FILLED WITH sounds, smells and interactive installations, the second London Design Biennale offers visitors a sensory exploration of the world, intended as an antidote to the “island mentality” of Brexit.

“We obviously live in a very emotionally turbulent and politically polarised time and the choice of theme was intended to reflect and confront that,” says Christopher Turner, artistic director of the exhibition, which this year has the theme “Emotional States”.

A visitor poses inside an artwork entitled “Power Plant” by Dutch designer Marjan Van Aubel. /AFP

Barely a few months before Britain leaves the European Union in March 2019, the biennale is “intended as a corrective to that island mentality”, Turner said.

The event, showing at Somerset House through September 23, shows that “London is open, not only to business, but also to the creative community”.

The exhibition includes installations from 40 countries, from China to Canada and Saudi Arabia, allowing visitors to take the pulse of the world.

Qatari designer Aisha Nasser AlSowaidi poses in front of her artwork entitled :The State of You”. /AFP

One uses video projections to put them at the virtual centre of an indigo production site in India, accompanied by the noise of the workers and the earthy smell of the indigo.

Another exhibit, inspired by the humid climate of Riga, allows visitors to write on a window covered in condensation, listening to the sounds of a battering storm and the smells of a Latvian forest.

It is intended to “show the existence of nature in our daily lives and hopefully make us re-evaluate the importance of it”, said curator Arthur Analts.

The Hong Kong exhibit includes painted paper which, when scratched, unleashes smells of opium or roast duck.

It highlights the link between smell and memories, in a nod to novelist Marcel Proust, for whom the taste of a Madeleine cake brought childhood memories rushing in.

Greek designer and curator Nassia Inglessis from Studio INI poses with her installation “Disobedience” at the Greek Pavilion during the London Design Biennale at Somerset House, in London/ EPA-EFE

Many exhibits are playful, such as the Greek work “Disobedience”, a theme that evokes the myths of Icarus, Antigone and Prometheus.

Designer Nassia Inglessis has created a 17-metre tunnel, the sides of which move as the visitor walks along, reflecting different emotions of those who break the rules, from curiosity to wonder and frustration.

Joy, pride and pain are the complex feelings explored by David Del Valle in his installation about Colombia, a country whose inhabitants have long suffered from preconceptions based on its violent past.

Britain is represented by Forensic Architecture, a collective of artists, architects and journalists who have worked with the Yazidi non-governmental organisation Yazda in northern Iraq to help document the destruction by the Islamic State group.

The collective, nominated this year for the prestigious Turner Prize for contemporary art, trains ordinary people to take pictures and create 3D models of Yazidi |sites that have been destroyed, |both as proof of the crimes committed and a way to help reconstruct them.

A visitor poses inside an artwork entitled :Australia, Full Spectrum” by Flynn Talbot. /AFP

At the biennale Forensic Architecture demonstrate their techniques, including protecting a camera with a plastic bottle and attaching it to a kite to take aerial photos.

“We are not evangelists who think that design can save the world,” Turner stressed.

“But let’s hope that in a small way, events like this can help ensure that this attitude of inclusiveness and international creative and culture exchange continues.”

THERE’S MORE to the Army Internal Audit Office in Bangkok than just requests for government services. There’s a house in the same compound next to the Sang Hi Bridge on Ratchawithee Road where Silpa Bhirasri, the father of Thai modern art, once lived.

Professor Silpa, the Italian sculptor born Corrado Feroci in 1892, came to Siam at age 31 as a court artist and later laid the foundation for Silpakorn University, Thailand’s first institute dedicated to the fine arts.

The neo-Renaissance former residence was renovated two years ago, the exterior given a coat of mustard-coloured paint. Further work has been done this year and it now welcomes visitors daily.

Professor Silpa Bhirasri – revered as the father of Thai modern art – once lived in this neo-Renaissance building.

There’s even a branch of Craftsman Roastery, which tends to locate its coffee-and-sweets outlets in historic buildings.

The real reward, though, is in seeing some of Silpa’s sculptures up close, as well as photos of him and his family that are assumed to have been taken on the grounds.

Ajarn Farang, as his students called him, is a commanding presence upstairs in statue form, and you can also see the prototypes for his statues of King Rama VI and another art master of the day, Prince Narisara Nuvadtivongs.

Samples of his masterpieces are on view along with books detailing his contribution to Thai art.

