The works are a continuation of his earlier show “Teleport” in New York that drew on his direct experience of racism and social inequality while living in the Big Apple.

“As suggested by the name ‘Teleport’, a black hole is a metaphor in my works for freedom. Back in Thailand, I have observed many social conflicts and have incorporated them in my work,” says Kantaporn, who has created an image of US President Donald Trump kissing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

His works are also featured on limited-edition lifestyle products including T-shirts, bags, mobile phones cases, plates, pins and stickers, which will be available only during the exhibition period.

Find out more at Facebook.com/objectsofdesirestore

The Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art museum in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, offered the guided tour before opening to the general public on Saturday.

“What a day to remember. A new chapter in naturism is opening,” the Paris Naturists’ Association said on Twitter after the visit, which the museum called the first of its kind in France.

The participants, who snapped up the tickets in just two days after the event was announced last March, were able to take it all off for the show “Discordia, Daughter of the Night”.

They were then treated to a private cocktail party on the museum’s roof.

“An incredible moment, what a success! Mindsets are changing and naturism is becoming commonplace,” the nudists’ association said.

The French capital has become increasingly attentive to fans of baring their all, with the city last year setting aside a designated patch for nudists in the Bois de Vincennes park to the east of the city.

They can also enjoy a meal at their own restaurant, named O’Naturel.

THE WATERFALL appears to run down the wall of a room and across the floor, but the flow is an illusion – a digital exhibit at a new interactive museum in Tokyo.

The flower-filled waterfall is the work of Japanese collective teamLab, known internationally for their innovative “digital art” that combines projections, sound and carefully designed spaces to create other-worldly, immersive experiences.

A digital installation waterfall room, filled with flowers appearing to flow over a hill, is at Mori Building Digital Art Museum in Tokyo. /AFP

After exhibitions around the world, they are opening this summer a museum dedicated entirely to their unique brand of artwork.

The space is being billed as a first, a digital museum with artwork that envelops and interacts with visitors.

One space features a bucolic rice field, another is filled with seemingly endless hanging lamps that illuminate as the visitor nears, the light moving from one lamp to another around the room.

Elsewhere, a waterfall filled with flowers appears to flow over a hill or waves crash along the walls, throwing spray towards the ceiling.

A digital installation flower-filled room at Mori Building Digital Art Museum in Tokyo /AFP

The exhibits are designed to flow into one another and interact with each other and the viewer. Some follow visitors or react in different ways when they are touched.

“We have created a borderless world made up of pieces of artwork that move by themselves, communicate with each other and mix perfectly with others,” teamLab co-founder Toshiyuki Inoko, 41, explains.

“I would like this space to become a place where we can remember that borders do not exist in our world.”

A digital installation of bucolic rice field

Some exhibits also encourage visitor participation – in one, viewers are “propelled into space” by bouncing on a trampoline in the midst of an intergalactic projection, in another they can dance in unison with performers who appear as translucent silhouettes.

Inoko, who has a background in physics, founded teamLab in 2001 with four fellow Tokyo University students, but the collective didn’t make its artistic debut until 2011, with a show at a gallery in Taipei.

Three years later, New York’s Pace Gallery began promoting their work, and in 2015, they organised their first exhibition in Japan, drawing nearly 500,000 visitors over 130 days.

Since then, they have shown across the world, with exhibitions in London, Silicon Valley, China and elsewhere and the collective has grown to some 500 members.

A digital installation room houses hanging lamps, that illuminate as the visitor nears and the light moves from one lamp to another around the room.

They describe themselves as “ultratechnologists”, who combine expertise in speciality fields, including engineering, robotics and architecture, with hands-on manual labour to produce art.

While teamLab works are now in several permanent collections, the new museum will be the first permanent space completely devoted to the collective’s pieces.

The cost of the project has not been disclosed, but a team member indicated that each piece of artwork can cost around $1 million to $2 million (Bt31.6 million to Bt63.2 million).

The collective will have some 50 exhibits in the 10,000-square-metre space in the bayside Odaiba area of Tokyo.

They have partnered with property management company Mori Building, and secured support from Japanese companies ranging from Panasonic to Epson.

