Bangkok: Bangkok Art Biennale 4th edition – Nurture Gaia
A cartography of Bangkok and its parallel manifestations, BAB and its seventy-six artists strove not only to showcase its breadth of artistic creativity and engagement, but also to paint a complex portrait of its home city as a melting pot for the old and new, the local and the foreign.
Priyageetha Dia, Spectre System, 2024. Single-channel video, color, sound. 15_00 min. Edition of 3+1 AP. Commissioned by Han Nefkens Foundation, Barcelona; Mesh_ Prelude to Spectre System, 2024 Vinyl print, 315 x 1Lisa Reihana, Groundloop, 2022. Single channel digital video with stereo sound. 22_00 min. Courtesy of the artist and Bangkok Art Biennale. Photo by Arina Matvee.Choi Jeong Hwa, Breathing, 2018-2024. Waterproof fabric and motor. Dimensions variable. Image courtesy Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC).Thavika Savangwongsakul, It’s all about ME ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡), 2024. Site-specific Installation. Dimensions Variable. Photo by Arina Matvee.
Yet fantasy is not all about subversion. In Bangkok, a renowned entertainment land for tourists, fantasy can also be kitsch—without its usual negative, lowbrow connotations in the West. Most Bangkokians embrace kitsch, or at least view it as a part of daily life, proliferating through Buddhist amulets, Thai pop idol figurines, and Gundam sculpture at traffic roundabouts.
Pim Sudhikam, A Conversation With a Potter, 2024. Installation of pots made with local clay from Bangkok, hand built, pit fired, unfired and 3D-printed. Installation view at One Bangkok. Photo by Arina Matvee.Agnes Arellano, Inanna, 2024. Polychromed coldcast marble, 8-pointed star. 221 x 143 x 27 cm. Photo by Preecha Pattaraumpornchai.Agnes Arellano, Inanna, 2024. Polychromed coldcast marble, 8-pointed star. 221 x 143 x 27 cm. Photo by Preecha Pattaraumpornchai.Busui Ajaw, Amamata, 2024. Installation with acrylic paintings and Akha textiles. Variable dimension, painting. 200 x 200 cm each. Image courtesy of Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC)Som Supaparinya, The Rivers They Don’t See, 2024. Photo by Preecha Pattaraumpornchai.
Not only rooted in mythologies, the feminine drive of BAB also found its expression through the figure of the daring flaneuse, who walks streets that are often hostile toward women while delivering commentaries about the world.
Jessica Segall, (un)common Intimacy, 2018. 4K video loop, 08_00 min. Photo by Seni ChunhachaBagus Pandega and Kei Imazu, Artificial Green by Nature Green 4.0 (detail), 2024, water-based paint on linen canvas, modular synthesizer, LED screen, PC, palm oil. Installation view, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). Photo: Hung Duong.Dusadee Huntrakul, A Verse for Nights, 2024. Site-specific installation Variable. Installation view at National Museum. Photo by Preecha PattaraumpornchaiElmgreen & Dragset, Still Life, 2024. Bronze, lacquer, animatronic taxidermy bird. 7 x 14 x 23 cm. Photo by Arina Matvee
Underneath all of Bangkok’s characteristics lies the core of its dynamism: It is a city of foreigners, dating back to the Kingdom of Siam’s multicultural traditions, where different groups of migrants—Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, Burmese, and eventually European—were granted permission to build their communities in newfound land. Yet, amid the cumbersome discourse of Thai ethnonationalism, this culturally diverse fabric became disrupted by enforced cultural assimilation (read: Thaification) beginning in the twentieth century. The “foreigners” thus became ghosts that sleep in this Thai household’s basement, and yet their bones never ceased to rattle!