Co - existing Cultural Management

The role of the art institution in society at large dates back to the 1950s when modern art was introduced to the Thai academic system by the Italian sculpture, Corrado Ferroci. Artistic practice developed slowly without an infrastructure since neither the government nor the private sectors helped set it up. There were few art schools, museums or arts’ organizations to serve as a body to support and promote the art awareness in society. Due to the lack of infrastructure set up by the public sector to endorse and promote contemporary art practice in Thailand, it will explore the strategy which artists approach in order to survive in such circumstances. In comparison to our time, the situation remains the same, but the way the younger generation serves their problems are quite different from their seniors. To create a new paradigm to work around the ‘no   and   or - low’ budget situation, here we talk about public organizations with its mission to provide financial support to the arts and culture, as well as the spaces to accommodate major contemporary arts’ exhibitions such as museums, per se. The role of arts organizations in association with the market during the economic growth will be investigated. The rise and fall of commercial galleries during the bubble economy (early 1990s   mid 1990s) and the emergence of alternative paradigms such as the initiation of non profit art spaces and artists’ initiative projects will also be addressed in the following.

If we talk about the modem art in Thai history compared with that of your country, India, it’s quite short. But if we speak about the history of contemporary art, it’s even shorter. Compared to a human life span, we are just teenagers. It started in the late 1980s when the first generation of conceptual artists in Thailand returned home from abroad. Chumpon Apisuk was part of that generation as well as Apinan Poshayananda from Scotland, Kamol Phaosavasdi from USA, Araya Rasjamroensook from Germany and the late Montien Boonma from Paris. They were the first group of artists who worked off the wall and started to raise the questions for traditional ways of art appreciation in Thai modern art history,

The most important institution that helped stimulate such movement was Bhirasri institute of Modem Art (BIMA). Founded in 1973   1988, BIMA had a strong mission to establish an art gallery for the display of Thai art, to support the art and artists from Thailand, to promote the interchange of art between Thailand and other countries, to established a centre where art lovers can meet and exchange ideas, to preserve and protect works of art in Thailand and to support other non political art related projects. Previously the notion of the art in Thailand was quite isolated from society at large. From the mission statement of BIMA, we can see that they did not want to deal with politically related art, even though they were relatively open in the midst of the angst and the strong wind of student uprising movement against the military government in Thailand, the anti Japanese product and the American base in Thailand during Vietnam War in the mid 1970s. During these decades, few art organizations existed, as they were neither public nor private funds for the same. However, some artists’ groups didn’t really work with art institutions because their agenda was beyond the white cube, therefore, they joined the political movement and created politically oriented works, working closely with the students unions. They united with the movement by working in a manner of performance and poster arts. Some artists groups such as UGGABAT led by a profound painter, Vasant Sittikate and Concrete House, led by Chumpon Apisuk still work in this manner.

It seemed that since the 1970s, there were two poles in the art realm, between the mainstream, white cube art oriented, and the politically oriented works which focused more on communicating socio political messages to the general public and to society at large.

During the 1980s, people started to gain better access to the arts given the new economic status created by the newly found status of Thailand as an NICS, (Newly Industrialized Countries). It was the rise of the ‘bubble’ economy and the consequent rise of middle class.

The early 1990s was a golden age for the painters and object-oriented artists. The new patrons of the arts were now the new ‘yuppies’, a shift from the royal family, aristocracy and the bureaucrats. But the good times did not last long. In late 1996, the country encountered a very difficult economical situation, resulting from the excessive borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

I found this period as the most important one for Thai contemporary art history, as it resulted in a huge change creating new paradigms in terms of art and cultural counteractive operation between the mainstream and the alternative, and the establishment versus fledging independent organizations.

Artists galleries and institutions enabled the facilitation of interesting exhibitions, which also attracted great attention from international market. When the art market went down the hill, alternative paradigms emerged. In 1996, a younger generation of artists and administrators returned to Thailand with their degrees and practices in MFA, MA in Arts Administration from Europe, America and Australia, with a totally different and new perspective and approach in terms of curating and organization from the previous generation. The starting point of non-profit spaces like Project 304, About Cafe, About Studio and Tadu Contemporary Art Space made a strong impact on Bangkok contemporary art scene. With their firm mission to create public access to contemporary art they started to break the traditional ways of working by collaborating with other institutions, networking with each other, as well as similar minded institutions abroad. These were the major factors that empowered such organizations to be another gateway for Thai contemporary arts within the international arena.

How to maintain the “I” among ‘them’

According to the friendly and ‘Sabai’ (easy going) nature of the Thais, the country has been quite open to foreigners since 500 hundred years ago. The Thais are good at blending and assimilating other cultures with their own. But when the influx of information and the wave of globalisation swept throughout the world, we were challenged by questions such as ‘who are we?’ ‘Where are we from?’ Are we originally from this region or not? Such issues need answers from artists and curators alike, who had a chance to ‘represent’ their own countries in the international art context. It’s the question of how we will represent ourselves to the ‘others’. Artists from our region encountered complicated problems as we have one foot attached to the past while simultaneously the other foot tries to walk forward. In Thailand, artists do not deny or ignore such distinctions; they are still trying to figure out how to overcome such dilemmas. This is quite a major issue that constantly defies us both artists and art administration alike   to deal with the co existence of cultures: the old and the new.

