Thai Art: Currencies of the Contemporary

Teh, David; Veal, Clare

doi:10.1355/sj33-3j

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…While these various organisational models certainly influence the potential role of biennials, at the same time the specific characteristics of the societies within which they are organised are crucial for their form, role, and effects as well. We will therefore first discuss the characteristics of the Thai art system, and the context within which this functions (see also Teh, 2017Teh, , 2018van Meeteren & Wissink, 2019, 2020.…”

Section: Contemporary Art In Thailandmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Wissink

Meeteren²

2022

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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.

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Section: Contemporary Art In Thailandmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Wissink

Meeteren²

2022

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“…In contemporary Thai art, Teh suggests that theme of animistic haunting is likewise articulated to a peculiar frame that is simultaneously nationalistic and pan-Asian, a contradiction that positions animism as a 'driver of the creative economy' intended to generate global interest in contemporary Thai art-a global interest that both relies on and effaces historical and local specificity. 35 These geographic framings additionally efface specific distinctions at play within Thailand. The 'traditionalism' of spirits is often associated with Northern Thailand (or Lanna) and Thailand's northeast (or Isaan), both of which were, historically, distinct from (and at times independent of and in conflict with) Siam, the region surrounding Bangkok that has come to define modern Thailand.…”

Section: 'Please Don't Call Me Uncanny'mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Do You Really Want to Live Forever?’: Animism, Death, and the Trouble of Digital Images

Bollmer¹,

Guinness²

2018

CSR

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This essay examines two works of video art to think through the apparent ‘immortality’ of recorded data and digital images, along with the use of ‘animism’ as a framework to describe the ‘liveliness’ of objects in recent cultural theory. In discussing Cécile B. Evans’ Hyperlinks or it Didn’t Happen (2014) and Korakrit Arunanondchai’s Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names 3 (2016), we highlight how framings of death and digital images are not uniform, and are often articulated to other cultural beliefs. Yet these beliefs cannot be temporally or spatially opposed in any rigid fashion (as ‘modern’ or ‘premodern’, ‘Western’ or ‘Eastern’), in spite of attempts to suggest a ‘return’ to animism to theorise the agency of objects is an embrace of premodern, non-Western epistemologies and ontologies. The ‘troubled images’ we discuss here should be thought through a sense of ‘trouble’ derived from Donna Haraway: as stirring up, or making cloudy. We aim to further complicate and ‘trouble’ the ethical imperatives of animism (in the work of those like Haraway) given the role of digital media in sustaining or putting into practice the animisms of our present. In doing this, we also advance an ontological argument about data and its relationality, suggesting that data be theorised through tropes of metonymy and synecdoche.

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“…The forthcoming Asia-Pacific Triennale will feature Chabet's installation Waves (plywood, 1972). 63 Teh, 2017.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual Slippages: Reading between the Lines of the Roberto Chabet Archive

Bentcheva¹

2019

Southeast of Now

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This paper takes the recently established archive of Philippine conceptual artist Roberto Chabet (1937-2013) as a starting point for discussing how the histories of performance art and conceptualism in Southeast Asia have come to be mapped via archive building. Compiled by artist Ringo Bunoan after Chabet's passing away, the archive drew largely on the private collections of his former collaborators, friends and colleagues who donated the bulk of the materials in the collection. These include photographs capturing the artist at work, off-guard and in the midst of creative experimentation, as well as correspondence, itineraries and publicity materials. With the ongoing emergence of new materials, the archive continues to grow and shed light on Chabet's expansive career as an artist, teacher and curator. Yet, I would argue that there is an urgent need to look beyond the archive's ability to chart the artist's social relations-an oft-discussed feature of Chabet's legacy. Instead, recognising that the archive also exposes the slippages of definitions and media inherent in Chabet's conceptual practice feeds into the larger aim of discerning the unique features of conceptual and performance-based activities in the Philippines since the Second World War.

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Thai Art: Currencies of the Contemporary

Cited by 9 publications

References 2 publications

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

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

‘Do You Really Want to Live Forever?’: Animism, Death, and the Trouble of Digital Images

Conceptual Slippages: Reading between the Lines of the Roberto Chabet Archive

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