Well, its been a while, but its good to be back...writing on thai-blogs. My little brother has been going back to Thailand every summer since he was 7, and that was over 20 years ago. Family members and close friends of the family always remarked on how "Thai" he was. He controlled his emotions, and never got mad. It is said that it is un-civilized if you do not have the cognitive powers to control your emotions. No one ever understood that he just had a good heart, except me and my parents.

The kid has loved Thailand more than anyone else I know. Seems like he has always loved going and hanging with my cousins, playing sports and games. At first it was simple things, like playing cards with my cousins, our aunt and her friends. Then tennis during the day, or golf. Which all led to a life in pursuit of enjoying your life. Cliche', I know. However, looking at my family, its the truth over there.

When my parents were here in the great midwest. There were not many family members in the US of A. However, those that were here, all worked hard and many hours. I know that the same things exists in Thailand as well. However, it was very different from our views here and there. My parents worked at times from 8AM till 2Am, 6 days a week. Sometimes 7 days. Never really getting any vacations. Possibly a golf game on Sundays. Thai function at the local temple. Not really enjoying life, though providing for their growing family. Getting their pleasures when there was time. By the way, they are now back in Thailand.

Now growing up and glimpsing at a diffent life each summer can effect you. Watching your cousins enjoy life...seeing your aunts and uncles come home at reasonable hours...hell, watching family get together more often. Not just one or two cousins either, I mean a family. Several generations...Americans call them second and third cousins...the Thai call family or cousin..if not older brother or sister. Well, its a wonderful life and Jimmy Stewart never saw it.

I guess thats what has attracted many of us to Thailand. A different life, one where you have time to really enjoy it, where it seems that no one takes things tooooo seriosly. Its a good life. Last time I was there, my wife and I were ready to take the plunge after being hooked to our desks, blackberry between meetings, and looking at our respective computers in our virtual office while at home. All the time having our cell phones ring about that next always upcoming meeting.

Now don't get me wrong. My cousin leaves at 6:00AM or earlier to avoid the traffic that Bangkok has, and doesn't get home till 7PM cause the same thing. She is usually working at home to boot. However, she has also scuba dived on vacation, has a "summer home" and does fun things that are more exciting than spending a day grabbing coffee at the local Starbucks and looking for a good book at the Barnes and Noble down the street. Its a much more luxurious life.

So my brother has bought a nice home, and is moving to Thailand. God bless him.

(I've posted this on my personal site earlier and think it may be beneficial to throw my thought here as well.)

My answer is, you'd be screwed---oh so screwed.

I have to admit. I'd never really put a thought onto this subject until my recent trip to Thailand. As many trips as I took, I did not see one disabled person in the public, not even *one*.

Is it possible Thailand does not have people with disabilities? Aren't we have those using a wheelchair for ambulation? Aren't we have those who are mentally challenges? Well, 100% we do. It's pretty universal, right?

But, where the heck are they?

Don't they shop at Siam Square? Aren't they do weekly grocery shopping just like everyone of us do? Don't they dine in a restaurant in Central Ladprao?

I believe they want to. But where are they?

I'm aware Thailand is trying. The country as a whole has been slowly attempting to assist those with disabilities. There are some handicap restroom as I can see. Unfortunately, when I look around, they are not even enough. Obviously, we cannot only provide only handicap-friendly restrooms if you know what I mean. We need to build more of the public-friendly environments.

We need more pedestrian safety programs promoting a safe environment (start with a side walk, maybe) for those who use adaptive devices. We needs more public assisting tools (say, automatic doors) and we need to make certain spaces bigger for whoever that may need them.

As far as I'm concern, when ones are disabled, that doesn't translate into strictly staying at their own cribs. I'm just talking about those who are physically handicap only for now, not yet ranting about those with mental challenges.

Link: http://www.blog.artthailand.net/?p=74

Wenceslaus Hollar, one of the most famous of 17th century printmakers, died in 1677. His work, while brilliant and vast, could hardly be interpreted as contemporary. Yet it is the very same Hollar who has inspired a young Thai artist, Praphan Rakarin, to produce a daring, complex, enormous, imaginative, passionate and highly original painting. The painting is called London 1, a plain name for an anything but plain piece of work.

Wenceslaus Hollar was born in Prague in 1607. Over the course of his long life he meandered across Europe, including two spells in England, both before and then after the English Civil War.