More vintage photos depict Silpa with his masterpieces, such as the statue of King Taksin that stands at Wongwien Yai in Thon Buri and the Walking Buddha statue at Buddhamonthon in Nakhon Pathom.

Inside glass cabinets are books on his life and work. Elsewhere, two rooms are ready to house temporary exhibitions.

Chatchanok Dulyarat, who manages the house, cites a document recording Silpa’s appointment as a sculptor with the Fine Arts Department in 1924. He signed a three-year contract on a salary of Bt800 a month – a substantial sum for the time.

The house has retained as much of its original charm as was possible.

“The department rented this house for him and he lived here for eight years before moving to a permanent residence on Silom Road,” Chatchanok says.

Silpa once mentioned the address in a letter – 395 Ratchawithee Road – but it was only two years ago that the building was identified. Silpakorn students led by Prasopchai Saengprapha found the house and verified it was the right place by examining photos and archived interviews with people who worked with Silpa.

The Army compound occupies the site of the residence of Phraya Burutratana Ratchaphanlop (Nop Krairerk), who was a royal page under King Rama V. The King gave this forefather of the Krairerk family money to build a home at the end of Ratchawithee Road, within convenient distance of the palace.

Nop Krairerk had a main mansion and three smaller buildings erected in the Victorian Renaissance style, and it was one of the smaller structures that the Fine Arts Department rented for Silpa. The department registered the site for its historical value in 1978, the year before the Army Internal Audit Office moved in.

The office and Silpakorn University split the cost of renovating Silpa’s former residence and opened it to the public, but it was closed after a year for lack of visitors. Chatchanok came along at the beginning of this year, signed a three-year contract with the Army office, and is drumming up interest again.

The house has been renovated as a living museum dedicated to the life and work of the revered Italian master. 

“Silpakorn University was my alma mater,” says the Faculty of Education graduate. “I didn’t have the chance to learn directly from Ajarn Silpa, but he is the inspiration for all the students at the school to this day, so he was in a way my revered teacher too.

“I don’t want to see his former residence being ignored. My passion is to make it a living museum and a gathering centre for art lovers. I want to echo Ajarn Silpa’s motto, ‘Life is too short – art is longer.’”

Further renovations took four months and the house reopened to the pubic in late June.

Inside are a lovely cafe and two rooms that will serve as galleries.

“Ajarn Silpa lived here while he was making the statue of King Rama I that stands on the Phra Phutta Yodfa Bridge, which brought him fame and recognition in the Kingdom,” says Chatchanok. “And this is where his son Romano was born. There’s a picture of Ajarn Silpa, his wife Fanni Viviani and their children Isabella and Romano in front of a house that we believe is this one.”

Born to a merchant family in Florence, Italy, Corrado Feroci showed artistic inclinations at an early age. He graduated from the Royal Art Academy of Florence and then taught there from 1914 to 1923.

Silpa and his family appear in photos believed taken in front of the house.

His life changed dramatically when King Rama VI asked the Italian government to appoint him to teach members of Siam’s Fine Arts Department about Western sculpture.

Silpa established Thailand’s first school of fine arts in 1933 and it became Silpakorn University in 1943, with him serving as dean.

When Italy surrendered to the Allies during World War II – in that same year, 1943 – Feroci changed his name to Silpa Bhirasri and took Thai nationality to avoid being arrested by the Japanese army then occupying Thailand.

The original house is seen in a vintage photo. 

He remained in the Kingdom until his death in 1962, having given the Thai people the Democracy and Victory monuments in Bangkok, King Naresuan’s monument in Suphan Buri and the Thao Suranari monument in Nakhon Ratchasima.

Chatchanok is planning a series of rotating temporary exhibitions and art workshops. “The Bangkok Sketcher Group was here recently drawing pictures of the house,” she says.

Craftsman Roastery offers great coffee and baked items.

Craftsman Roastery has livened up the place, too. The chain is best known for its popular Coffee Craftsman x Yarden on Yen Akat Road, housed in a renovated century-old house.

“Craftsman at Silpa Bhirasri’s Place” has filtered coffee made with Kenyan, Costa Rican and Panamanian beans for Bt150 to Bt250 and espresso made with beans from Mae Hong Son that are honey-roasted.

There’s also a Valrohna Chocolate Drink (Bt140-Bt150), Shizuoka Matcha Latte (Bt120-Bt135), Honey Lemon (Bt90-Bt110) and, in tribute to Silpa, who loved his tamarind juice, Sparking Tamarind (Bt135). They all go well with croissants served with passion-fruit sauce and scones with tamarind-cranberry jam.