TeamLab co-founder Toshiyuki Inoko /AFP

Dubbed the “Mori Building Digital Art Museum: teamLab Borderless”, the facility will open its doors on June 21, charging 3,200 yen admission (Bt930).

Maintaining the artwork requires a bank of 520 computers and 470 projectors, but the real key is the set of sophisticated algorithms that generates images in real time.

The artworks are “neither pre-recorded animations nor images on loop,” says teamLab.

The collective say they want to use digital technology to “expand the beautiful”.

“Unlike a physical painting on a canvas, the non-material digital technology can liberate art,” they say in an explanation of their work.

“Because of its ability to transform itself freely, it can transcend boundaries. The fact that the universe transforms with the presence of the other is very important for us,” Inoko notes.

“I am as much a part of the artwork as the other visitors.”

WHEN THE Fine Arts Department started its programme of renovations to the National Museum Bangkok back in 2014, the hope was that visitor numbers would increase, thus generating income for an institute that has been haemorrhaging cash money for decades.

The gamble has paid off, with museum director Nitaya Kanokmongkol reporting that the numbers have more than doubled and revenue from admission fees has increased fivefold, from Bt20,000 a day to more than Bt100,000.

The first fully renovated hall in the complex, Siwamokkhaphiman, re-opened two years ago with an entirely revamped interior, greatly improved lighting, and shorn of its walls and other obstacles to exploration.

The National Museum Bangkok recently opened four newly refurbished halls with a new display design and improved lighting that makes the facility more inviting.

Four halls in Moo Phra Wiman – a former residential complex of the viceroys – followed, opening this year just in time for the unprecedented interest in Thai history and traditional costumes generated by the royal-initiated, yesteryear-themed festival “Oon Ai Rak Klay Kwam Nao” and the hit period TV series “Buppesannivas” (“Love Destiny”).

“Today the museum attracts more than 300 Thai visitors and 500 foreigners a day, which is so much better than our previous record of 300, all nationalities combined,” Nitaya enthuses.

The museum was formerly Wang Na (the Front Palace) and constructed in 1782, about the same time the Grand Palace was built. It served as the residence for five viceroys during the reigns of Kings Rama I to V.

Work is continuing on Moo Phra Wiman’s other 12 halls and the aim is to complete the project within the next two years.

The Patchima Bhimuk Hall is home to exquisite metal works arranged according to technique employed.

“We previously put a lot of artefacts on show, but now we have reclassified and highlighted significant pieces that best represent each topic. The layout plan has also been reviewed and now allows space for a 360-degree view of each piece. Multimedia techniques have been added for some exhibits and this provides more visual understanding than boards filled with text,” adds the director.

Another noticeable improvement is the installation of new and more suitable lighting and specially designed secure glass cabinets fitted with controls to maintain correct levels of humidity and temperature. These days, visitors are even permitted to take photographs though, as elsewhere, flash and selfie sticks are banned.

The Uttra Bhimuk Hall displays exquisite clothes and costumes from the Siamese court.

Among the recently renovated four halls at Moo Phra Wiman, the most popular with Thai visitors is the Uttra Bhimuk Hall, which is home to a display of the clothes and costumes of the Siamese court. The “Oon Ai Rak Klay Kwam Nao” and the TV series “Buppesannivas” might have already ended but some visitors still turn up to the museum in Thai traditional costume and spend hours marvelling at the truly magnificent display of rare, intricately embellished costumes once worn by members of the royal family and noblemen.

The exhibition is enhanced by a video presentation on the dressing style and the making of textiles in the Siamese court as well as the traditional ways in which the costumes were laundered.

Prince Asdang Dejavudh’s khrui krong thong (translucent gown) made from mesh fabric embroidered with silver and gold threads, and somrot krong thong – gold lace netting worn as a sash.

“The works are reclassified according to category such as pha sompak – a kind of lower garment worn by noblemen to distinguish their rank, pha lai yang – printed cotton fabric worn as a lower garment, and pha krong thong – gold lace netting used as a translucent shawl by noble ladies. We also display pha yia rabap, an Indian silk fabric with gold stripes and brocade and pha sapak – a noble lady’s shawl made of silk and woven gold cloth embroidered with green beetle wings and crystal beads,” says Nitaya.

