One of Indonesia’s leading contemporary artists, Wiharso has a multi-disciplinary practice and is known for his dramatic visual language and unique images of contemporary life.

He confronts the universal issues of power, loss and love through investigations of ideology, philosophy and identity. Particularly known for his large scale paintings, wall sculptures and installations, his work heightens our ability to perceive, feel and understand human problems like love, hate, fanaticism, religion, and ideology.

His work is layered with social, political and sexual critique, revealing a complex picture of the human condition by integrating narrative tools and placing unconventional materials together. Images from Javanese myth appear in his work in combination with contemporary elements to engage with ideas that continue to resonate and inform our daily life.

Wiharso studied painting, graduating from the Indonesian Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta. His work has been exhibited extensively in various contexts: gallery and museum shows, public and private collection displays as well as biennales and group shows in Indonesia and abroad. This is his first solo show in Thailand after other solo exhibits including “Promising Land”, Marc Straus(New York); “Never Say No”, Singapore Tyler Print Institute; and “Perfect Mirror”, Bernier/Eliades Gallery (Greece).

He is also represented in numerous notable collections, including the Guy and Myriam Ullens Foundation, Switzerland; the Olbricht Collection, Germany; the Indonesian Art Institute, Yogyakarta; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA; and the Singapore Art Museum. Wiharos lives and works in Rhode Island, USA, and Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

On February 10, Sareena Sattapon will perform at the venue as a part of Galleries Night 2018.

Nakrob is best known for collage illustration, but in “Coronets”, he goes 3D with a study of the classical Siamese chada headdress.

He finds in the chada the embodiment of power and fantasy and explores its physical and abstract elements. These include its extensive height, elaborate gold decoration and sheer weight on the wearer’s head.

Nakrob invites viewers to interpret the chada as a highart head ornament frozen in time and as a contemporary art object on display, free from its context of royalty and dance. Once adorned with solid gold, the typical chada today is fashioned in papier-mache decorated with gold paint and mirrors. Its inherent value greatly reduced, the chada is now found in commercial performances, as a film prop, and in the Ram Kae Bon ceremonial dance.

A veteran maker of chadas was recruited to create the one featured in Nakrob’s installation, giving it intentional distortion. Likewise, the uba flower that traditionally decorates the wearer’s ear has been transformed into long lines of flowers, curled up on five spots on the exhibition floor, signifying the five spots where the body touches the floor when one performs a benjankrapraditha graab.

This is intended to provoke questions about how Thai culture systematically conditions people into submission. Will viewers, unaware that the exhibited chada has not been blessed by a dance master, be offended by it, perceiving it as blasphemous treatment of spiritual object? Or will it give them the chance to consider it from historical and contemporary angles?

Find out more at (085) 910 3680 or (086) 884 6254.

The centre will become a fabulous playground for children of all ages for the occasion, with activities and performances tailored to their interests and coaching them in how to solve problems.

Arts, crafts and other creative endeavours will be the order of the day at nine different stations, including building robots and sculptures.

Stage plays, music, mime and other activities fill out the roster.

On the Main Stage on Floor 1 at 10.45am, it’s “Curtain Up” for an introduction to the morning activities planned, a show by the young instrumentalists of Hibiki Music Studio, a play put on by Yellow Fox Theatre and games with prizes.

At 1.30pm, students of Silpakorn University’s Faculty of Music will present a recital of classical airs, the Batt Magic Show will have some surprises, and there’ll be more games.

At 4pm it’s “Banana the Musical”, the folk play “GratuaTaeng Suer” by the Wat Singha Troupe, and still more games, plus a show by Babymime.

The activity stations include Sand in Colours in front of the centre, robot construction in the lobby, a meteor shower being painted on the thirdfloor Curving Mural and sculpting your own name on the fourthfloor Curving Mural.

In the same spot, kids can learn how to make and control their own spinning top, while the fifthfloor Glass Mural

will have faces being painted up like superheroes and cartoon characters and the art of making paper rockets.

In the fifthfloor auditorium, the kids can watch inspirational animations, and in the main exhibition gallery on the eighth floor they can create collages using photos from the “Poetry of Light” exhibition of pictures taken by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

Find out more at (02) 214 66308, extension 519, or emailing education@bacc.or.th

Arad pays tribute to Marcel Duchamp, the 20th-century pioneer of conceptual art. Inspired by Duchamp’s “Porte Bouteilles” (“Bottle Rack”), also known as “Herisson” (“Hedgehog”), the show teems with poetic reinterpretations and re-conceptions of the readymade.