BY ROYAL COMMAND

Silpa Bhirasri’s House (Baan Ajarn Farang) is in the compound of the Army Internal Audit Office, next to Sang Hi Bridge on Ratchawithee Road in Bangkok.

It’s open daily from 7 to 7 and there’s no admission charge.

For details about the house, call (095) 969 6519.

Craftsman Roastery has a Facebook page by that name.

The two places will together host “Minimalism: Space. Light. Object”, featuring more than 130 works that explore the history and legacy of the groundbreaking art movement that continues to exert a strong influence.

The exhibition will broaden the scope of minimalism’s origins beyond New York to consider related tendencies around the world. A key aspect is the ongoing engagement of minimal art with Asian art and spirituality in the work of Asian, American and European artists.

Olafur Eliasson

The National Gallery’s side of the exhibition will explore the development of minimal art and ideas from the 1950s to the present day, from painting to sculpture and spatial installations and immersive environments.

It will feature works by Mark Rothko, Donald Judd, Yayoi Kusama, Charlotte Posenenske, Lee Ufan, Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, Ai Weiwei, Po Po, Kim Lim and Tang Da Wu.

Kim Lim

ArtScience Museum will present a thematic exhibition exploring form, colour and spirituality, including the work of Carmen Herrera, Mona Hatoum and Richard Long, as well as contemporary artists Song Dong, Tan Ping, Charwei Tsai and Japan’s teamLab.

Singaporean artist Jeremy Sharma will also be showcasing his new commission at the exhibition.

“This collaboration will enable us to extend the scale of the exhibition to further examine the many rich and complex dimensions of this significant artistic tendency, which has had such an enormous influence but has been little seen in Southeast Asia,” says Dr Eugene Tan, director of National Gallery Singapore.

Charlotte Posenenske

Honor Harger, executive director of ArtScience Museum, says curators at both museums have together created “a coherent single exhibition that shows how minimalism became a radical turning point in the history of 20th-century art, stepping away from the experience of art as an object, to the consideration of the spatial, social and political contexts in which art exists”.

Find out more at http://www.NationalGallery.sg/minimalism and http://www.Marinabaysands.com/museum/minimalism.htm.

It features works by 34 ur visual artists, photojournalists, commercial photographers, social activists, radiology technologists, and astronomers from 11 Southeast Asia countries.

Part of the Bangkok-based international photography festival, “Post-Repost-Share” is co-organised by the BACC and PhotoBangkok and is curated by Dr Toeingam Guptabutra and Angki Purbandono (Indonesia).

The exhibition aims to explore the contemporary relationship between photography and its audience now that social media have revolutionised the use of camera and redefined its boundary from the presentation and the audience’s perception towards the products. Today photographs are posted, reposted, and shared among hundreds of millions of users across the globe. From a still and lifeless media, photography, for the first time, has been transformed into a flexible media popularised and mobilised to every corner of the world.

Post-Repost-Share aims to inspire in the audience the notion of photography as an efficient tool for all users. Whether with professional cameras or casual smartphones, photography reflects facts and expresses personal attitudes, perspectives, and psychological implications of how people live in the contemporary society.

It continues through September 9.

For more information, visit http://en.bacc.or.th/event/2028.html

Art Collaborations with CusCus the Cuckoos features Chanida Wornpitak, owner-designer of the CusCus clothing label, decorating the department store to demonstrate that art is alive and not confined to museums.

The expanded Thai Designers Zone on the ground floor and first floor now has more than 40 brands.

Art Conversations will offer discussions such as “Let’s Talk Art”, an art exhibition on Instagram, pop-up ARTivities and workshops in the Fashion and Beauty halls.

Art Dialogue Co-promotion brings out great deals in several zones through October 3.

The painting, which was bought last year, had been due to be unveiled on September 18.

But Abu Dhabi’s culture and tourism department on Monday announced “the postponement of the unveiling of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi” in a tweet.

“More details will be announced soon,” it said.

The “Salvator Mundi”, a portrait of Jesus Christ painted in 1500, was the only one of the fewer than 20 paintings believed to be the work of the famed Renaissance Old Master still in private hands when it went under the hammer, and sold, at Christie’s in November.

The painting was declared authentic six years ago, after long being dismissed as a copy by one of Da Vinci’s students.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has kept tight-lipped over the identity of the painting’s buyer, saying only that the emirate’s Department of Culture and Tourism had “acquired” it.