The richly embroidered piece at the centre is the costume of King Mongkut embroidered with oak leaves and fruit in flat metallic gold thread.

The highlight is the richly embroidered costume of King Mongkut embroidered with oak leaves and fruit in flat metallic gold thread. It dates back to 1859 and is believed to have been tailored and embroidered in Europe.

The pattern of the crown on the collar as well as the oak leaf design on the facing and back are similar to several textiles given to the King by the French government as a gesture of friendship. The embroidery technique is complicated and tight and the metallic gold thread is oxidised, so it turns black with time. The inner translucent cloth, however, is embroidered with a pikul flower (bullet wood) pattern thought to be the work of Thai artisans.

The royal garments were pricey and elaborate, as they were made of imported textiles from China, India, Cambodia and Persia and required skilled royal artisans to weave the already elaborate cloth with gold-thread or with a printed design that used the gold line technique known as pha khien thong.

Long-sleeved collar shirt made from yia rabap silk fabric brocaded with gold threads.

The embroidered clothes on display were widely favoured by members of the Siamese court, particularly the high-ranking ladies of honour. Silk and high-quality cotton were the most popular fabrics and often woven with coloured silk stripes or other materials such as gold or silver-wrapped thread, pearls, glass beads, crystal and jewelled beetles. Embroidery usually took the form of flowers and branches as well as classical Thai patterns.

The complete set of musical instruments played in a wong piphat khrueng yai (Thai classical orchestra)

Thai musical instruments and art pieces related to the royal performing arts are presented in the Thaksina Bhimuk Hall. Here visitors can see the complete sets of mother-of-pearl inlaid instruments of the 22-piece wong mahori khrueng yai (Thai grand orchestra) and the 12-piece wong piphat khrueng yai (Thai classical orchestra) arranged according to the positions of musicians. A video clip of the grand orchestra performing is also presented.

“The wong piphat khrueng yai of the Fine Arts Department performed during the Royal Cremation Ceremony of His Majesty the late King Bhumibol late last year and this has drawn interest in learning more about the set of woodwind and percussion instruments of the traditional orchestra,” Nitaya says.

A rare collection of intricate, small hun lek or hun wang na (the royal puppet of the Front Palace) can be seen at the Thaksina Bhimuk Hall.

Another highlight is the hun lek or hun wang na (the royal puppet of the Front Palace), which were introduced by Krom Phra Ratchawang Bowon Wichaichan (the viceroy in the reign of King Rama V). The puppets in intricate costumes were similar to the hun yai or hun luang (royal puppet) figures, with full arms and legs, a wooden tube and control rods but smaller in size – about 30-centimetres high each compared to the 85-110 cm of their larger cousins.

Hun yai or hun luang (royal puppet) figures

Also on display is a collection of khon masks and sian khru (teachers’ heads) of Hindu deities such as Brahma, Indra, Isavara, and Ganesh as well as elaborate and intricate accessories specially made in Europe on the order of King Rama VI and used in the royal khon. Here too, understanding is helped by the screening of a khon performance.

A rare collection of weaponry dating back to the Ayutthaya and early Rattanakosin periods is on view at the Burapha Bhimuk Hall.

Armaments find their home in the Burapha Bhimuk Hall. Among the collections is the weaponry crafted for monarchs and noblemen including the Vishnu spear with bamboo shaft and decorated with gold damascene, and a caplock firearm with metal wrapped buttstock and gold damascene trigger set engraved with the name of Prince Vishnunat Nipathon – a son of King Rama IV.

Tamra pichai songkram (the military treatise on war strategy) is displayed, with a touch screen illustrating each page of the treatise.

The tamra pichai songkram (the military treatise on war strategy), the 82-page royal edition written in 1815 during the reign of King Rama II, is securely displayed in a glass cabinet but can be brought to life thanks to a touch screen, which shows each page of the treatise. This reflects the beliefs and rituals of warfare, different troop formations for mobilisation and for battle and campground plans.

The next glass cabinet further illustrates the orders in the treatise through tiny soldier figures marching in khrutphayuha benchasena (garuda formation with five types of soldiers).

