Art Organisers as Commoners: On the Sustainability and Counter‐Hegemonic Potential of the Bangkok Biennial

Abstract

As part of a remarkable wave of perennial contemporary art events in Thailand, the Bangkok Biennial was organised for the first time in 2018. Without central curation or funding, the organisational strategy of this artist‐led, open‐access event was strikingly different from the state‐organised Thailand Biennale and the corporate Bangkok Art Biennale that were inaugurated several months later. Through the eyes of the literature on “commoning” as a third way of organising next to the state and market, we explore the “common spaces” that the Bangkok Biennial has produced. Reflecting on arguments articulated in the introduction to this thematic issue, as well as on Chantal Mouffe’s analysis of the detrimental nature of an “exodus strategy” for counter‐hegemonic action, we focus on the connections—if any—of the Bangkok Biennial with the state and corporations. Specifically, we address the following research questions: What are the characteristics of the Bangkok Biennial as a common art event? Which connections with the state and market have its organisers developed? And what are the consequences of this strategy for its sustainability and counter‐hegemonic potential? We conclude that the organisers have consciously resisted developing relationships with the state and market, and argue that this “exodus strategy” is a necessity in Thailand’s socio‐political setting. And while this strategy might endanger the sustainability of this biennial as an art event, we argue that at the same time it supports an infrastructure for counter‐hegemonic action inside and—possibly more importantly—outside art.

The Rise of the Common City

“…PART 3 Sutthavong et al, 2021), the collective instead aims to redirect contemporary art practices towards counter-hegemonic resistance. Following the first chapter to this book as well as a companion piece to this chapter elsewhere (Wissink & Van Meeteren, 2022), we suggest that the literature on the common(s) provides a useful lens for an analysis of these politics of contemporary art in Thailand.…”

“…Starting from these observations, here we reflect on the counter-hegemonic potential of contemporary art practices in Thailand. These practices have developed in the context of a decades-long hegemonic struggle, that has resulted in repeated, often-bloody, street protests and recurrent coup d'états (Chotpradit, 2017;Van Meeteren & Wissink, 2020;Wissink & Van Meeteren, 2022). At the core of this hegemonic struggle are radically opposing views of the Thai nation (Chachavalpongpun, 2014;Ferrara, 2015;Montesano et al, 2012).…”

“…This has coincided with the emergence of a new generation of contemporary art visitors, for whom consumerist imaginations of the 'good life' are aspirational. In view of the embeddedness of these three strands of contemporary art production and presentation in the state, society and the corporate world respectively, we have suggested elsewhere that the literature on the common and its opposition to both state and 137 artists as organisers: cultural commoning and hegemony in thailand corporations is highly relevant for an analysis of the contemporary art field in Thailand (Wissink & Van Meeteren, 2022). After all, while the 'art of the state' aims to appropriate art as a means to educate citizens and teach the 'right' culture in line with hegemonic views of Thailand's existing power relations, the 'post-political' art of corporations aims to appropriate art for commercial gain.…”

“…Meanwhile, selforganised art initiatives seem to align with the idea of cultural commoning, as a sphere of social organisation distinct from both state and market. We have for instance analysed the Bangkok Biennial as an example of a commoning practice that deliberately took position against the usual top-down organisational model of the Thai contemporary art world, thus adding a patchwork of common art spaces as pockets of resistance to Bangkok's cultural landscape (see Wissink & Van Meeteren, 2022).…”

“…At the same time, McKee adds that in view of the constraints within the formal art system, it is questionable if these practices will have a counter-hegemonic effect. Instead, counterhegemonic agency is more likely to be located elsewhere: on the one hand, in the independent common art spaces, like those created by the Bangkok Biennial, which have contributed to a wider infrastructure of counter-hegemonic action (Wissink & Van Meeteren, 2022); and on the other hand, in the actions of practitioners with art competencies in social practices and social movements outside the art field. Stressing that autonomy has been an obstacle for art's potential to have consequences beyond the aesthetic realm, it's not surprising therefore that Wright (2013) observes that practitioners are leaving what he calls 'the sandbox of art': "Turning away from pursuing art's aesthetic function, many practitioners are redefining their engagements with art, less in terms of authorship than as users of artistic competence, insisting that art foster more robust use values and gain more bite in the real" (Wright, 2013: 1).…”