Last December, the New York Times identified the buyer as an obscure member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Badr bin Abdullah.

The Wall Street Journal later reported Bin Abdullah was acting on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. He has never confirmed or denied the report.

Prince Badr was appointed to head the kingdom’s culture ministry in a government shakeup in June.

Saudi Arabia and the neighbouring United Arab Emirates are very close allies who are both engaged militarily in the war against rebels in Yemen, and diplomatically and economically against Gulf rival Qatar.

NOT FAR from his destroyed home in Syria’s Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees, 21-year-old Abdallah al-Harith dabs bright red paint onto a canvas standing amidst the grey ruins.

He was among 12 young artists to set up their easels late last month in the once-crowded camp turned Damascus suburb, now largely abandoned after seven years of civil war.

Equipped with paint brushes and pencils, they set out to translate suffering into art in a neighbourhood ravaged by years of bombardment and siege.

“We’re bringing back life to a dark place,” says Harith, who fled Yarmuk several years ago, but returned after the regime ousted Islamic State group jihadists in May.

“I had such a lump in my throat when I first came back to the camp. At first I couldn’t draw anything,” adds the fine arts student.

“But then I realised that any glimpse of life amidst all this death was a victory,” he says, gesturing towards the battered buildings around him. He and his peers stood sweeping paint across their canvases while the gentle melody of an oud – a Middle Eastern lute – was broadcast across the smashed concrete.

The destruction and pitiable living conditions evoke dramatic reactions./AFP

Harith painted an image of a small boy emerging from the ground, holding a bright red apple.

“It’s supposed to represent new life,” Harith explains.

“I actually saw something like this once: children with apples playing again on what had been fighting ground.”

Before the war, Yarmuk was home to around 160,000 people, the United Nations says.

Set up in 1957 to house Palestinian refugees, over the decades it became a crowded district that was eventually swallowed up by Damascus.

But today it lies almost abandoned.

Around 140,000 residents fled clashes between the regime and rebels in 2012, leaving the rest to face severe food shortages under government encirclement.

Hinaya Kibabi shows her impression of the scene.

In 2014, a harrowing photograph of gaunt-looking residents massing between ravaged buildings to receive handouts caused global outrage.

Earlier this year, fighting between loyalists and jihadists displaced most of the remaining residents, according to the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

President Bashar al-Assad’s troops retook control in May, ousting IS fighters from their last urban stronghold on the outskirts of the capital.

In late May, UNRWA said an immediate return of residents was unlikely due to extensive damage to key infrastructure such as the water and power networks.

Visiting the camp last month, UNRWA commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl said he had rarely seen such damage.

“The scale of the destruction in Yarmuk compares to very little else that I have seen in many years of humanitarian work in conflict zones,” he said.

Last Saturday, the work of the young artists was displayed at the entrance of the Yarmuk camp, with a small crowd making the trip to see it. Painter Hinaya Kebabi depicted a young boy with a missing eye, holding up a drawing of another eye to conceal his wound, the 22-year-old explained.

An artist paints in the the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of the capital Damascus./AFP

“One day, I hope people will come back here to colour, not rubble,” she says.

One painting depicted streams of red running down a dark building.

In another, an emaciated man was curled up naked in the foetal position.

After the images were shared online, several internet users slammed the project as provocative. “The camp is neither romantic nor a place for drawing,” 28-year-old Abeer Abassiyeh said, as most former residents remain unable to return to their homes.

But Mohammed Jalbout, one of the organisers who hails from the Palestinian camp, defended the project.

“We all have homes here. I haven’t been back to mine or been able to inspect it,” he said.

But, he said, “at least through art, we’re trying to breathe a little life back into this place.”

A MASSIVE film-art project in the German capital is set to rebuild part of the Berlin Wall to create a closed-off mini-state, complete with visa checks, organisers said on Tuesday.

The walled-in “city within a city” will host the world premiere of the mysterious and mammoth “Dau” film project and social experiment of enigmatic Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky, 43.

Pending final approval from Berlin city authorities, which organisers said was “in the works”, staff plan to erect 900 concrete wall slabs, each 3.60 metres tall, for the 6.6 million euro (Bt252.3 million) event.

A signpost with the inscription “Dau” leads to the Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin, an art institution located in the garden of the Kronprinzenpalais. /AFP 

Visitors to the parallel world will have to apply online for entrance “visas” and swap their mobile phones for off-line digital devices with an algorithm that will suggest a personalised tour.