The display of the battle formation in garuda form with five types of soldiers as illustrated in the military treatise.

The last stop for the visitor is the Patchima Bhimuk Hall, home to exquisite metal works arranged according to technique employed and including Buddha images in hum plaeng (gold-pleat wrapping), krum household items such as scissors and hand-held betel nut grinders etched in cross-furrows and inlaid with gold and silver, and a collection of water kettles and caskets made using the thom pad (painted enamel on copper) technique popular with Chinese artisans.

Hand-held betel nut grinders and scissors inlaid with gold and silver – a technique influenced by Persian artisans

Another six halls are slated to open in October and will display rare collections of ceramics, mother-of-pearl inlay, Buddhist monk utensils and royal transportation.

Among the project in the works is a virtual museum tour, audio guides in different languages and QR codes for smartphones to access further information, along 3D visualisations for some significant pieces.

Copper kettles in thom pad technique (painted enamel on copper) influenced by Chinese artisans

“The museum has to adapt and become a living museum, not a boring place, for people of all ages and to meet the rapid changes in people’s lifestyles,” Nitaya says.

THE PAST BROUGHT TO LIFE

The National Museum Bangkok is on Na Phrathat Road next to Thammasat University.

Admission is Bt30 for Thais and Bt200 for foreigners. It’s open Wednesday through Sunday from 9am to 4pm.

Guided tours for groups can be booked in advance and are conducted by trained volunteer guides in English, French, German and Japanese on Wednesday and Thursday at 9.30am, and on Sunday at 10am and 1.30pm.

Find out more at (02) 224 1333 and the “National Museum Bangkok” page on Facebook

THAI ART buffs got a preview of Natee Utarit’s new painting series “The Altarpieces” last Thursday at the launch of the English-language book “Natee Utarit: Optimism is Ridiculous” by Italian curator and art critic Demetrio Paparoni.

Through Singapore gallery Richard Koh Fine Art, which represents him internationally, Natee was able to show at the venue, Lhong 1919, three of the paintings from the series.

These came from private collections, but the rest of the reunited series is currently on display at the National Gallery of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and will be coming to Thailand for the Bangkok Biennale beginning in July.

Tanachira Retail Corp, an importer of lifestyle and fashion brands, arranged for a stock of the 255-page book to be brought to Thailand for sale. It’s published in Italy by Skira Editore.

All proceeds from sales through July (or until the supply runs out) will go to the Project Love Asia Foundation to help underprivileged children around Asia.

“The Altarpieces” – 12 paintings in all, completed between 2012 and 2017 – follow the tradition of classical religious works, with multiple panels forming diptychs, triptychs and polyptychs in elaborate frames.

Natee is continuing another venerable tradition – the memento mori, meaning an artwork or object intended to remind people of their mortality. He interprets Western-led modernism in an examination of death, injustice and human suffering, as filtered through his Buddhist beliefs.

“The series takes its inspiration from paintings that adorned the altars of Christian churches from the 15th to the 19th century,” Natee explained. “In Thailand, this type of religious art gained repute during the reign of King Rama IV. Khrua In Khong, who painted the spectacular murals in the chapel at Wat Bowornniwet, was the leading practitioner of the form, which showed Western influences.”

The 48-year-old Bangkok-based artist said altarpieces traditionally depicted Christian legends and myths and served as “foregrounds for the sanctity of Christian rituals”.

“They’re filled with meaning and have always played an important role in giving tangible form to the key tenets of the Christian faith.”

One of his oil paintings from 2015, occupying a 250x450cm canvas, is entitled “L’enfer, c’est les autres” (“Hell is other people”) and features symbolic representations of Hell, Heaven and other subjects. The title is borrowed from the French existentialist playwright Jean Paul Sartre, a quote from his stage play “No Exit”.

“Hell is ‘others’ because it’s the parameter against which each individual assesses himself or herself,” Natee said.

“In the past, people believed Heaven was up there and Hell was below and they were in the middle. But all these places actually blend together. Happiness and suffering are dependent on each person. There are some similar perceptions about life and death in this complex world.

