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Manit
Sriwanichpoom
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This exhibition
is offered as part of Momenta Art's guest curator program. It will present
contemporary work by four Thai artists: Manit Sriwanichpoom, Sutee Kunavichayanont,
Prapon Joe Kumjim, and Satoru Chayavichitsilp. Momenta Art expects this
exhibition to bring increased attention to this important generation of
Thai artists within the New York and American art worlds.
Curator Michael Cohen writes: "This exhibition was inspired by my
visit to the Jim Thompson house in Bangkok, Thailand. Thompson was a famed
trader and probable CIA agent who disappeared without a trace in the Malaysian
jungle during the late 60's. On remarking about Thompson's unusual career
trajectory to two Thai artists they replied, that, for them, disappearances,
political or
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otherwise, were part of the experiential fabric of living in Thailand.
This created a key to understanding the obsession with disappearance and
memory I found in the work of the most interesting Thai artists."
The broad
range of work, utilizing everything from traditional Thai iconography
to pop culture references, introduces to us an exciting dialogue among
Thai artists; three from Bangkok, one working in New York. The curator's
focus on the theme of disappearance in these four Thai artists makes that
dialogue coherent and purposeful.
Manit Sriwanichpoom's photographs farcically document repressed political
dramas from Bangkok's turbulent history and the vanishing of Thai monuments,
transforming them into codified tourist dioramas under the ambivalent
gaze of the artist's "pink man" character. Sutee Kunavichayanont's
interactive, sculptural installation focuses on critically reclaiming
lost pieces of Thai culture and re-examining religious tropes, as viewers
are asked to help re-inflate a full-sized, prostrate white elephant. Prapon
Joe Kumjim's video travelogue and Thai cooking lesson interweave records
of cultural erosion with the artist's attempts to recreate the destroyed
documents of his own past. Finally, U.S. based artist Satoru Chayavichitsilp
presents several "spirit houses" - traditional Thai shelters
for displaced spirits created for a home or business in order to insure
its prosperity. However, Chayavichitsilp's altars house images of death
and haunting from heavy metal album covers, rather than the traditional
flowers and figurines.
Manit
Sriwanichpoom's work has been exhibited widely, including in the Thai
Pavilion for the 2003 Venice Biennale; at the Museum Kuppersmuhle Sammlung
Grothe, Duisburg, Germany; at PhotoEspana, Madrid; and with Ethan Cohen
Fine Art, NY. His work was also included in Phiadon's recent book of 100
contemporary photographers, Blink.
Sutee Kunavichayanont
is currently on faculty at Silpakorn University, Bangkok. His work has
been exhibited widely, including at Musashino Art University, Tokyo, Japan;
Optica, Montreal, Canada; and at Art in General, NY. He has been awarded
the Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grant and The Friendship Programme for the
21st Century, Japan.
Prapon Joe Kumjim's work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including
EV+A 2002, Limerick, Ireland; La Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, Italy; The
Bangkok Experimental Film Festival. He was the Artist in residence at
The Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, London in 1995. He currently teaches
at both Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok and at Bangkok University.
Satoru Chayavichitsilp
is a graduate of New York University. His work has been exhibited at Void,
NY; Plaid, NYC, and Mickey’Os Blue Room, NY; among other venues.
Guest Curator Michael Cohen has been a senior correspondent at Flash Art
Magazine for over ten years. He recently curated the American section
of the Media_City 2002 Biennial in Seoul, South Korea.
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