In 1914, Duchamp bought, titled and signed a bottle-rack made from galvanised iron from a Paris department store. It’s now regarded as the first readymade artwork. The artist’s sister soon chucked the piece in the trash, but Duchamp replaced it in 1921 and additional “editions” were purchased and signed in 1964.

The first definition of a readymade, published in Andre Breton and Paul Eluard’s “Abridged Dictionary of Surrealism” says it must be “an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist”.

Arad began his career applying the readymade concept to industrial design. In 1981 his chance discovery of a Rover in a junkyard led to the first edition of his “Rover Chair”, fabricated by combining the seat from the Rover with elements of the Kee-Klamp scaffolding system.

Throughout the 1980s he continued to make Rover Chairs one at a time as he found discarded seats, comfortably allowing the work to fall into categorisation as a readymade artwork.

Since then, Arad’s practice has evolved into more of a dialogue with the Duchamp method of appropriating found objects. In 2013, for an exhibition in Israel, he squashed six Fiat 500 cars using a shipyard press and romantically titled the series “Pressed Flowers”.

The works straddle the readymades of Duchamp and the formal sculptures of John Chamberlain, which used car bodies as raw material. They also nod to Arad’s “Rover Chair” and “Aerial Light”, both made from salvaged car parts, and to the idea of compression used in his “Sticks and Stones” crushing machine installed at Centre Georges Pompidou in 1987.

In the exhibition “Flat Mates”, Arad modifies the very same bottle-rack claimed by Duchamp, subverting the concept of the readymade itself. These works are put through the additional modification used for the Fiat 500s – the crushing pressure of a shipyard press, changing the original intention of the object so much that it is removed completely from the point of utility.

While Duchamp removed the utility of an object by placing it in a fine-art context, Arad takes objects considered to be irrelevant and breathes new life back into them.

Over the Influence is on Hollywood Road in Hong Kong’s Central district and open Tuesday through Saturday.

The dual exhibition “Character in My Mind” will features Sitthinon Mongkolsangsuree’s depictions of a fashionable young lady with a big head and even bigger eyes, and Thanaphan’s watercolours of a cat expressing various emotions reflecting his own perspectives and feelings.

A portion of the proceeds from sales will go to the Prostheses Foundation founded by Her Royal Highness Srinagarindra in aid of underprivileged amputees.

There is no admission charge. Find out more at (02) 100 1234, extension 6753-6.

During the great wealth of the seventeenth century, countless artists created masterpieces that are now shown in museums worldwide. The Dutch Golden Age paintings display a unique and distinctive creativity and individuality depicting landscapes, portraits, scenes of everyday life, seascapes and church interiors.

The 1800s witnessed n increasing flow of talented new artists with their own personal styles such as Lastman and Wtewael, Rembrandt, Hals, Flinck, Bol, Heda and Kalf, Dou, Steen and Ter Borch, Ruisdael and Van Goyen, Berckheyde and Van der Heyden, which are all represented in the exhibition ‘Dutch Masters from the Hermitage, a treasure of the Tsars’.

To mark this occasion, Conservatorium, which is housed in a palace, is introducing the “Dutch Masters Package” offering two nights accommodation, breakfast for two and two tickets to the Hermitage Museum. The room rates start at 550 Euros (Bt21,365) and are valid for stays through May 27.

With art being one of the pillars of Conservatorium, guests will enjoy an artistic experience as well as the hotel being an architectural masterpiece that combines landmark heritage with graceful, contemporary design to its fullest.

Online booking can be made at http://www.ConservatoriumHotel.com or by emailing reservations@conservatoriumhotel.com.

THE BANK of Japan’s Currency Museum in Tokyo exhibits mainly currencies that have been circulated in Japan, including fuhonsen coins said to be the first ever used in this country, toraisen coins imported from China during the medieval period, and oban and koban (large and small gold coins).

Visitors who turn right after entering the museum will encounter a glittering display of gold coins produced during the Edo period (1603-1867), such as keicho oban, genroku oban and kyoho oban coins.

The oval-shaped coins, which were often given as gifts, are about 15 centimetres long and 9cm wide and weigh 165 grams.

The seal-mark inscribed in Indian ink on each coin is the signature of the Goto family, who produced the coins. As oban coins without the seal were of lesser value, the seal would be rewritten when the ink faded.

The Goto family and Edo shogunate, which commissioned their production, guaranteed the coins’ value and thus their circulation.