“In Western classical visual art there were genres like ‘Dance of Death’, which reflected the idea of the memento mori,” he said, referring to the allegorical Danse Macabre paintings of the Middle Ages. “But paintings with complex symbolism can communicate the same messages in the contemporary world just as well.”

The other two paintings on view last week are in private collection and had never before been exhibited in public. “Fallen Devil”, an oil on linen, measures 90x80cm, and “Death Contemplation/Red Velvet”, an oil on canvas, is 69.5 x 132cm.

Natee is quoted in Paparoni’s book talking about the former, saying he frequently used anatomical models in his work – models normally used for medical studies – and they gave him “a strange feeling that was hard to explain”.

“I felt nervous in the silence and sensed horror in the beauty. I totally enjoyed creating my works under the ‘ambiguous conflict’ concept. The state of nervousness or doubt was a conceptual one. I therefore searched for something that could represent those abstract concepts. Anatomical models were perfect for me to create those conceptual artworks.”

Art students will derive great benefit from Paparoni’s profile of the artist. He explains the works with references to well-known pieces by many Western artists of classical times, leading to greater understanding of what Natee is striving to accomplish.

He points out, for example, that “Death Contemplation/Suffering” from 2016 could be likened to German artist Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb”, painted in 1521.

“One can only imagine,” Paparoni writes, “the crises experienced by an artist capable of painting a work like the one conserved in Basel, who never stopped inspiring subsequent generations of artists, as demonstrated by Utarit’s ‘Contemplation of Death’ cycle.”

On the book’s cover is a detail from Natee’s 2014 212x510cm oil on canvas “Passage to the Song of Truth and Absolute Equality”, a polyptych in five panels. It owes a debt to “Danse Macabre” from circa 1464, by the Baltic genius Bernt Notke.

Paparoni praises Natee’s revival of the recurrent motifs seen in European art of the late Middle Ages.

“Art of this kind originally spread a message of equality among men by illustrating their shared relationship with death,” said Natee.

“This notion [the inevitability of death for all creatures] is found through the ages in every culture, including in both Christian and Buddhist culture.

“Europeans can easily perceive the message because of the universal meanings in the symbols, such as water or a river, which is the passageway to death.”

Natee looks to his future as a step-by-step process, in harmony with the different phases of life. He’s pleased with the book, which he called a mainstream international publication suitable for academic study. It completes a cycle that began when he first picked up a brush in his studio and continued at the gallery and on to the collectors.

Natee plans to next do a series of landscapes, the fruit of a year spent in a French forest.

He completed his studies at the College of Fine Art in 1987 and earned a degree in graphic arts from Silpakorn University in 1991.

His work features in the collections of Bangkok University, the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art in Australia, the Singapore Art Museum and private patrons in Europe and Asia.

The appeal is in his exploration of the medium of painting itself, and the way he draws connections with photography and classical Western art with a gifted use of light and perspective.

FOR YOUR ART LIBRARY

– “Natee Utarit: Optimism is Ridiculous” can be purchased at Facebook.com/tanachiracard for Bt2,000 or call (02) 264 5080.

AN ORGANISATION which recreated the inside of a Syrian prison in harrowing 3D detail was among the four |nominees for Britain’s Turner Prize for contemporary art announced on Thursday.

London-based Forensic Architecture, which uses architectural rendering software to investigate potential war crimes, used prisoner accounts to build a digital model of Saidnaya prison.

Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson announced the shortlist at an event in London, saying all the artists nominated “are tackling the most pressing political and humanitarian issues of today”.

Oliver Basciano, art critic and member of the jury said that the four nominees “combine a politicking with a sense of elegance, a sense of aesthetic seduction in their work”.

The others include Luke Willis Thompson, who made a black and white silent film portrait of Diamond Reynolds, a woman who live-streamed the immediate aftermath of her African American boyfriend’s death during a traffic stop in the US.

Glasgow-based artist Charlotte Prodger was praised by jurors for “the nuanced way in which she deals with identity politics, particularly from a queer perspective”.

The jury said films made by the fourth nominee, Naeem Mohaiemen, “explore post-colonial identity, migration, exile and refuge”.

An exhibition of the shortlisted artists will open at Tate Britain on September 25 and the winner will be announced in December.