Printmaking was its peak of popularity in the 17th century and Hollar an acknowledged master. His output was prolific, more than 2,700 etchings covering a vast range of subjects.

He is perhaps mosts famous for his maps. The map to the right is one of his best works -- London in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1666.

The plain white area in the center of the map represents the area of London destroyed by the fire. Hollar convincingly conveys the enormous scale of destruction.

Here you see an excerpt of another Hollar print, detailing London both before and after the fire.The detail is exceptionally fine.

In both prints, the River Thames is used as the anchoring viewpoint.

Hollar combines an excellent eye for detail with magnificent technical skills. His work remains celebrated and very collectable.

Let's turn now to Praphan Rakarin, or Tom as he is better known.

I wrote about Tom not long ago, in "Praphan Rakarin: a monochromed Turner?"

There I discussed the different influences on Tom's work, especially that of J.W. Turner. On the right, you see one of his London series. The technical skill of the Houses of Parliament -- very Turner-esque in my opinion -- is matched by the wonderful shading and tones of the monochrome spectrum.

The detail of the Parliament has certain echoes of Hollar for sure, but there is little obvious resemblance.

If you look at this Hollar print you see that his style, typical of the period, was much more architectural and precise than anything that Tom has produced.

In fact you only really capture the influence of Hollar in one of Tom's paintings, named London 1.

It is a plain title for what is an anything but plain painting.

Painted in 2005, shortly after Tom arrived in London, it is the masterpiece of the London series.

It is a vast work -- 2.5 meters wide and 1.5 meters high. It's scale is such that it almost overwhelms you.

Here it is. I first saw it in Tom's studio, where he also lives.

It is an area of Bangkok known by local residents as Ghost City. It consists of numberless residential towers, abandoned and left empty in the aftermath of the 1998 Asian economic crisis.

Slowly people are beginning to move back there but the name Ghost City is apt. It is an eerie, rather soulless place. The quiet is disturbing amidst the normal Bangkok background of noise, pollution and chaos.

I walked into Tom's appartment to be confronted with canvas upon canvas, stacked anywhere and everywhere. Reaching the living area was like scaling a mountain peak.

In the kitchen there was no food at all, just water, coffee, wine, beer and bottle upon bottle of whisky, each opened, some empty, some half full. Ashtrays are everywhere, overflowing with cigarette butts.

Sit anywhere and you are likely to find black ink on your clothes. In many ways it is a typical artist's studio!

I wandered into the bedroom which is surprisingly neat. There was just one painting there, London 1, hung in the center of the wall, the first thing he sees when he wakes each day.

I looked at it, issued an expletive and just stared and stared and stared.

You know, even without knowing, that this is the work that Tom is most proud of and you can feel the love and emotion that has gone into it.

It was when Tom began to show me books of Hollar's work that I understand the genesis of the painting, which is the set of maps that I showed at the beginning of this post.

Incredibly, he has gone back to Hollar's and reinterpreted them into the modern day London skyline.

You have Battersea Power Station at the far left, all the way past London Bridge, to the "new" St. Paul's of Christopher Wren, the Post Office Tower and Canary Wharf at the far right.

As with Hollar, the anchorpoint is the river, though Tom's perspective is more interesting. As with Hollar you find incredible detail all over the painting.

It is an almost unbelievable piece of work. I can think of nothing else like it, other than Hollar. The monochromatic effect is magnificent. You just know that it would not work in color.

The shades and tones capture the mood of the city and the immensity of the river. London Bridge as a centerpoint provides an unusual but very effective perspective.

As I look at it I imagine the artist walking the streets of London, often in the rain, mainly in the gray, always in the cold. I imagine him sitting on the South Bank gazing across the river, his eyes tracing the arc from Battersea to Canary Wharf.

I see him studying in the libraries and galleries of the city, sketching manically day-after-day, conceiving the idea, planning the work and then slowly beginning to put it all together.

I see him working in his tiny London bedsit, paints and inks everwhere, the canvas almost the length of the wall, sleeping almost never, just painting, painting, painting.

It is, of course, a summary of all the 26 pictures of the London series but it is also much more than that. It is a testament to vision, skill, imagination, daring and idiosyncracy.

It is an immense work for one so young. A photograph does it an injustice. This is a painting that has to be seen to be believed.