Since gold and silver coins were in short supply during the Edo period, han (domains) across the country issued their own bills. Into the early Meiji era (1868-1912), more than 200 kinds of han bills were issued, mainly in western Japan.

The creditworthiness of a domain determined the value of its bills.

Han bills issued by the Kii Wakayama domain./ The Japan News/Yomiuri 

In 1871, the Meiji government established a new currency law and changed the currency unit from ryo to yen.

At the time, a one-ryo bill issued by the Shinano Matsushiro domain (Nagano Prefecture) was converted into 0.889 yen, while a one-ryo bill issued by the Satsuma Kagoshima domain (Kagoshima Prefecture) was converted into 0.322 yen.

To finance battles during the Meiji Restoration, the Satsuma domain issued so many bills that their actual value was less than the face value.

The museum also features foreign currencies that suffered extreme losses in credibility.

After Germany’s defeat in World War I, its Ruhr industrial district was occupied by foreign troops.

Germany subsequently experienced rampant inflation, leading to a collapse in the value of the mark in 1923.

Rai stone money was used on the Micronesian island of Yap. 

The denomination of banknotes increased rapidly, with 100-trillion-mark notes entering circulation.

A large stone is displayed near a staircase in the museum. It’s a form of money called rai, which was used on the Micronesian island of Yap.

Rai were used for land and other transactions, but were never physically moved.

Even units that had sunk to the ocean floor were used. Nor were transactions involving the stone money recorded.

The sense of trust between seller and buyer is said to have guaranteed the currency’s value.

The Bank of Japan’s Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies runs the museum. It opened in 1985 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the bank’s establishment.

The museum exhibits about 3,000 items, including currencies and banknotes.

FIRST, a brief recap of what’s just happened in the year that’s about to end.

Two venues were added: namely Syrup the Space in Soi Thong Lor and the new white box theatre as part of Chang Theatre in Thung Khru, Thonburi. The former was active in the first half of the year but has been silent for a while now; the latter, home to Pichet Klunchun Dance Company, has also been occasionally hosting works by artists other than the world-renowned Thai choreographer. But despite this new space, the Thai audience has not yet had a chance to watch his company’s “Dancing with Death”, which has been to Japan, Singapore, Australia and Taiwan already since its premiere almost two years ago. And it’s not even banned!

French choreographers will work with 15 Thai performers and nonperformers in “Gala”./Photo Josefina Tommasi

By contrast, another major venue in Soi Thonglor, namely the Pridi Banomyong Institute, where Crescent Moon Space and B-Floor Room have lived for many years and which other groups were making use for rehearsals, has halted its support for stage works. The three resident companies, which include Babymime, have not yet found a new home.

Meanwhile, artists have been using other non-conventional spaces for stage works to exciting effect. Two notable examples were Full Fat Theatre’s “[Co/Exist]” at Warehouse 20 and B-Floor’s “Blissfully Blind” at Bangkok CityCity Gallery– and both were the top winners at the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) Thailand Dance and Theatre Awards 2017. The former was also performed in English and that reflects an important trend towards English-language works, among them Life Theatre’s “Life X 3” at Thong Lor Art Space, in this semi-colonial kingdom.

Nouveau cirque artists of Compagnie Defracto will wow both kids and adults at the BICT Fest./Photo BICT Fest

After its cancellation in 2016, Bangkok Theatre Network’s Bangkok Theatre Festival (BTF) returned in November with its new section Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting (BIPAM). Its efficient preparation of both artists and audiences through many pre-festival activities proves that BTF is no longer just an annual informal gathering of Thai theatre artists, but is now constantly engaging theatre lovers here and overseas.

It’s also noteworthy that after a few years in hiatus the Culture Ministry’s Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC) has resumed the Silpathorn Awards. Our congratulations again go to veteran stage director Suwandee Jakravoravudh whose staging of “Ratri Thi Sipsong: Ao Thi Sabai Chai”, Daraka Wongsiri’s translation of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, truly explains this national recognition.

King Rama VI’s nationalistic drama “Phra Ruang” is being adapted into a musical and will be staged at Muang Thai Rachadalai Theatre in February.

The 2018 stage calendar starts with “10 Sen”, a collaboration between French dancer and choreographer Julie Nioche and Thai dance movement therapist Dujdao Vadhanapakorn on traditional Thai massage and osteopathy. This is the first phase of Nioche’s research that will continue later this year and the work-in-progress presentation on the first Friday evening of the year, as part of “French Highlights #3”, at Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts will be open to the public, free-of-charge, thanks to the support of the Institut Francaise and French Embassy in Thailand.