Forensic Architecture was set up in 2011 by Israeli activist and architect Eyal Weizman.

Forensic Architecture created 3D video footages of the fatal fire at Grenfell Tower in London to show how the disaster unfolded.  (Photo/ Forensic Architecture)

Its interdisciplinary laboratory specialises in producing analysis and evidence to be used in human rights cases brought to international courts, with architecture a key tool in helping to accurately recreate events occurring in chaotic surroundings.

Before FA, no surveillance groups or journalists had been able to “access” the notorious Saidnaya military prison, located 25 kilometres north of Damascus and used by the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

The laboratory pieced together testimonies given to Amnesty by former prisoners with satellite images found on the Google search engine and other publicly available online material.

Other studies conducted by the agency include reconstruction the August 2014 bombing of Gaza, Guatemala’s Ixil genocide of 1978-1984 and the 2011 sinking in the Mediterranean of a boat carrying 63 migrants from Libya.

FA is currently the only provider of such analysis, working with Human Rights Watch, international courts |and the United Nations with key evidence.

The work combines traditional disciplines, such as mapping, ecology and law, with new technologies like 3D, as-well as the testimonies of victims and prominent witnesses.

CHEAP, Chinese-made nylon burkas are flooding Afghanistan’s north as consumers turn to affordable, mass-produced fabrics, but in Kabul a small, determined fashion house is fighting to preserve the traditional textiles once integral to Afghan culture.

Launched in 2006, “Zarif”, which means “precious: in Persian, commissions traditional cotton and silk from artisanal weavers, then employs more than two dozen people – mostly women – to tailor and design the fabrics into handcrafted, embroidered clothing.

Afghan owner of Zarif Design House Zolaykha Sherzad shows an older traditional chopan (coat) to her employees./AFP

But with cheaper imports saturating the market, they are struggling to keep local traditional methods afloat, says founder Zolaykha Sherzad.

Only decades ago, the textile industry was on par with Afghanistan’s legendary carpet trade, famed since the days of the old Silk Road.

During its heyday textiles were more than just fabrics, with their patterns, colours and embroidery illuminating the origins and tribal history of their makers.

“In the past, the fabrics were entirely embroidered, on the walls, the cushions… the wedding dresses,” says Sherzad.

“But now, we are trying hard just to keep them as ornaments on jackets and coats, to maintain the know-how,” she adds, saying the decline in the craft has put large numbers of women out of work who once were able to make a living at home.

A tailor works on a cotton fabric piece./AFP

With Zarif, she hopes to fill the gap while aiming to preserve Afghanistan’s textile traditions and designing contemporary takes on Afghan fashion staples.

A visit to the bazaar in northern Mazar-i-Sharif shows the challenge she faces.

There, bundles of striped and padded coats, or “chapans” – popularised in the West by ex-President Hamid Karzai – pile up in stacks at stalls.

“Too bright,” she says, discarding the synthetic fabrics.

For many consumers, however, they have their appeal.

The cheaper knock-offs are printed on nylon, rather than silk, closely replicating traditional designs but at a third of the |price.

“These cost 800 to 1,200 |afghanis (Bt360 to Bt560), compared to 2,500 for a traditional chapan,” explains Abdullah, a merchant.

Now only the rich can afford the handmade silk chapans, often buying them as wedding gifts, while middle-class and working people opt for the synthetic designs.

Markets across Mazar also burst with the polyester burqas Afghan women are forced by tribal culture to don. But even the fabrics used for this ubiquitous garment come increasingly from abroad.

“China, India, Pakistan, everything comes from outside,” says Hashem, a dyer and weaver for Zarif, from the courtyard of his mud house on the outskirts of Mazar from where he manages the 10 women who weave for him at home.

A shopkeeper and provincial contractor of Zarif Design House shows fabrics for a chapan (coat) at his shop in MazariSharif. /AFP

“In the old days I had 10 families working for me, today I have four,” he says while squeezing a skein of freshly dyed cotton.

“Before,” he continues, “80 per cent of the raw material came from the local market, today 80 per cent comes from abroad.”

