Dear friends and colleagues
Before Christmas I went, as you know, to the first Bangkok Biennale, curated by Apinan Poshyananda. Advance publicity suggested the theme of the exhibition was “happiness”. How nice I thought, a biennale that for once had a simple theme that we could understand, but that raised interesting and important questions: how do we assess happiness? How do we achieve it? Is it always a good thing? But in the catalogue preface Poshyananada expressed it thus: “what is happiness and bliss? And how can one maintain, prolong or overcome desire beyond it?” That is both much more complex and implicitly very Buddhist – bliss being a term akin to nirvana, desire as something that binds one to the material world. And then I looked at the cover of the catalogue and the main catalogue essay I found the actual title of the biennale was “Beyond Bliss.” This, alas, is more like the semantic tangle we all too often presented with as a biennale title or theme.[1]
Well, anyway, like everyone else I put this to one side and went to look at the art. Because I was so busy with other projects, I gave myself only two days to see everything, which was not quite enough, the biennale being dispersed across 20 different sites – and for other reasons I shall explain later. On the first day I planned to see the main site BACC, (Bangkok Art and Culture Centre) and the four nearby shopping centres in which art was also installed.
BACC is a rather disappointing mish-mash of a building with six floors mainly devoted to shops and the two above to galleries. All floors cluster round an atrium. 29 artists or groups were here – more than a third in the biennale.
An artist from Myanmar, Nge Lay who often produces interesting work, had made a giant gateway from longyis – the fabric most Burmans use instead of trousers or skirts. In the shape of a giant vagina (a word not used in the catalogue) it was accompanied by a video where young women talk about how this is celebratory, not dirty. This is, as she noted, where we all enter the world so people were invited to pass through the gate. Incidentally, using the word “Burmans” is incorrect, as she used longyis associated with all the eight main ethnic groups of Myanmar. A nice political statement.
Another piece, equally witty if not so provocative, was A parade for the paraders by the young Singaporean artist Kray Chen. Singapore is one of the few countries in the world with universal male conscription. When I lived in Singapore I wanted to curate a show called “The best years of my life” where artists talked about their days in the army, but sadly, I never got around to it. Chen had seven ex-soldiers who had been bandsmen to parade playing through an old school that was due for demolition. It was wistful, but somehow typifies the ambivalent attitude to the state that most Singaporeans have; free, but not entirely; controlled, but not very. A three-video installation, it was irritating difficult to hear the music because of all the noise flowing up the atrium.
The work by Chumpon Apisuk I have dreams was maybe not the greatest work of art, but the most touching. In a room with seedy lights, lush seats and shiny poles was shown a video where he asked Bangkok prostitutes what their dream was: unfailingly polite, they almost invariably talked about making a house for their parents or their family, or starting a shop for them. “Every day I come to work for my family’s happiness, to be happy,” one said.
The uppermost floor was given over to Marina Abramovich’s Institute. Which meant eight artists doing grueling and repetitive things for a long period. Staring at candles, playing hopscotch with neon tubes, or in the case of Lin Hyet from Myanmar standing surrounded by barbed wire whilst meditating and trying to send out “positive psychic energy to all the immigrants of the global south. Including the Rohingya, who are currently in confinement.”. All eight had finished performing by the time I arrived, but the installations they had persevered in were still there and adjacent to each of them a large video screen was set up showing what they did. It is such an obvious idea to so extend the performance element of an exhibition, but so rarely done.
And then off to the shops! Which, as you know, were filled with Christmas trees, and other seasonal gewgaws. It was actually rather difficult to locate the art amidst such a cacophony of festive and promotional noise. Eventually, an epidemic of red spots led me to a Kusama display or exhibition. It looked like a stand for upmarket perfumes in an international airport. When the art looks so like advertising you do start to wonder whether some of the adverts and decorations are not art.
Could, I wondered, that cluster of snowmen and Father Christmas be by Murakami?
It wasn’t.
And when one finally got to Kusama’s piece de resistance, a whole atrium filled with giant pumpkins and giant video screens of floating pumpkins, one’s first thought was “Wow!” and one’s second was whether this was advertising Armani. I couldn’t help wondering how much Ms. Kusama had to do with this and how much it was just another manifestation of brand Kusama knocked together by team Kusama. Artists like Basquiat and Warhol, like Michelangelo and Van Gogh, have had vast commercial afterlives; Kusama’s afterlife seems have started while she was still alive.
All through four malls I had been searching for the work of the Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa. It was listed as being in several places. Eventually I realized that his work was so like glittering Christmas decoration I was not spotting it!
It was enough for one day, especially one that had involved an early morning flight out of Manila! Next Tuesday I will tell you what I saw on my second day – when I travelled on boats to and from pagodas. And the week after that I want to say something about biennales spreading into shopping malls. It is rarely done, yet if you want to reach a wider audience in cities like Singapore and Manila it is there you must go. How to do it without being drowned or emasculated by the shop display?
For now, have a great week
Tony
- The catalogue was 184 pages long but compact enough to fit in a shoulder bag. It cost a mere 100 Baht. I wish all biennale catalogues were this cheap and compact! You can also download it for free at www.bkkartbiennale.com ↑