The bowl, just under six inches (14.7 cm) in diameter, is decorated with falangcai — painted enamels combining Chinese and Western techniques — and flowers, including daffodils which are not typically depicted on Chinese porcelain.

The bowl, said to have been used by the emperor in the early 18th century, was sold within five minutes to an unnamed phone bidder from the “Greater China” region, said chairman of Sotheby’s Asia Nicolas Chow.

“This is the absolute finest example to exist. There are only three other examples altogether that use this beautiful pink (background),” Chow said.

The bowl was created in an imperial workshop within Beijing’s Forbidden City by a small team of craftsmen, with the help of Jesuits from Europe who had brought new techniques and materials, according to Sotheby’s.

Hong Kong’s auction houses have seen frenzied bidding among Asian buyers in recent years, with sales of diamonds, handbags and ancient ceramics shattering world records.

Last year a 1,000-year-old bowl from China’s Song Dynasty sold for US$37.7 million, a record for Chinese ceramics.

HER ROYAL Highness Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol, long associated with scientific endeavours and affectionately known as “the Princess Researcher”, shared another of her talents last week with the opening of the art exhibition “Various Patterns: Diversity of Life” at the Queen’s Gallery in Bangkok.

The 239 paintings on view until May 15 represent her output while pursuing a doctorate in visual arts at Silpakorn University’s Faculty of Painting Sculpture and Graphic Arts.

Also on display are pieces entailing embroidery, sculpture, printing and digital techniques.

Central to the Princess’ doctoral thesis is the nature of the big cats of the wild, and she cleverly links these “kings of jungle” to the King of Thailand, specifically to her beloved late father, His Majesty King Bhumibol.

It was the loss of her father that led her to delve more deeply into art as a way of working through her grief – in a pastime that he’d also loved and at which he excelled.

While the lion “king of the jungle” appears in several pieces, it’s the tiger and the leopard that predominate, and it’s the tiger specifically that Princess Chulabhorn identifies most with the human monarch on the throne.

These camouflaged cats lend themselves well to her use of symbolism, their stripes and spots sometimes augmented with musical and scientific nomenclature. The animals’ markings stem from their DNA, a subject of her biology studies, she also notes.

The Princess said she’d been keen on art as a child, but royal duties and an overriding interest in science prevailed.

“My mother once said, ‘I only have four children, so it would be helpful if each of my children studied a different field to make their combined knowledge advantageous to the country.’

“For 40 years I have devoted myself to scientific studies and research in chemistry, aquaculture, medicine and veterinary science to develop our country and improve the lives of the people. My duties are quite serious but also very stressful because of the way other people’s lives depend on them.

“As time passed, though, I reconsidered my life and found there was one thing I loved to do, which was art. Whenever I have time after work, I’m delighted to be alone and dreaming without boundaries. That feeling makes me understand true happiness. And that’s why I chose art as a form of therapy.”

Emeritus Professor Pishnu Supani- mit, who chairs the doctorate programme in which the Princess is enrolled, said there was concern initially because her background was in science and medicine and doctorate art students require basic drawing skills.

“However, to the surprise of the art instructors, when we first saw her paintings presented to the committee, our fears were allayed,” he said. “The Princess already had creative concepts in mind and her painting shows a unique style, including in the composition. It was obvious that she absorbed a sense of art through her parents.”

Her characterised her work as “naive art” since the Princess has had no formal training. “It derives from her instinct and intelligence,” Pishnu said.

There are also butterflies, flora and landscapes in the exhibition, but the tiger truly is king, a symbol of her close relationship to the family and of King Bhumibol’s function as a role model for leadership.

The Princess draws her subjects on paper with a watercolour marker, a pen whose pigment can then be diffused with a wet brush. It’s the same approach she’s used in designing jewellery. Her colours are generally bright and she overlays them to make the hues more intense and then uses a pencil or fountain pen to draw outlines and other details.

The six categories in the series begin with “Tiger and Lines (Black and White)”, with several interesting turns of imagination beyond form.

“Identity of a Tiger” underscores one of the more intriguing aspects of the Princess’ approach. The big cats are never shown stalking or attacking. Instead, as if she were depicting a king who rules with care and compassion, they’ve been shorn of any ferocity and are seen as beautiful and kind.

“Tiger and Nature” looks at the reality of nature through a pure lens. “Tiger, Nature and Composition” contains hidden messages about profound emotions. “Tiger and Scientific Symbols” associates one cat with a space rocket and pierces another’s ears with a chain of earrings.