In founding Zarif, Sherzad – an architect by training – wanted above all to promote female employment, banned under Taleban rule from 1996-2001 and still the norm in large swathes of the country.

According to data provided by the World Bank, 19 per cent of Afghan women were employed in 2017 – which excludes the informal agricultural sector.

Despite the economic crisis that has raged since the withdrawal of more than 100,000 Nato troops in late 2014, Zarif still employs 26 employees in its courtyard workshop, located next to a mosque and its blaring call to prayers.

About 60 per cent of the team is female, including the director Nasima along with the production manager Sara. Two embroiderers work full time while an additional 30 are called on at the discretion of the managers.

Since its creation, Zarif has trained more than 85 women – but most of them have given up their jobs after getting married at the request of husbands who are reluctant to accept the presence of other men near their spouses.

“The brake on women’s employment continues to be their husbands” says Sherzad.

To survive, Zarif relies on connections in Paris, where the company is supported by French fashion brand “Agnes b”, along with a stable of faithful clientele in New York.

And even as she seeks to preserve, she is also forced to adapt, scouring Afghanistan’s antique shops in search of richly crafted garments that can be refashioned into bags or the linings for men’s jackets.

Silk encapsulates the challenge. Homespun silk from the western city of Herat was once used by Afghan producers for turbans. Now it is exported to Iran.

“There’s only one artisan left in Afghanistan that knows the craft,” Sherzad says.

“It’s necessary to train others, but for what? People no longer have the means and young people no longer wear turbans. We have to invent something else that uses silk.”

IT’S EVIDENT that Pichet Klunchun Dance Company is stepping up its force as a company in 2018, and not as a group of dancers led by internationally acclaimed dancer-choreographer. Although it’s still far from the repertoire system larger dance companies are using, presenting recent works every few months at the company’s home Chang Theatre, while developing a few new works for later this year and next demonstrates that this is being done full-time. It doesn’t feel like a retrospective either, as their energy and passion underlines that they’ll never stop despite the many obstacles the company faces.

Photo/Sojirat Singholka

A co-production between Singapore Arts Festival, now known as Singapore International Festival of Arts, and Germany’s Theater der Welt, “Nijinsky Siam” premiered in 2010, and went on tour in many countries. The Thailand premiere was a year later at Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, and proved so popular that with four performances failing to meet public demand, another one was added. It’s been seven years since Thai audiences watched it and it’s relevant now as it was then.

Based on historical research by Sylvie Dancre and Philippe de Lustrac, “Nijinsky Siam” first gave the background to a Thai performing arts company tour of Europe in the early 1900s, then showed the audience photographs and paintings of “La danse Siamoise”, in Paris and Saint Petersburg in 1910, by Vaslav Nijinsky, who was inspired by the company’s classical Thai dance performance. Comparing these historical images on the screen with the three dancers’ performance on stage, it then showed that the Ukraine-born dancer took artistic and cultural liberty in combining the dance movements of the four character types of khon – male, female, ogre and monkey– and reinterpreting them into his own.

Photo/Pichet Klunchun Dance Company

Nang Yai, large-scale shadow puppets, made from these images, were paraded onto the stage, accompanied by Christian Sinding’s music, although the lighting in this part was less than substantial for the audience to see their details. Anyhow, with these, “Nijinsky Siam” also showed how Thai choreographer Pichet Klunchun put still images into motion and recreated “La danse Siamoise”, which was the highlight of this pivotal work.

Nijinsky’s choreography was proof that an outsider sees more beauty than an insider does – and also reflects how Europeans viewed Asia more than a century ago.

Pichet’s choreography, or the reconstruction of Nijinsky’s, is proof that contemporary dance is also an interaction between the past and the present and between different cultures.

Photo/Rachan Woramunee

“Nijinsky Siam” encouraged a lot of audience members to wonder why our culture and tourism ministries seem to focus most of their attention on promoting traditional, instead of contemporary, Thailand, as if they are promoting Orientalism. With tourism generating major revenue for the country, this land of smiles tends to give the visitors what they want and as a result, they feel that they know it all. In Bangkok, for example, any foreign visitor who never ventures outside the area not reachable by MRT or BTS would never experience how Thai people really live. Likewise, foreign performance goers who only rely on English-language brochures and sources of information would never reach Chang Theatre.