Also part of “French Highlights #3” is the much anticipated return of Jerome Bel, whose dance dialogue “Pichet Klunchun and Myself” has been staged worldwide after premiering at the Bangkok Fringe Festival more than a decade ago. At the Chang Theatre, Bel will work with 15 performers and non-performers on the conceptual dance work “Gala”, which he has already staged at Sadler’s Wells among other venues.

At the BICT Fest 2018, Belgium’s kabinet k will prove that contemporary dance can also be enjoyed by young children./Photo Kurt van Der Elst

Postponed from Bangkok Theatre Festival (BTF) last month after a nasty bite by her dog, long-time B-Floor member Ornanong “Golf” Thaisriwong’s “Sawan Arcade” will start on January 8 at Democrazy Theatre Studio. Here, she’s invites us to join her in paradise and to question what’s happening around us. The press release, though, doesn’t specifically say if she also invited army officers, who showed up for every performance of her last solo “Bang Lamerd”.

Postponed due to an injury, Ornanong “Golf” Thaisriwong is now ready for her solo work “Sawan Arcade”./Photo BFloor Theatre

B-Floor will tour its highly acclaimed work “Sandan Ka” to Tokyo in late February and its new work scheduled for May has not yet found a suitable venue at home.

At Thong Lor Art Space, New Theatre Society’s Damkerng Thitapiyasak will stage a new adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s dark comedy “God of Carnage” in March. Among the cast is Pattarasuda “Bua” Anuman Rajadhon, who will herself stage Daraka Wongsiri’s murder drama “Crimson Rose” in June at the same venue.

There are also a few intercultural collaborations to watch for. “Portrait of the Desire” is Japanese playwright and director Toshiki Okada’s adaptation of SEA Write laureate this Haemamool’s new work of the same name. With professional Thai actors already in rehearsal, the play will have a world premiere in Bangkok in August before making its European debut at Centre Pompidou as part of Festival d’Automne a Paris.

French dancer and choreographer Julie Nioche discussed her upcoming collaboration with Thai dance movement therapist Dujdao Vadhanapakorn in Paris last March./ Photo Pawit Mahasarinand

“Negotiation”, Pichet’s collaboration with France-based Lao hip-hop artist Ole Khamchanla, will have its world premiere in Strasbourg on January 30 before being staged in Paris and other French cities in February and March. It will also be part of the New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong in November. No Bangkok dates have yet been set. Word is that there’s no political content in this work so it shouldn’t be banned.

After a low-key 2017, award-winning choreographer and director Thanapol Virulhakul is preparing a new work called “The Retreat.” A rumour, and a very exciting one, is that Pichet and Thanapol are also planning a collaboration, although, like many rumours, we don’t know yet when and where.

Muangthai Rachadalai Theatre will host “Phra Ruang The Musical” next month, with a number of professional crooners who have won acclaim for their musical theatre performance in the line-up. Later in the year, the resident company Scenario will restage “Mae Nak Phra Khanong The Musical”, to mark its 10th anniversary, but hasn’t confirmed if it will also celebrate its 12th, 15th and 20th anniversary as well, so it’s better for us to catch it now.

Then in October, a new musical “I Was Born in the Reign of King Rama IX”, will be on stage following its TV broadcast earlier this year.

As for festivals, Democrazy’s and Arts on Location’s second edition of the biannual Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival (BICT Fest) will return in May to Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) and Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts. A strong focus will be French nouveau cirque performances although there are other genres from other countries as well. Workshops, talks and a forum on youth theatre in Southeast Asia are also on the programme. Rumour is that Pichet, himself a father of a five-year-old, might create a new work for this festival too.

Bangkok’s International Festival of Dance and Music will return to Thailand Cultural Centre in September, and as it’s the 20th edition, we can expect a more exciting line-up than the previous one.

BTF and Friends of the Arts Foundation’s International Dance Festival (IDF) will be in November as always but as their main hub BACC is also hosting the inaugural Bangkok Art Biennale, which will take up most of its space, it could be interesting to see how different art genres connect to one another.

Lastly, our thanks to all the dance and theatre artists, producers, presenters and supporters whose work has helped make our evenings and weekend fruitful throughout the year. Through our previews and reviews here, we look forward to continue recording the development of contemporary dance and theatre in Thailand.

The include the Bt7,010 Van Gogh Irish Flower Collection, which contains a pottery mug, note card box and a ball-point pen, the William Morris Pink & Rose Collection featuring a porcelain pitcher together with a mug for Bt6,870, and the Sunflower Monet Collection comprising a mug, note cards, pop-up note cards and pen.