Finally there’s “Tiger and Imaginative Creation”, as well as the “Butterflies” series.

Art instructor Panya Vijinthanasarn said Princess Chulabhorn succeeds at “learning from doing”. She might be riding a helicopter to a function upcountry, he notes, but she has her pad and watercolours in her lap.

“And she constantly showed progress in class. Her art is unique, a mix of the surreal and the imaginative. All of her tigers have their own distinctive patterns, lines, colours, volumes and shapes. You find musical symbols, eyeglasses, flowers, hearts and the Thai character for the number nine.

“I think Princess Chulabhorn uses both hemispheres of her brain when she’s doing art, so there’s both logical and creative thinking. A lot of her art suggests a scientific approach and is very detail-oriented. Overall, the composition, creativity and imagination are quite apparent and outstanding. Only a few artists can do that, such as da Vinci and the late King Bhumibol.”

PRINTS ARE AVAILABLE

– The exhibition “Various Pattern: Diversity of Life” continues at the Queen’s Gallery through May 15.

– Reproductions of the paintings as prints, postcards, T-shirts and scarves are on sale (the T-shirts cost Bt350 and Bt450) at Silpakorn University. Call the Nakhon Pathom campus at (034) 271 379 or the Bangkok campus at (02) 849 7564. Or order by mail through Siam Glitters 1957, phone (02) 598 6599.

– All proceeds after expenses will be donated to the Chulabhorn Foundation.

In a celebration of self-portraits in the social media age Tommy Honton and Tair Mamedov are set to open the Museum of Selfies in Los Angeles this Sunday — an interactive exhibition exploring the history and cultural phenomenon of snapping a photo of yourself.

And for those who think if a moment wasn’t photographed, it might as well have not happened — the good news is that at the Museum of Selfies, selfies are compulsory.

Event planner Lori Nguyen, 45, said she doesn’t take selfies very often because “I’m not, like, super young.”

But another visitor, Nina Crowe, said she takes “one a day.”

A man takes a selfie at the Museum of Selfies on April 1, 2018 in Glendale, California Photo/AFP

Neither missed the chance to snap several at the Museum of Selfies, including at an exhibit mimicking the rooftop of Los Angeles’ tallest building.

In reality there’s a backdrop photograph of the “ground below” printed on a small platform, from which sprouts a tube that looks like the building’s antenna complete with a red signaling beacon.

Add a selfie stick, an “I’m afraid of heights” grimace and a click — and the result is very realistic.

The exhibition begins with mirrors, perhaps the most basic kind of selfie. But Honton and Mamedov view the concept as something more than just a simple photo.

“The selfies have a surprisingly rich history, and go back as far as people have been making art,” Honton explains.

“Rembrandt did hundreds of self-portraits, Albrecht Durer five, Van Gogh dozens. I mean they did their portraits too, what’s the difference?” he said.

“Yes, artistic technique and scale is one thing, but in reality, if cell phones and cameras had existed, everyone would have taken them.”

Vistors takes selfies at the Museum of Selfies on April 1, 2018 in Glendale, California Photo/AFP

Another selfie museum opened in the Philippines in 2015, but there’s no sign it stayed open. Meanwhile in Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb, the exhibition is just the latest in the city’s stream of quirky museums focusing on everything from rabbits and death to neon and velvet.

‘Selfie magnet’

The show is full of fun facts about the trend: women take pictures of themselves more than men, for example.

In Sao Paulo, 65.4 percent of selfies are taken by women — in New York, 61.6 percent. In Moscow, the divide is even more extreme, at 82 percent.

There aren’t statistics for Los Angeles, but Ally Bertik admits she is a frequent selfie-snapper.

A woman takes photos with a selfie stick at a mirrored installation on opening day at the Museum of Selfies on April 1, 2018 in Glendale, California. Photo/AFP

“It shows off my good side. And I get to show people like ‘hey, this is where I am, maybe you guys should check it out too, this is what I’m doing.’ It’s just a fun way to like spread you know what I’m doing, show people where I’m at,” she explained.

Wandering through the museum, guests will be able to pose with Colette Miller’s “Angel Wings” and a work by Darel Carey, who creates multi-dimensional rooms using plastic tape — a concept the museum describes as a “selfie magnet.”