Set on a city block on Unter den Linden boulevard, the time-capsule project is due to launch on October 12 and end with a ritualistic tearing down of the wall on November 9, the day of the historic event in 1989.

The aim is not to create “a Disney GDR” (German Democratic Republic), stresses Thomas Oberender, director of culture festival Berliner Festspiele which will host the mega-event.

“It is not a film premiere but a mixture of social experiment, artistic experiment and… an impressive form of world-building,” he told a Berlin press conference.

 A view of a newly discovered piece of the former Berlin Wall./EPA-EFE

The aim, said organisers, is to spark “a political and social debate about freedom and totalitarianism, surveillance, co-existence and national identity”.

Long shrouded in mystery, a trickle of news and cryptic clues has created buzz and sparked controversy about the project, with critics labelling it a stunt hurtful to people who lived in communist East Germany.

“Out of respect for the victims who really experienced such situations, we should step away from this,” Berlin politician Sabina Bangert of the Greens party said, according to Tagesspiegel daily.

Others are excited about a convention-busting art event that will evoke, but not seek to replicate, the Cold War past of Berlin.

Germany’s minister of culture, Monika Gruetters, says she is “absolutely convinced this will be a world event”.

From left: Medienboard BerlinBrandenburg managing director, Kirsten Niehuus, cameraman Juergen Juerges, Schinkel Pavillon curator, Nina Pohl, Berliner Festspiele director, Thomas Oberender, Susanne Marian from Phenomen Films and German film director Tom Tykwer arrive for the presentation of the art and wall project “Dau Freiheit” (Dau Freedom) in Berlin. /AFP

Lending star power to the project are conductor Teodor Currentzis, composer Brian Eno, director Tom Tykwer, performance artist Marina Abramovic, the band Massive Attack and, according to German news agency DPA, the legendary anonymous street artist Banksy.

Berlin’s “Dau-Freedom” is set to kick off follow-up events in Paris in November (“Dau-Equality”) and London in early 2019 (“Dau-Fraternity”), all organised by the London-based Phenomen Trust, co-founded by Russian millionaire Sergey Adoniev.

The epic “Dau” film project, more than a decade in the making, has been labelled “Apocalypse Dau: the most insane film shoot of all time” by Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

Dau was the nickname of Soviet nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate Lev Landau (1908-68), one of the fathers of the Russian nuclear bomb and an advocate of free love.

The project started in 2005 as a conventional biopic, with funding from several European countries, but evolved into what Caravan magazine labelled a “brutal and baroque movie project/human experiment”.

Hundreds of amateur actors were asked to live full-time from 2009-11 in a mock-up secret Soviet nuclear research facility dubbed “The Institute” that was built in Ukraine.

Participants reportedly had to dress, speak and act as if living under the Soviet regime, with penalties for using mobile phones or social media.

They wore scratchy underwear, ate tinned food, used roubles, carried ID cards and endured other privations of bleak Soviet life. “They fell in love, betrayed friends, cheated on their partners, conducted experiments, were arrested, gave birth to children, grew older,” says the event’s press release.

Veteran cinematographer Juergen Juerges, who spent three years on the set, says the aim was to shoot their unscripted interactions “everywhere, anytime… They lived, and we filmed them.”

A rare journalist to visit the site, from GQ magazine, wrote that Khrzhanovsky was ever-present, projecting “a carefully crafted self-portrait of a tyrannical genius”.

At the end, Khrzhanovsky reportedly had neo-Nazis destroy the elaborate set.

The resulting 700-hours plus of footage have been edited into 13 feature films, several TV series and are due to appear in an online multimedia project, says producer Susanne Marian.

“The experiment is ongoing,” promises a trailer on the project website (https://dau.xxx/).

Reclusive Khrzhanovsky did not attend the Berlin press event.

Oberender thanked the “very many people who for months, and up to two years, didn’t speak about this project – a small miracle in a city like Berlin”.

CHAKRABHAND Posayakrit’s 500-square-wah home in Bangkok’s Soi Ekamai has been quiet in recent years as the veteran National Artist struggled to recover from a stroke that has left him partially paralysed. Now though, the property is taking on a new life with the doors once again open to the public.

Chakrabhand, 75, hasn’t held a major show for more than 15 years, well before his stroke, and the “Chakrabhand Posayakrit Exhibition” – a rotating series of his masterpieces at his property that runs through December 25 – is the first-ever major retrospective of his work.

