicated to books and reading.

And in this the BMA has been vindicated. Within days of its opening, the Bt296-million Bangkok City Library on Rajdamnoen Klang Road had acquired more than 10,000 members. Some, like an elderly reader from Bang Khae, are coming to the library every day, spending their time going through the books or just taking pleasure in the ambience.

Membership is cheaper than the one-time parking fee in the area, going for Bt10 for those above the age of 15 and Bt5 for kids. And before too long, one sole membership card will be recognised at all 36 of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s libraries.

More than 50,000 books line the bookshelves classed under the Dewey Decimal Classification system and it is planned to increase the stock to 100,000 by the end of the year. There is also a section for Braille and audio books and more than 10,000 e-books available through the Bangkok City Library app that members can read on their smart devices. Choices are valid for seven days.

Refurbished while respecting the original building’s neo-classical structure, Bangkok City Library provides a massive 4,880 square metres of reading space spread over three floors and a mezzanine. Owned by the Crown Property Bureau, the building was one of those envisaged by King Rama V as part of his programme for Rajdamnoen Avenue to connect the Grand Palace to Dusit Palace. Inspired by the Champs Elysees in Paris, construction began on the wide pavement in 1899. Architects; Mom Luang Poom Malakul and Chitsane Abhaiwong designed the buildings, which were constructed between 1939 and 1948 and included both public and commercial facilities, a theatre and a hotel.

The interior of the library is modern and spacious. Based on the concept “Wisdom of Light” in accordance with the royal initiative that compares learning to light, the design is such that natural light streams in through the windows, especially in the reading and working areas, which can easily seat 1,000 members.

Like in other BMA libraries, the ambience is relaxed with titles focusing more on general knowledge than the world of academia. There’s a coffee shop, a 30-seat theatre for use by public and private organisations, meeting rooms, a section where kids can read and play and three exhibition areas.

On the first floor, visitors can enjoy reading new books, magazines and newspapers while sipping coffee. This area is also home to more than 2,600 Braille and audio books, a corner for computers, guide books and a tourist information booth. The royal words of the late King Rama IX about reading and learning hang on the walls so that readers will be inspired by his wisdom. Temporary exhibitions on this floor are aimed at promoting art and culture, history, and communities. The first is called “Book Nomads” and features images of the library building before it was revamped. There is also a small movie theatre that can be used by students.

The mezzanine is given over to kids and is a veritable treasure trove of books and games. Based on the concept “Play, Learn, and Grow together with the Light of Wisdom”, it stocks almost 7,000 books for children and youth in Thai and other languages. A stage has been erected for small plays or story-telling activities and a playroom has been added where the little ones can make noise, laugh, climb or sleep. The purpose of this floor, the librarians explain is to show children that learning is playing.

Books in foreign languages can be found on the second floor along with a multi-purpose event space that seats 200. Three study rooms have also been installed for private meetings and research. The 19,000-odd books on this floor include tomes about Asean, literary works, classic novels, documents and archives such as funeral memorial books as well as books from the Ma-rauy Stock Exchange of Thailand Library. Four special bookcases display the Chinese encyclopaedias presented by Guangzhou city in 2015.

The uppermost level is home to volumes about the Thai royal family and royal initiatives, as well as rare publications from the 50 BMA districts and two exhibition areas. The Hall of Fame is fitted with LCD touch screens that allow readers to discover royally initiated projects related to Bangkok covering everything from protecting the environment to promoting health and solving the city’s chronic flooding problems.

A smaller room is being used for temporary exhibitions, the first of which features the Department of Public Work’s project for the conservation of Khlong San district.

While the Bangkok City Library is the biggest of the nine initiatives announced by the BMA during its tenure as World Book Capital, the Administration has been effective in promoting reading all over the city. Its “Discovery Mobile Library”, for example, now has six carriages and continues to inspire readers all over Bangkok. And the BMA libraries in each district have received praise for their efforts to distinguish themselves by designing their services around different themes. Chanhun Bamphen Library in Huay Kwang, for instance, highlights cartoons, Central Library of KMITL in Ladkrabang district prides itself on being a “green” library with a collection of books on environment and eco-energy and Phasi Charoen Discovery Learning Library stimulates young readers with storytelling.

ON THE PAGE

– The Bangkok City Library is open Tuesday to Saturday from 8am to 9pm and on Sunday from 9am to 10pm. Parking is not available.

– Entry is free on production of an ID card.

– Foreigners can show their passports to obtain a one-day pass but are not allowed to borrow books.

– Annual membership is Bt10 per adult (book deposit Bt40) and Bt5 per child (ID and house registration required, book deposit Bt20).

– Free WiFi is available throughout the library.

– Meeting rooms should be reserved in advance.

– Call (02) 245 4171, (02) 282 0680, fax (02) 246 0286 or email: bkkcitylibrary.staff@gmail.com.

– Join the conversation at Facebook.com/bangkokcitylibrary

Moynihan held her first exhibition at the bar-cum-gallery last October 2016, just a week before the King passed away.

She was inspired to paint a series of portraits of the late monarch, working with iconic photographs that for decades have hung in every Buddhist temple, market and Thai household throughout his remarkable 70-year reign.

“For so many years I loved and admired Thailand’s ‘People’s King’, a catalyst of modern Asia who steered his nation through massive social, economic and political transformations and whose vision and energy made Thailand the most stable and prosperous country in Southeast Asia. When I joined the tens of thousands of Thai citizens at Sanam Luang on October 22, 2016, to sing the royal anthem under the baton of Somtow Sucharitkul, I was profoundly moved by the love and respect the Thai people felt for this great and good man,” she says.

In this official year of mourning, Maura has visited many exhibitions portraying the scope and brilliance of his life and achievements, as Thais pay homage to their gifted sovereign in creative expressions of art, literature and music.

“There is a Tibetan saying that such a leader is as rare as a star in daylight. Farewell, kind Dhamma Raja, we shall not see your like again,” added Maura.

Find out more at Facebook.com/23-bar-gallery-777713515647423/.

A visual artist with a graphic design background who is rooted in street art, Latona came to visual mapping 10 years ago and found there the ideal union of all his fields of actions His exhibitions and collaborations with world-class companies like Huawei, Dreamworks and BMW have taken him across Europe and in 2013, he joined the Geneva Mapping Festival team to develop design scenarios and curate some of the activities and workshops. He also created the BAM Festival in Liege, Belgium and contributed to the realisation of “MapMap”, an open video mapping software program.

The Bangkok exhibition’s mapping structure consists of hundreds of triangular modules creating a pentagon with many of the patterns inspired by Thai textiles.

The exhibition is open daily from 9am to 9pm. Find out more at Facebook.com/siamatsiambangkok.

The self-portraits have Anchalee adopting the characters seen in her favourite Hollywood blockbusters as she seeks out new approaches to spice up mundane routines. She’s taken over the roles in the movies just to get away from the regularity of her daily life, the gallery says in a press release.

“Impersonating those characters brought her excitement, adventures, life-risking missions and journeys that ordinary people would never have a chance to experience. With her skilful hand, the extraordinary lines and unique brushstrokes were drawn out to create a new dimension full of imagination.”

The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10.30 to 7 and Sundays until 5.30. Find out more at (02) 422 2092 and the “ArdelGalleryof ModernArt” Facebook page.