Photo/Pichet Klunchun Dance Company

Thanks to the kind support of the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC), all audience members attending the six performances of this work over the past two weekends – like those for “Pichet Klunchun and Myself” last month – didn’t need to buy tickets. This does, however, raise a few questions. Why does this free-admission condition remain for government-supported performing arts? Does this condition mean that the support needs to be large enough to cover the whole cost of each production? Why, in order to be eligible for a double tax refund, do we need to directly donate to the culture ministry without knowing how the donation will be allocated, instead of directly to the artists we want to support? And lastly, will most of these audience members return when the next show, which is not supported, means having to pay for tickets?

Quite right: that’s more than a few.

NEXT UP AT CHANG THEATRE

Developed at the da:ns festival’s artist-in-residency programme at the Esplanade–Theatres on the Bay, Pichet Klunchun Dance Company’s “Black and White” will be on June 22-24 at Chang Theatre, in Soi Pracha-uthit 59, Thung Khru, Thonburi.

Tickets are Bt 500, available at http://www.ChangTheatre.com or by calling 099 213 5639. To find out more, email ChangTheatre.Bangkok@gmail.com.

The tour, which starts at 2pm, will be conducted in Thai and will be joined by Assoc Prof Sutee Kunavichayanont, artist and Head of the Department of Art Theory, Faculty of Painting, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts, Silpakorn University.

Vasan, 61, is known for painting himself in the nude as well as the act of sexual intercourse to mock political and social ills that vary from corruption, dictatorship and sinful monks to the destruction of forests and the construction of power plants.

More than 100 works are on view, some of them from Vasan’s own collection and others on loan from private collectors. The works are not arranged according to a timeline, but divided into themes.

Also on display are several paintings from his controversial 1997 series “Inferno” that evoked misery in hell for, among others, a sinful monk giving out lottery numbers, a gangster and a weapon merchant who profited from suffering and devastation, and a doctor who took advantage of the poor.

Political and economic upheavals are revisited in satirical works such as his politically themed, conceptual art of the Artist Party, set up during the 2005 general election, showing posters and leaflets bearing a facetious Vasan wearing suit and tie.

The most recent work on view is a series of five figurative paintings in red, white and blue and arranged to resemble the stripes of country’s national flag. Titled “Preta”, they compare greedy capitalists and powermad authorities to hungry ghosts due to their support for constructing dams and coalfired power plants.

The curator tour is free and no reservation is required.

A woodcut workshop will also be held on May 5 at 2pm, following with T-shirt screening with Vasan.

The exhibition continues until May 27 at the main gallery on the eighth floor. The centre is located at Pathumwan Intersection, opposite MBK mall (BTS: National Stadium). It’s open daily except Monday from 10am to 9pm.

Call (02) 214 66308 or visit http://www.Bacc.or.th.

The exhibition, which continues through May 29, aims to encourage guests to see the destination through the eyes of Suwatchai, who captures the beauty and grandeur of the ancient Ayutthaya Kingdom in his paintings and sculptures, while also expressing his awe for the rich heritage of the location.

“Our boutique brand is very reflective of the destinations in which each hotel operates, providing insights into Thai culture and heritage for both domestic and global travellers. Over the next few months we are rolling out a series of art programmes to inspire our guests to delve deeper into each locale,” said Nicolas Reschke, group director of business development of Sala Hospitality.

A number of the paintings depict Wat Phutthaisawan, one of the film locations for the hit Thai drama series Buppaesanniwas (Love Destiny).

“Portraying Ayutthaya is a compilation of scenic paintings that express my sentiments of the old capital of Siam. The remnants of the exquisite period art of temples and various architectures are a reflection of civilisation and wisdom of our ancestors that are no less impressive than any other nations in the world,” said Suwatchai.

The artist has received numerous awards for his traditional Thai paintings, and his work has been showcased in solo exhibitions at Central Airport Chiang Mai and The National Gallery Bangkok.

Over the years he has also been engaged for noteworthy projects, including a work of art presented to Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and the creation of Buddhist art dedicated to Wat Phawana Ram in Samut Prakan Province.

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