There are pieces by Brazil’s Rob Vital, German-Canadian Joseph Nowak, Italy’s Michele Durazzi — and a copy of the Russian government’s recommendations for taking a selfie safely, created following several accidents and as many as 12 selfie-related deaths in the country.

Also featured is David Slater’s controversial monkey selfie — which became embroiled in a legal battle over who has the copyright to photos taken by monkeys using his camera.

In a corner, meanwhile, are three statues resembling Michelangelo’s “David” — painted blue with a pink cell phone — and a Game of Thrones-esque throne created using selfie sticks.

You just “can’t avoid” taking a selfie there, says Mamedov, a Russian actor who arrived in the US four years ago.

The Museum of Selfies will be open in Glendale initially for two months. Its founders are open to extending its LA run and taking the exhibition to other places around the US, if not the world.

SOME OF THE figures seem to be concentrating on yoga poses. One is standing on its head, another lies down with its upper back and legs lifted, its “core” apparently hard at work.

Antony Gormley’s new creations, a series entitled “Rooting the Synapse” unveiled in Hong Kong this week, are as always modelled on his own form – but this time with jagged limbs branching out like plants, spindly and skeletal.

Britain’s best-known modern sculptor, Gormley has spent his career exploring the human body’s relationship to space, with his “Angel of the North”, a steel, winged behemoth installed on a hill in northeastern England in 1998, catapulting him to fame.

British sculptor Antony Gormley stands next to his 2017 sculpture “Signal” as he speaks about his exhibition “Rooting the Synapse” at the White Cube gallery in Hong Kong. /AFP

His shadowy human figures loomed from the top of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers between 2015 and 2016 as part of his “Event Horizon” show, causing curiosity and consternation in the streets below, where some feared they were people about to jump to their deaths.

Gormley, 67, insists his figures contain no narratives and are not trying to tell a story, but exist to stir up feelings in viewers.

“Your body is actually the most highly sensitive instrument that you have in order to experience the world,” he says.

Many have seen or even inspected up close the cast iron and fibreglass versions of his body that he has sculpted over the years.

In person, he is tall and serene, his eyes alert as he chooses his words deliberately.

While Gormley has in the past displayed his figures on beaches and in vast salt lakes as well as across dense cities, his latest sculptures are debuting within the stark white walls of Hong Kong’s White Cube gallery, inviting viewers to feel for a moment removed from the urban frenzy outside.

The twig-like bodies are sculpted from iron and partly draw on the patterns of ancient civilisations, such as the spiralling, angular motifs that the Greeks used in architecture and pottery.

But they are also reminiscent of electrical circuits – Gormley compares them with TV aerials, or “receivers of the signals of contemporary reality”.

A security guard next to “Stem”, 2016, centre, and “Feel”, 2016, left, by British sculptor Antony Gormley /AFP

Observing that people spend more and more time surrounded by screens and are taken to gyms to exercise “like they’re a dog”, Gormley says his latest works are supposed to look “familiar and unfamiliar at the same time” as they combine elements from both the natural and digital worlds.

“In a way I’m saying this is the human being now,” he explains.

Gormley says he wishes to depart from a tradition of sculptors who pursued beauty and ideals.

“I’m interested in making a plea for the life that exists independent of the accidents of appearance,” he says.

Movement is more evident in his latest series – some of the new figures appear relaxed, or are caught in a moment of imbalance.

One is bent over sharply, allowing its torso to droop under its natural weight. Another seems to be in free fall, its limbs splaying.

Gormley says these figures are “more open and more free” than his previous sculptures, which sought to connect with people through their silence and stillness.

The southern Chinese city provides a vibrant setting for his show, he adds, casting the exhibition as a response to the heavily designed and dense urban environment.

Decades into his life as an artist and devoted to a single theme, he describes his work as a stem, constantly budding with new possibilities.

While in Shanghai, where he had an exhibition last year, he found inspiration in watching people do tai chi in the morning – a relatively slow and gentle exercise – where they were not necessarily working but “just getting their bodies back into a kind of balance”.

He tries to achieve something similar in art.

“My work is my meditation,” Gormley says.

WHAT HAPPENS when an artist who devoted most of his career to painting landscapes and still-lifes turns instead to portraiture? That’s the central premise of an exhibition of 59 portraits by Paul Cezanne at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the first ever dedicated to this aspect of his oeuvre.

Of the 1,000 paintings the 19th-century French painter created during his lifetime, only about 160 were portraits, mostly of his close friends, family and domestic servants.