Also on offer is the Cat Lover Collection, which takes inspiration from ancient Egyptian and Chinese paintings by different artists all showing the charm and playfulness of our feline friends. This set features a mug, note card box, magnet and pen and is priced at Bt8,200. The gift sets are available at The Met Store in Anantara Siam Hotel.

Find out more at (02) 250 0720 or visit http://www.TheMet.asia.

FROM 2014 to 2016, when many countries around the world were marking, respectively, the 450th and 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth and death, the number of Shakespearean productions hit a record high. Thai theatre artists didn’t add much to that record, though, as the May 2014 coup provided a more exciting source of inspiration. Auspicious years aside, we haven’t had much fun with our translation and adaptation of the Bard’s works here in contemporary Thai theatre – Naked Masks’ “Hamlet”, B-Floor’s “King Lear” and New Theatre Society’s “Othello” are the very few exceptions.

Another is Ing Kanjanavanit’s “Shakespeare Must Die”, the 2011 politically charged, and much more fun, film adaptation of “Macbeth”, although it doesn’t really count having been screened worldwide but not in her home country.

And so any new production of Shakespeare’s is quite exciting. I missed the first run of Dreambox’s “Twelfth Night”, or in Thai, “Ratri thi sipsong” with a very colloquial subtitle “Ao Thi Sabaichai”, a direct translation of “What You Will”, during the three weekends it was staged in August. The praise for the script and performances by fellow theatre critics made sure I wouldn’t miss its restage earlier this month at M Theatre.

Given the rave reviews, the number of audience members on a Sunday afternoon was much lower than I expected. Are we still afraid of Shakespeare? And is that partly because the first Thai dramatist who translated Shakespeare’s plays was King Rama VI and we studied some of his translations in Thai literature class? Or is it just that in this semi-colonial state we don’t need to care about the world’s most produced playwright?

That said, Dreambox’s resident playwright Daraka Wongsiri’s new translation, which masterfully sacrificed some literary prowess for better communication with the contemporary audience, reminded us that in his time Shakespeare wrote for the general public, not just theatregoers, and so we should never be intimidated.

The cast was made up of television actors, all of them with a significant amount of stage experience and even though the proscenium theatre wasn’t as intimate as the thrust Shakespeare wrote for, they knew very well how to connect with us. The three stars of the show were Deejai “Phat Thai” Deedeedee who proved a real comedian as the Fool; Nisachon Siewthaisong who was convincing as Viola and also when she impersonated Cesario; and Darun Thitakawin as Lady Olivia on whom my eyes stayed anytime she appeared on stage. Sadly though, Tamakorn Jakravoravudh’s Malvolio, especially in his rendezvous with Lady Olivia wasn’t quite as convincing.

Credit here must also go to director Suwandee Jakravoravudh who made sure that her thespians were not only comfortable with their lines but also had fun in mastering their roles. And when they did, so did the audience. It’s noteworthy that she picked up a Culture Ministry’s Silpathorn Award a few days before the premiere of this play and her work here proved that this national recognition was indeed long overdue. That said, I would still question her, and Daraka’s, decision to set the production in this predictable style although Ritirong Jiwakanon’s practical set and ravishing costumes helped transport us to Elizabethan England.

While this “Likay Farang” look may be what the Thai audience almost always expects in a Shakespearean production, it’s perhaps time to have more fun, especially now that the script connects well with us and we can almost believe that, like the title of Jan Kott’s seminal book, Shakespeare is “our contemporary.”

The running time of more than three hours showed that, like many other contemporary Shakespearean productions, some lines or scenes needed to be cut and the pacing, like in any comedy, should have been picked up. And if it’s going to take so much time changing scenes – notwithstanding Kaiwan Kulavadhanothai’s delightful transition music – the use of a neutral set might work better, especially as the Bard already wrote clearly in his script where the characters are and will be next.

In the meantime, let’s hope that this translated script is published so Thai readers as well as acting and directing students can finally have real fun with Shakespeare.

TOASTING SHAKESPEARE

Veteran director Dangkamon Na Pombejra’s new production of King Rama VI translation of “Merchant of Venice”, with professional and student actors, will be at Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts from February 7 to 17.

It’s in Thai, with English surtitles.

Tickets are Bt 600 (Bt 300 for students) at (081) 559 7252. Find out more at Facebook.com/DramaArtsChula.