The retrospective exhibition of celebrated artist Chakrabhand Posayakrit is on display at his residence in downtown Bangkok to celebrate his 75th birthday.

Once more art academy than residence, with students learning Thai traditional painting, casting puppets, designing ornate costumes and creating props, the house would morph into a puppet theatre on weekends, with the public welcomed to watch Chakrabhand and his troupe put on a show to the sound of a phipat, a traditional music ensemble.

The beautiful sound of the phipat was heard once more on August 16 – his 75th birthday – to accompany a prelude to his puppet show “Taleng Phai”, a heroic epic recounting the struggle of King Naresuan of Ayutthaya to liberate his kingdom from Burma. Fellow artists and friends turned out to celebrate his birthday and the media were there too to preview the exhibition.

The “Taleng Phai” puppet show

More than a decade went into the preparation of “Taleng Phai” and rehearsals were regularly held until Chakrabhand suffered his stroke. A dozen of the puppets used in the performance are also on view in the exhibition together with the moulds.

Chakrabhand, sitting in a wheelchair, smiled as he watched his puppeteers at work. One of the main puppets – King Maha Dhammaraja – was created by Chakrabhand in 2007 as was the main nine-metre scenery backdrop in acrylic canvas, which the master finished in 2004.

“I don’t know how to address all of you, but I’m really glad,” he said softly before begging off for a rest.

Chakrabhand, sitting in a wheelchair, watches his puppeteers operating the marionettes in “Taleng Phai” performance.

Though the stroke robbed the artist of the use of his right hand, he has been working with his left hand of late, part of the rehabilitation exercises for his arm and wrist muscles. A recent left-handed sketch of his physical therapist is also on view.

His left-handed sketch

Chakrabhand relies on Vallabhis Sodprasert, deputy director of the Chakrabhand Foundation, to speak for him.

“He is recovering and there are no complications, though his right-side body doesn’t function well. He undergoes daily physical therapy and has practised using his left hand. When writing with left hand, his letters are reversed,” says Vallabhis, Chakrabhand’s long-time right-hand man.

The exhibition shows all categories of his works from paintings, puppets to sculptures from his own collection and he has enough works to be able to rotate them every four months. Each piece is presented with a QR code to provide additional information.

 A set of “Taleng Phai” puppets are on display together with the main scenery backdrop painted by Chakrabhand.

“When complete, there will be about 200 puppets for the four-hour ‘Taleng Phai’ performance. Ajarn Chakrabhand also created a puppet of Phra Suphan Kanlaya, King Naresuan’s sister, and other female characters for the show. To me, the puppet of Phra Suphan Kanlaya is the most beautiful, and her headdress is exquisitely crafted with silver.

“I still remembered how skilfully and gracefully he operated the puppet of Phra Suphan Kanlaya during rehearsals. I do hope we will see this again,” adds Vallabhis, 68, who is also the scriptwriter of the show.

The King Maha Dhammaraja puppet was created by Chakrabhand in 2007.

After the decades of preparation and rehearsal, the “Taleng Phai” performance should be staged next year when the foundation’s museum in Bangkok’s Sai Mai district is completed. It will be the new home for Chakrabhand’s masterpieces and include a 300-seat puppet theatre.

Prototypes of “Taleng Phai” puppet collection

The idea to build the full-scale museum arose in 2008 while the artist was battling a developer who wanted to erect a high-rise condominium right next to his home. The menace of a high-rise going up next door worried him because of the fragility of his collection – some of the 200 puppets he keeps are more than a century old. His friends, the media and the public were on his side and funds had been raised to support him. Though the developer finally backed off, he realised he’d eventually have to find somewhere else to store and display his work.

Chakrabhand’s new museum in Bangkok’s Sai Mai district will house his masterpieces and include a puppet theatre.

Chakrabhand’s love of Thai traditional art and classic dance began as a child. After watching a puppet show of Phra Abhaimani by the Nai Piak Prasertkul troupe on television when was 12, he started making his own rod puppets, using broken paintbrushes for the rod and chopsticks for the hand-extenders.

“As Ajarn Chakrabhand is a master of portraits, his puppets are distinctive for their accurate body proportions and the exquisitely embroidered costumes,” says Vallabhis who has been working with Chakrabhand since he was his art student at Silpakorn University in 1972.