Exotica Problem

It seems like the public sectors have had an answer to this question already. In order to deal with globalisation, as a nation, the government responded to such issues defensively: by returning directly to the tradition, as if it was an absolute antibiotic, which can instantly protect the nation from the contemporary germ. There are several reasons for the public sector’s ‘use of such notion/ images to grasp the attention of the international media and audience. It was an easy way out for them to play with the preconceived notion of such audience. Among the intellectuals, leading social critics and thinkers responded to such issues by returning to our origins and acclaiming indigenous knowledge. For the arts community, conceptual artists worked with the Buddhist theory, used local material and created installations based on original contexts. Some of them took ‘excerpts’ of our everyday life, and represented them in aesthetic contexts in foreign countries. No matter how hard they tied to avoid a notion of exoticism, Thai artists continue to struggle in the transcendence of this idea.

I would like to discuss our current situation of Thai contemporary art in association with the international and local context. How has Thailand had an especially active exchange with western art paradigms? How have Thai artists manage the co-existence of their traditional and contemporary culture both conceptually and practically?

Viewing the works of Late Montien Boonma and his contemporaries, with reference to the original context and foundation of their works, one can examine though these examples how they incorporated traditional and local elements into their contemporary art practice.

The most interesting questions for both artists and curators alike today is how to deal with different audiences from different contexts. How are we going to create spaces fro various kinds of audiences from different backgrounds to access and experience our works? Are the works that we are going to present, and/or represent universal enough to share such kind of ‘universal language’ to audiences? If you were working in a very individualistic manner, how would it be accessible to the other people? This is the questing that I always asked Montien, when he flew around the globe. It seemed like he was able to go beyond that kind of stupid remark that I made because his works were spiritual that they touched all audiences alike. Even though his works are based on his own personal experience that we, as human beings can share.

Some artists work with the reinterpretation of the local ideas. eg. proverbs and sayings, contextualising them in contemporary ways of living. An example of such kind of work would be, for example Kamol Phaoavasdi. Working with the concept of dilemma, ‘Nee Sua Pa jorake’, or ‘escaping the tiger and facing the crocodile’ is a Thai saying which Kamol translated quite straight- forwardly in his installation at Project 304. He collaborated with a fortune-teller and let the audience visit her, in case they needed an emotional consultant. His works dealt with how Asian people in general deal with their problems and frustrations in their lives.

Many young artists in Thailand work with this approach. Instead of creating the objects, they provide the process, or fragment of everyday experience in their own life or surroundings for an International audience. For example, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Navin Rawanchaikul, and Surasi Kusolwong. The work by all three of them blurs art with the  context of everyday living, exploring this concept in their unique ways.

Rirkrit is interested in sharing the Thai culture and offered food (Phad Thai) at the American and European museums to the audience. A performance in itself, he left the ‘scene’ as an ‘installation’. Navin Rawanchaikul works with the Tuk Tuk and Taxi projects on the streets of Bangkok, Vienna, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Sydney, and New York to name a few. His interest is in bring­ing the art into the public space, creating interventions with the audience, whether they will realize its art or not.

Surasi Kusolwong explores various kinds of traditional cultural experiences: he works with masseuses, creating a market and so on. He started his ‘free for all’ project with the group of UGGABAT, who have worked with a deserted area in Bangkok to do a one-night guerilla art event The project was developed further in the exhibition ‘cities on the move’ and travelled around the world.

Two younger generations of Thai artists who work mainly with media, video and film are Michael Shaowanasai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Both of them have played with the idea of representation of Thai culture in the International mainstream contexts. Michael works with gay issues in rela­tionship to the tourist industry in Thailand. It was portrayed in his video project, Iron pussy which he directed and a played a double lead role in the work. Michael’s satirical works questioned the commodity of exoticism, which was imposed by the Tourism national agency in attempting to survive the economic crisis of the 90s.

To invent an alternative approach to mainstream film industry, Apichatpong Weerasethakul found his personal cinematic language to present his works to the national and international audience. Starting from the architectural and experimental film making, he investigated the influence of the media in everyday life in the rural area of Thailand. In contrast, his ‘anti-star’ oriented works led him to use ordinary people as lead actors in these films. This also served as a counterpoint for rural people to have a chance to play in his film, which was for the more urban and international audiences. This process could be a good illustration of how local artists had been quite actively involved in the international art world. It’s a game: part of a role-play.

GRIDTHIYA GAWEEWONG

Gridthiya Gaweewong is a freelance curator based in Chiangmai and Bangkok ,Thailand