Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
als and painters - rallied against the military dictatorship and embraced certain as-
pects of communism and workers' rights. Sompote Upa-In and Chang Saetang are
two important artists from that period.
An anti-authority attitude continues today. Manit Sriwanichpoom is best known for
his Pink Man on Tour series, in which he depicted artist Sompong Thawee in a pink
suit and with a pink shopping cart amid Thailand's most iconic attractions, suggest-
ing that Thailand's culture and natural spaces were for sale. He's since followed up
this series with other socially evocative photographs poking fun at ideas of patriot-
ism and nationalism.
Finding a Home for Art
In this hierarchical society, artistic innovation is often stifled by the older generation
that holds prestige and power. In the 1990s there was a push to move art out of the
dead zones of the museums and into the public spaces beyond the reach of the cul-
tural authoritarians. An artist and art organiser, Navin Rawanchaikul, started his 'in-
the-streets' collaborations in his home town of Chiang Mai and then moved his big
ideas to Bangkok, where he filled the city's taxi cabs with art installations, a show
that literally went on the road. His other works have had a way with words, such as
the mixed-media piece
We Are the Children of Rice (Wine)
in 2002 and his rage
against the commercialisation of museums in his epic painting entitled
Super (M)art
Bangkok Survivors
(2004), which depicts famous artists, curators and decision-
makers in a crowded Paolo Veronese setting. The piece was inspired by the
struggles the Thai art community had in getting the new contemporary Bangkok art
museum to open without it becoming a shopping mall in disguise.
Pop Fun
True to the Thai nature, some art is just fun. The works of Thaweesak Srithongdee
are pure pop. He paints flamboyantly cartoonish human figures woven with ele-
ments of traditional Thai handicrafts or imagery. In a similar vein, Jirapat Tasana-
somboon depicts traditional Thai figures in comic-book-style fights or in sensual
embraces with Western icons. In
Hanuman is Upset!
the monkey king chews up the
geometric lines of Mondrian's famous gridlike painting.
Sculpture
Although lacking in commercial attention, Thai sculpture is often considered to be
the strongest of the contemporary arts: not surprising considering the country's rela-
tionship with Buddha figures. Moving into nonreligious arenas, Khien Yimsiri is the