A set of century-old puppets in his collection

Chakrabhand sought out masters from different fields and followed their work closely, learning puppet making from Chuen Sakulkaew and Wong Ruamsuk, embroidery from Yuean Phanuthat, and Thai music and classic dance from Boonyong and Boonyang Ketkong.

In 1975, the Chakrabhand Posayakrit Puppet Troupe was set up and performed a series of critically-acclaimed shows including “Phra Aphai Manee” in 1975, the “Nang Loy” episode of the epic “Ramakien” in 1977, and the enormously successful “Sam Kok” (the Thai adaptation of the Chinese epic the Three Kingdoms) in 1989.

The glass cabinets display both Chakrabhand’s own puppet creations and his collection of old puppets crafted by the masters. Among them are the figurine of the ogress Phisua Samut from the “Phra Aphai Manee” and the lady courtier with headdress – both crafted by Khru Manee for Chuen Sakulkaew’s troupe and later passed on to Chakrabhand.

The puppets for the 1989 production of “Sam Kok: the Battle of the Red Cliff”

Another glass cabinet displays his puppets clad in Chinese theatrical costumes for the 1989 production of “Sam Kok: the Battle of the Red Cliff” as well as the backdrop for the show.

“Ajarn Chakrabhand may be widely known as a puppet artist and portrait painter, but his expertise in landscape painting is also truly wonderful,” Vallabhis says.

Chakrabhand is recognised for his impressive portraits that blend Thai and Western styles as well as his exploration of the elegance of mythical characters in Thai literature.

His ingenuity for Thai traditional painting was obvious from his junior year at the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture, Silpakorn University as witnessed in his 1965 tempera on woven cloth “Pran Bun Capturing Manohra” inspired by Thai folklore Phra Suthon-Mahora.

The 1965 tempera on woven cloth “Pran Bun capturing Manohra” painted during his junior year at Silpakorn University.

The late celebrated artist and his instructor Fua Haripitak asked him in class, “Do you like doing traditional painting?” to which he replied in the affirmative. The professor thus encouraged him, “Keep on doing it. Don’t abandon your gift.”

The literary poem “Lilit Phra Lo” and the related Thai classical music sung by the late master Sudjit Duriyapraneet inspired him to paint the 2008 oil on canvas “Phra Lo Wishing for A sign at the River”, which uses a complicated technique of whirls and twirls mimicking a river to illustrate the scene.

The 1974 triptych with acrylic on gilt wood board features paintings inspired by the literary work “Inao”.

Also on view is a rare piece of the 1974 triptych with acrylic on gilt wood board featuring a Thai traditional painting inspired by the wind-sweeping episode from the Javanese story of “Inao”. Unicef used this piece for a series of greeting cards in 1977.

The outstanding mural projects painted by Chakrabhand and his team of assistants are in the ordination halls of Wat Tri Thotsathep in Bangkok and Wat Khao Sukim in Chanthaburi.

Phra Maha Paraminubhab Bisudh Anuttra Sangam Vijay

On show is the sculpture of Phra Maha Paraminubhab Bisudh Anuttra Sangam Vijay, also known as Phra Taleng Phai, created to preside over the Declaration of Independence scene in the “Taleng Phai” performance. The original 30-inch prototype statue is made of resin and exquisitely covered in gold leaf and adorned with Swarovski crystals. Over the years, this prototype has graced the Chakrabhand Posayakrit Foundation and is used in the wai khru ceremonies at the beginning of every performance.

Chakrabhand’s working desk and the prototype of the statue of Thotsakan for the King Rama II Memorial Park.

There is a prototype of the life-size statue of Thotsakan, the king of demons in the epic “Ramakien”, made to the command of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn to display at the King Rama II Memorial Park in Samut Songkhram.

Also on display is his working desk with painting tools and an old teak easel given to him by Italian architect Ercole Manfredi, who came to work at the Ministry of Public Works during the reign of King Rama VI.

Vallabhis, Chakrabhand’s long-time right-hand man

“This exhibition is not held to show off his expertise, but aims to be a lesson in how to be a talented artist. People can learn about the depth of his studies in various areas, his delicate working process and how he integrates all areas of expertise into a complete work,” Vallabhis says.

AN APPRECIATION FOR ART

“Chakrabhand Posayakrit Exhibition” continues until December 25 at the artist’s residence-cum-foundation on Soi Ekamai (opposite Big C supermarket) daily, from 1pm to 4.30pm.

The works on display will be rotated every four months.

Admission fee is Bt100 for adults and Bt50 for children and students. Free entry is available for educational institutions during the morning session.