But it’s perhaps in that collection that the evolution of Cezanne’s individualistic, revolutionary vision is clearest, as he deconstructs space by boldly painting his wife with vanishing lips or applying layer upon layer of thick paint with a palette knife.

“Seated Man”, 1905-1906 /AFP

He may have studied the Old Masters, but Cezanne “exploded” traditional ways of representing space and volume on a picture plane, says Mary Morton, co-curator of the show and head of the gallery’s department of French paintings.

Cezanne in many ways paved the way to modernism.

The pioneering cubist Pablo Picasso, born 42 years after the Frenchman, called him “the father of us all”.

He relies on a “modernist understanding about how visual perception works… It’s not stable, it’s not linear, it’s not from a single point, it’s not coherent,” Morton says.

Texture was also crucial. In “Antony Valabregue” (from 1866), the artist’s submission to the official Salon art exhibition in Paris critical in launching careers, Cezanne’s rough-hewn style is on full display.

The jury took the coarsely layered paint and the poet-sitter’s defiant and inelegant pose, fists clenched on his thighs, as a slap in the face – and rejected it.

So roughly had Cezanne treated both the surface and the subject that one jury member commented he had painted not just with a knife but with a pistol.

“Gustave Geffroy”, 1895-1896 /AFP

“He is displacing the conventional place that you look for portraiture, which is the face, and that you’re expecting a likeness,” says Morton.

“It means that it’s perhaps in the colour, in the shape – it’s coming through in an unconventional way.”

Cezanne’s portraits of his wife Hortense Fiquet – who unlike her husband came from a modest background and lacked advanced education – are especially confounding.

Often unflattering, the pictures show her with an angled oval face, her hair pulled back and parted down the middle. She never |smiles.

Some are more sympathetic, such as “Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair” (circa 1877), but that was painted before their marriage or shortly thereafter.

She is shown seated on a plush red throne of a chair contrasting with a golden green and blue wallpaper pattern.

In one work from the series “Madame Cezanne in a Red Dress” (1888-1890), she sits undisturbed in a blue room, her yellow chair and the wall tilting chaotically behind her. Co-curator John Elderfield does not, however, see Cezanne’s renderings of his wife as commentary on a possible lack of affection in a couple that largely lived apart.

“If [art dealer Ambroise] Vollard is to be believed, Cezanne did more than 100 sittings for his portrait. She has about 30 portraits, so that’s 3,000 hours. Wouldn’t you be a bit fed up sitting there?

“I think that, even though facially it seems she’s expressionless, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about her.” But Morton doesn’t hesitate to factor in the quality of the relationship, or at least what’s known of it.

“There’s a really tough time after they’re married. I think there’s tension and melancholy, and you get that in a lot of these. I don’t think he had an easy time with people.”

The show continues through July 1 in Washington, the last stop on a tour that took in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and London’s National Portrait Gallery.

FROM MURALS made famous by Instagram to painting battles, Hong Kong’s once largely underground street art scene has exploded in recent years, and is now blossoming across the city’s walls and alleyways.

The commercial high end of the art world is at the fore in March, with gallerists, collectors and celebrities descending on Hong Kong for the annual Art Basel fair.

But English mural artist Dan Kitchener, drawn to the city’s unique geography and energy, made his third visit to Hong Kong this month to depict atmospheric urban scenes with spray paint in its narrow and steep streets.

British artist Dan Kitchener stands on bamboo scaffolding as he spray paints a mural in the Central district of Hong Kong. /AFP

“Hong Kong’s got that feel to me – the epic scale and the skyscrapers, and then it’s got these little tiny alleyways,” Kitchener said while balancing on bamboo scaffolding as he painted on the outside wall of a city bar.

Trained for many years in watercolour and acrylic painting, 43-year-old Kitchener is particularly fond of portraying neon lights, reflections and rain – sights that first captivated him in Tokyo.

He had just finished a detailed mural of a street market in the bustling Wan Chai district, before moving on to paint outside a watering hole in downtown Central.

Just opposite the bar is a mural by graffiti artist Alex Croft said to be the city’s most photographed wall, featuring rows of old townhouses on a bright blue background.

Hong Kong lacks a world-class art museum and marquee exhibitions rarely make a stop in the southern Chinese city, where it can be difficult to secure permission for public shows.

But street art has enjoyed a boost from growing demand in Asia and an increasing number of exhibitions in recent years, giving it a higher profile and more commercial spin in the city.