Call (02) 392 7754, (087) 332 5467 or visit http://www.Chakrabhand.org/exhibition

Renowned architect Duangrit Bunnag’s winning “forest” design for Suvarnabhumi Airport’s new Bt35-billion passenger terminal has spurred a copycat controversy on social media as well as scepticism about the transparency of the design contest organised by Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT).

Renowned architect Duangrit Bunnag’s winning “forest” design for Suvarnabhumi Airport’s new Bt35-billion terminal has spurred controversy amid claims it plagiarises a Japanese design. Photo Courtesy of DBALP

The uproar arose after the original winner – SPAN Consultants and Sign-Tech Engineering Consultant Co, entering as “the SA Group” – was disqualified for failing to return the official AoT quotation form bearing its cost estimate.

The runner-up, Duangrit’s DBALP Consortium, was declared the winner last week amid claims that it had plagiarised the concept of Kengo Kuma’s Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum in southern Japan.

The design contract is worth around Bt329 million.

The DBALP design had the assistance of several other agencies, including Japan’s Nikken Sekkei, EMS Consultants, MHPM, MSE and ARJ Consortium.

Four architecture firms vied to design Terminal 2 (T2), which is part of the Bangkok airport’s third development phase. The others in the running were Varda Associates Co Ltd and the Beaumont Partnership.

If the DBALP proposal goes forward, construction of the 348,000-square-metre T2 is scheduled for completion in 30 months and the terminal should be fully operational in 2021 or early 2022. It’s intended to accommodate more than 30 million passengers annually.

SA Group’s lotus-inspired design was disqualified for failure to return the official AoT quotation form bearing its cost estimate. Photo courtesy of SA Group

But the project could be delayed because the SA Group has asked the government and Administrative Court to consider the plagiarism claim. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has instructed AoT to review the contest and make sure everything was above board.

Prayut said after a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the AoT must ensure there were no legal impediments that would delay construction of T2.

“The contest was conducted transparently,” AoT president Nitinai Sirismatthakarn insisted in an official statement the same day, adding that the SA Group was disqualified only for lack of the quotation form, an oversight to which he said the bidder admitted.

However, the group has claimed it received no such form from AoT.

“The original quotation for design cost was an important document in the bidding process and our procurement staff had prepared and numbered them accordingly,” Nitinai said.

He added that the list of documents contained in envelopes given to the bidders was also made clear to them. “There was no complaint from any bidder about not receiving all the documents,” he said.

The design by Varda Associates Co Ltd

AoT has yet to sign a contract with Duangrit and his team, pending the review and consultation with experts and the public.

The Architects Council of Thailand affirmed on Friday that the design contest had met its regulations for single-step bidding. The contest, though, took place before the new Government Procurement and Supplies Management Act was passed, by which such bidding competitions are required to enter two rounds, covering conceptual design and construction design.

“The rushed competition limited the number of firms that could enter the competition,” said Air Vice Marshal ML Prakitti Kshemasanta, who was among architect-observers of the AoT contest.

“AoT should have appointed a project-management consulting panel that included professional architects to study this mega-project before opening the contest,” added ML Prakitti, who is also the Architects Council secretary general.

Kengo Kuma’s Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum in southern Japan. Photo Courtesy of Kenho Kuma

Duangrit’s design is indeed similar to that of the iconic Japanese museum, but the Architects Council has not been prodded to take action on ethical grounds.

“We can’t say that he’s copied anything because we would first need to see all the relevant documents,” said Channarong Khanthong, the council’s second vice president.

“The investigation process would take time, but if we found him guilty of plagiarism, his proposal could not be used for the terminal.”

“I didn’t copy anyone else’s work,” Duangrit insisted. He said he spent over two months on the concept, drawing inspiration not from Kuma’s museum but from Thailand’s tropical forests.

Passengers would be greeted at the terminal by a lush landscape and huge waterfall, under a roof of modular components supported by overlapping wooden columns.

It’s this last facet of the design that’s drawn comparisons to the Wooden Bridge Museum.

Duangrit pointed out that modular structure is a signature element in his work and can be seen at the Naga Phuket Resort and a hotel in Sri Lanka, both of which he designed.

The SA Group design is quite different – modern, charming and harmonious with a shape mimicking a lotus bud.

Critics have commented that Duangrit’s complicated design would make the terminal far more difficult to maintain than the SA Group concept.

The design by the Beaumont Partnership.