In 2015 a mosaic of 1970s American cartoon character Hong Kong Phooey by French artist Invader sold at auction in Hong Kong for HK$2 million (Bt7.95 million).

The popular piece of street art had been destroyed by the city’s authorities, infuriating residents, and was later recreated for sale.

ONE OF the ever-increasing number of art venues to provide space for the performing arts, Buffalo Bridge Gallery launched its new function last November during the Bangkok Theatre Festival and continued last month with Shoko Tanikawa’s “4 Seasons”. Now it’s playing host to For What Theatre and Sudvisai Club’s “Three Days in May 2018”, or “Phleng ni pho khoei rong” in Thai, which translates as “This song Dad used to sing”.

The year in the title aptly suggests that this is a revival, and a slightly updated version, of the play that premiered at the now-defunct Crescent Moon Space at the Pridi Banomyong Institute three years ago with the same cast members.

Veteran thespians Parnrut Kritchanchai and Jaturachai Srichanwanpen carry the whole 85-minute play on their shoulders effortlessly and naturally. /Photo Wichaya Artamat 

Finding the gallery proved difficult at first as I had assumed it was hidden among the newly developed row of bars and restaurants in the Saphan Khwai area. In fact, the gallery occupies the top two floors of a nearby shophouse on the main road, a stone’s throw from the Saphan Khwai intersection, which was home to Makhampom Studio, one of Bangkok’s first shophouses turned theatre studios. The gallery is roomier than the entrance, only one-unit, and the reception area, where rolls of Chinese offering paper were strewn on the floor, is separated from the performance area by black curtains.

Once these were drawn, we walked to a small kitchen area and past the two characters by the windows to our seats and the first impression for many, if not all, was that, with few yet keenly selected props and deft lighting design, it really looked like a home. Credit here goes to the set and lighting designers, Ben Busara and Chettapat Kueankaeo respectively.

The acting style of the actors –seasoned thespians Parnrut Kritchanchai and Jaturachai Srichanwanpen –was also naturalistic. With the ambient noise sneaking in from the busy street through a half-open window, it was difficult to hear them at first, but once we adjusted, we were able to hear all the words quite clearly, as if we were eavesdropping on their conversation. For those who think that theatre has to be larger than life, “Three Days in May 2018” is proof to the contrary.

Photo/ Wichaya Artamat 

In three acts and set on a day in May in three different years, the physical actions of these two sibling characters were few, save for their engaging, and often hilarious, conversation, cooking and paying respect to their dearly missed father, whose photo was always visible in the scene, on the day he died. Smartly using specific references, the audience always knew which year they were referring to. For example, in the first act the actor brother was performing in a play at Pridi Banomyong Institute. In the second, he said, sarcastically, that it was being “renovated”, as we know that the institute no longer supports theatre troupes and Crescent Moon Space and B-Floor Room are now history. In the last, the pair talked about the election and the fact that Toon Bodyslam was now running in Siberia for Thai charities.

The two characters even made fun of the script itself. The gallery is on almost the same level as the Skytrain tracks and the audience could frequently see and hear the trains passing by. However, the first act took place around 4am and the brother had not gone to bed. “Is the Skytrain still running at this hour?,” the sister asked.

The projected final credits showed that the play was co-written by Parnrut, Jaturachai and their director Wichaya Artamat, and this is another example of brilliant playwriting, the theory of which may not be taught in theatre schools. For example, turning point, climax and character development could not be found here. Plus, we knew very little about the father apart from the fact that he used to smoke, although that might not be the reason he died, and, of course, the songs he used to sing.

Photo/ Wichaya Artamat 

It’s life as it is and the artists wanted to share that with their audience. In the end it was their thoughts about the here and now, no matter how relevant to the plot, and ours that were more important.

The press release notes that the play is performed in Thai with English surtitles, although on opening night last Thursday these were not projected on the wall, perhaps in consideration of the fact that the all Thai audience didn’t need them. This probably allowed the two veteran thespians to ad lib, responding to such unforeseen circumstances as the blistering sound of sirens from emergency vehicles outside.

I missed the original production of this play and my fellow critics lauded it so highly that I made sure I didn’t miss it this time.

And neither should you.

DON’T WAIT UNTIL MAY

“Three Days in May” continues tonight and Thursday until April 9 at Buffalo Bridge Gallery, on Phahonyothin Road, between Government Savings Bank headquarters and the Saphan Khwai intersection (a five-minute walk from BTS Saphan Khwai station, Exit 2).

It’s in Thai with English surtitles. Tickets are Bt420 (Bt360 for artists) at (092) 236 4654.

Find out more at Facebook.com/TheatreForWhat.

SOME OF THE figures seem to be concentrating on yoga poses. One is standing on its head, another lies down with its upper back and legs lifted, its “core” apparently hard at work.

Antony Gormley’s new creations, a series entitled “Rooting the Synapse” unveiled in Hong Kong this week, are as always modelled on his own form – but this time with jagged limbs branching out like plants, spindly and skeletal.

Britain’s best-known modern sculptor, Gormley has spent his career exploring the human body’s relationship to space, with his “Angel of the North”, a steel, winged behemoth installed on a hill in northeastern England in 1998, catapulting him to fame.

British sculptor Antony Gormley stands next to his 2017 sculpture “Signal” as he speaks about his exhibition “Rooting the Synapse” at the White Cube gallery in Hong Kong. /AFP

His shadowy human figures loomed from the top of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers between 2015 and 2016 as part of his “Event Horizon” show, causing curiosity and consternation in the streets below, where some feared they were people about to jump to their deaths.

Gormley, 67, insists his figures contain no narratives and are not trying to tell a story, but exist to stir up feelings in viewers.

“Your body is actually the most highly sensitive instrument that you have in order to experience the world,” he says.

Many have seen or even inspected up close the cast iron and fibreglass versions of his body that he has sculpted over the years.

In person, he is tall and serene, his eyes alert as he chooses his words deliberately.

While Gormley has in the past displayed his figures on beaches and in vast salt lakes as well as across dense cities, his latest sculptures are debuting within the stark white walls of Hong Kong’s White Cube gallery, inviting viewers to feel for a moment removed from the urban frenzy outside.

The twig-like bodies are sculpted from iron and partly draw on the patterns of ancient civilisations, such as the spiralling, angular motifs that the Greeks used in architecture and pottery.

But they are also reminiscent of electrical circuits – Gormley compares them with TV aerials, or “receivers of the signals of contemporary reality”.

A security guard next to “Stem”, 2016, centre, and “Feel”, 2016, left, by British sculptor Antony Gormley /AFP

Observing that people spend more and more time surrounded by screens and are taken to gyms to exercise “like they’re a dog”, Gormley says his latest works are supposed to look “familiar and unfamiliar at the same time” as they combine elements from both the natural and digital worlds.

“In a way I’m saying this is the human being now,” he explains.

Gormley says he wishes to depart from a tradition of sculptors who pursued beauty and ideals.

“I’m interested in making a plea for the life that exists independent of the accidents of appearance,” he says.

Movement is more evident in his latest series – some of the new figures appear relaxed, or are caught in a moment of imbalance.

One is bent over sharply, allowing its torso to droop under its natural weight. Another seems to be in free fall, its limbs splaying.

Gormley says these figures are “more open and more free” than his previous sculptures, which sought to connect with people through their silence and stillness.

The southern Chinese city provides a vibrant setting for his show, he adds, casting the exhibition as a response to the heavily designed and dense urban environment.

Decades into his life as an artist and devoted to a single theme, he describes his work as a stem, constantly budding with new possibilities.

While in Shanghai, where he had an exhibition last year, he found inspiration in watching people do tai chi in the morning – a relatively slow and gentle exercise – where they were not necessarily working but “just getting their bodies back into a kind of balance”.

He tries to achieve something similar in art.

“My work is my meditation,” Gormley says.

 With Art Basel ending today, the Thais are offering attendees much more to look forward to.

Apinan Poshyananda, artistic director of the Bt150-million Bangkok International Art Biennale kicking off in October, was in Hong Kong to unveil the full roster of 75 artists from 33 countries who will be participating.

They include Marina Abramovic, Yayoi Kasama, Huang Yong Ping, Yoshitomo Nara and Fiona Hall, and pieces by two deceased artists, American Jean-Michel Basquiat and Thai Montien Boonma, will be displayed.

Professor Dr Apinan said the theme of the debut Bangkok event continuing into February 2019 would be “Beyond Bliss”, and 40 foreign artists and 35 Thais would create new works accordingly.

“We live in a state of fear, protest and delusion,” he said, “and we have invited these artists to comment on this lack of bliss. Bliss is a temporary and ephemeral experience, and our artists will seek to interpret different variants and intensities.”

Apinan said Huang Yong Ping would create new works at Wat Pho, and Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset would construct a giant swimming pool in front of the East Asiatic Building.

Kusama will be presenting luminous pumpkins and Heri Dono will release flying angels over the Chao Phraya River. Nara will set a bronze sculpture in Lumpini Park and Choi Jeong Hwa will have a massive plastic installation at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

Wat Arun will host a video installation by Sakarin Krub-On and a “sacred enclosure” designed by Sanitas Praditassnee.

Elsewhere at Art Basel, Gridthiya Gaweewong – the only Thai curator on the team preparing for the 12th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea – revealed her plans for that event running from September 7 to November 11.

Its theme is “Imagined Borders” and there will be seven separate exhibitions assembled by 11 curators.

Dr Gridtiya, who is artistic director of the Jim Thompson Art Centre in Bangkok, will present a show exploring beliefs that have emerged from border conflicts and the patterns of mass migration within Southeast Asia and beyond since the colonial era.

Five of the 20 artists she’s selected for her show are Thai – Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sutthirat Supaparinya, I-na Phuyuthanon, Nipan Oranniwesna and Piyarat Piyapongwiwat.

“I’m interested in my generation’s time period, those of us who grew up during the Cold War, at the beginning of globalisation,” she said. “It was a turning point in history, dividing the world into the free world and the communist world, and this was the socio-political context that shaped our generation.

“It’s interesting to see Thailand engaged in global politics because of its strategic position in Southeast Asia. It created radical shifts in the country at many levels. We lived in the shadow of Cold War politics, which was full of violence and untold stories. Many artists from the region have begun unearthing these stories and I find their work extremely invigorating.”

Asian collectors in general seem keen on Thai contemporary art. It was given the spotlight at Singapore Art Stage in January and there was a lot of chatter about it at Art Basel.

“The market for Thai art is growing fast,” said Lorenzo Rudolf, who directs Art Stage in Singapore and Jakarta. “Moreover, the infrastructure of Thailand’s art scene is also growing, with new private museums, more seriously managed art galleries opening, private companies investing and art advisory organisations appearing.”

Four globally renowned Thais are among the 5,000-plus artists from around the world represented at Art Basel – established conceptual artists Rirkrit Tiravanija, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook and Pinaree Sanpitak and fast-emerging talent Korakrit Arunanondchai – all under the auspices of overseas galleries.

Korakrit, represented by London’s Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery, has been drawing crowds with “History in a room filled with people with funny names 4 (with stage for extinction) 2018”, his latest film in an ongoing series. Arty.net listed his corner of the fair one of top 10 booths to visit.

The Bangkok International Art Biennale is one of three major art events coming up that are expected to garner global attention. The Bangkok Biennial is taking place from July to September and the Thailand Biennale will be in Krabi from November to February.

Apinan believes his event, the biggest of the bunch, will be “exciting and attractive” thanks to support from many sectors. “Bangkok is an exhilarating hub of Asia, and art is only part of it,” he said.

“Our intention is not to parachute in foreign artists to make superficial socio-political comments for the sake of sensationalism, but rather to allow them to contemplate and work at specific sites.

“Of course the Thai artists will have artistic messages reflecting on the current state of socio-political stagnation and unpredictability in Thailand. This is one of the steps to overcoming obstacles and reaching ‘bliss’. We all have our ways and solutions to find the stairway to heaven.”

Gridthiya’s efforts to engage with the regional and global art worlds will also broaden the horizons for Thai art.

“As far as Thai contemporary art’s place on the world map, we are there, with as much presence as the East Asian and South Asian art for sure.”

IT SEEMS ironic that Vasan Sitthiket has never held a large-scale exhibition at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre after all the effort he put into lobbying the government to build the nation’s first international-standard art centre for more than a decade.

One of Thailand’s most outspoken artists, Vasan, 61, had to wait for another 10 years to portray the darker side of society through his sarcastic, satirical and often obscene works. It’s the first of a series of BACC exhibitions devoted to artists in their mid-life after a roll call of exhibitions by masters Chalood Nimsamer, Ithipol Thangchalok and Pratuang Emcharoen.

Continuing until May 27, his retrospective “I Am You” is one of the most controversial shows the art centre has ever held. The artist 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.

Vasan poses in the front of canvas banners he invited people to paint 15 years ago when he was lobbing the government to build the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

“I normally use my self-portrait because I’m also a victim. Nudity in my work signifies that everyone is equal. Being stark naked means no one knows who holds what position. The sexual positions symbolises greed and the wickedness of power while rape is the most violent action that we can inflict on another,” says Vasan, who is one of the country’s most active and socially engaged artists.

Adulaya Hoontrakul, a co-curator, adds that “I Am You” revisits the phrase Vasan used in his 1993 exhibition in which he put his own face on images of the bodies of victims of crime to point out that we all share the responsibility for what happens in our world.

The exhibition tracks his works from 1975 to the present and includes more than 100 works, 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.

The artist always uses his self-portrait to signify that he too is a victim of social ills.

“It’s a record of my commentary on political and social situations in different periods. As I look back over what I have created during the past four decades, I find that nothing has changed for the better. We’re still caught in a loop of the same problems. The country is either run by greedy capitalists or the military and the people just think about how to get by day by day and try their luck with the lottery. Intellectuals have no room to speak or have opted to keep quiet during the past decade,” he says.

One wall is covered with his contributions to the campaign 15 years ago when he invited people to draw or write messages on 4,000 canvases to fight against the then Bangkok governor Samak Sundaravej’s plan to turn the land on which BACC stands into a mall and a car park.

The straw in his “I Love Thai Culture” work symbolises poor farmers and his recent series “Preta” compares greedy capitalists and powermad authorities as hungry ghosts.

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 compares greedy capitalists and power-mad authorities as hungry ghosts due to their support for constructing dams and coal-fired power plants. Bold colour and simple lines are used to portrayed the horror of modern sins that can only be redeemed in hell.

“I prefer to speak directly and concisely, so my works express my feelings very directly. You love or hate it,” he continues. “Though there’s very little hope of creating a better society, I can’t accept the dark and mad powers and will wait to see how these people will crumble.”

Vasan Sitthiket manipulates a puppet in a satirical take on the tycoon who alleged killed a black leopard in a wildlife sanctuary. /Courtesy of Chatip Suwanthong

Vasan has conveyed his thoughts in several mediums – performance, video, poetry, music and political campaigns among them – and for the last 10 years has turned to shadow puppetry to get his critical comments across.

His leather puppets are designed to symbolise headline makers and corrupt politicians at different periods of time. During the show opening last week, Vasan set up his small puppet theatre and manipulated his newest puppet figures – a black leopard, tycoon Premchai Karnasuta and deputy prime minister General Prawit Wongsuwan.

Narrated in a hilarious conversation with plenty of improvisation, he mocked Premchai for the much-publicised killing of a black leopard found at his campsite in a wildlife sanctuary, and Prawit regarding his alleged possession of multiple luxury watches.

The promotional posters for his Artist Party set up for the 2005 general election.

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.

His party came with the slogan “for no ruler” – a putdown of Thai Rak Thai Party’s populist “for the people” – and publicised its policy, which included seizing the assets of corrupt politicians and self-government.

“Death for Democracy” depicts the Black May uprising against military dictatorship in 1992.

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.

In 1992, in the wake of the Black May uprising against military dictatorship, he painted “Lord Buddha visiting Thailand”, juxtaposing an image of the Buddha with scenes of massacre and rape and earning him condemnation from many Buddhist institutions.

“We Come from the Same Way”, 2001

To remind people that we all come from the womb, his 2001 series “We Come from the Same Way” portrays artists, philosophers, leaders and activists such as his personal influences Van Gogh and Chitr Bumisak, and a work showing him emerging from the vagina.

Vasan has adopted Facebook as another platform for activism by posting his comments, short poems and paintings on his wall. Some of his commentary on social media appears in this exhibition.

“It’s a new and effective tool to communicate with the public,” he says. “I’m interested in the graffiti of a black leopard’s head accompanied by the symbol of a mute button on a wall on Sukhumvit Road that was mysterious removed. It stirred people to express their grief and anger on social network platforms. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram users have written about the issue using both prose and poetry, and graffiti of the big cat has been reproduced in many public areas around the country.”

A campaign calling for the prosecution of the tycoon Premchai over his alleged killing of a black leopard has thus expanded into essays, poems, paintings and street art.

“It shows the power of the social networks,” Vasan continues. “This might wake people up to fight against injustice.”

HEAR VASAN AS HE GROWLS

“I Am You” continues until May 27 at the main gallery on the eighth floor of Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

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 6630-8 or visit http://www.Bacc.or.th.