Link: http://www.blog.artthailand.net/?p=64

Nearly five months after his removal from power the spectre of former Prime Minister Thaksin remains, sadly, front of mind. His rather absurd attempts to portray himself as the "great democrat" to the world's media are almost as pathetic as those same media's willingness to listen to him. In welcoming a new artist, Prasart Nirandonprasert, to artThailand, we also have an opportunity to celebrate Artists for Democracy, a small but important anti-Thaksin pressure group that participated in the pro-democracy protests of 2006.

Prasart Nirandonprasert was born in 1968, in Khon Khaen, which is in the north of Thailand.

Trained initially as an architect, Prasart is today better known as a painter and sculptor.

His current medium of choice is woodcut prints. He is the first woodcut artist that we have worked with.

Most of his prints are limited editions of between two and five pieces. At an average price of 7,500 baht they represent a very cheap means of owning some interesting and beautiful Thai contemporary art.

The woodcuts are exquisitely sculpted from raw wood. Prasart then mixes a wide variety of inks to produce bold and interesting colors.

Like many Thai artists, Prasart's inspiration are drawn from Buddhism.

As he puts it himself, "The living of life is to find truth".

Personally I like Prasart's work. It's simple, technically skilled, with imaginative use of color and imagery.

However, as some of you know, I am personally drawn to art that carries political and/or social messages.

It has always interested me that some of the most powerful art and literature has thrived in times and places of adversity.

For me the most obvious example would be the Nazi Degenerate Art movement.

In 1937, Nazi officials purged German museums of works the Party considered to be degenerate. From the thousands of works removed, 650 were chosen for a special exhibit of Entartete Kunst.

The exhibit opened in Munich and then traveled to eleven other cities in Germany and Austria.

In each installation, the works were poorly hung and surrounded by graffiti and hand written labels mocking the artists and their creations.

Many of the artists included in the Entartete Kunst exhibition are now considered masters of the twentieth century. They include Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Edvard Munch, Paul Klee, Ernst Kirchner and Emil Nolde.

Now Thailand is not the Germany of the 1930s but we have been through several years of political struggle, a struggle that will likely continue for some time yet.

What interests me most about Prasart is the role he played in the Artists for Democracy movement of 2006 and the anti-Thaksin woodcuts he produced at that time.

In the print above, Thaksin's face lies in the background. He "Betrayed his mother land....".

To the right is Thaksinipatri or, literally, "Thaksin is democracy". As Prasart puts it, Thaksin installed his own people into all key positions and removed anyone who disagreed with him.

Artists for Democracy was a small collective of Thai artists that participated in the anti-Thaksin protests of 2006. Prasat himself went to many of the protests and, together with his colleagues, produced a number of prints in criticism of the then Prime Minister.

The name "Artists for Democracy" is interesting in itself. If you read recent editions of The Economist or Time you get the impression that Thaksin, a "great democrat", was removed from power by an anti-democratic military dictatorship.

Yes, Thaksin and his party were democratically elected but his abuse of power and of the 1997 constitution are comparable to the actions of President Chavez of Venuezela. Democratically elected maybe, but no democrat for sure.

The title of this print is Poo Nam Pee 2548 or "Leader of the year, 2005". In Prasart's words, "he is a god and no one can touch him".

Artists for Democracy reminds us that the struggles of 2006 were about Mr. Thaksin, not about democracy. They remind us that whetever the future for Thailand, it needs to be a democratic future, but a democracy that is real rather than a sham.

Prasart's political activism and his expression of that activism in his prints is fascinating to me. His work becomes almost cartoon-like, in the tradition of some of the very best political cartoonists.

Link: http://www.blog.artthailand.net/?p=63

One of the benefits of having people work for me is that I can send them to many exhibitions, while I concentrate on the important stuff, like cropping artwork in Photoshop. Yesterday, my colleagues Boum and Jib, went to Number 1 Gallery to see Retrospective, by Alongkorn Lauwatthana.

Alongkorn was born in 1964 in Thailand.

Educated at Silpakorn University, he has exhibited widely in Thailand, as well as in countries such as Korea, Denmark and India.

The title of the exhibition, Retrospective, gives me a slight sensation of a Greatest Hits album by the Rolling Stones.

It's a reasonable conclusion as the work on show ranges from 1980 to 2007.

The painting on the left was started in 1995 but completed only this year and it is somewhat emblematic of the development of Alongkorn's style.

I think it would be fair to say that he has always painted vivid, Buddhist influenced imagery, but the style has changed considerably over the years.

This work comes from 1996 and is representative of work the artist was creating in the middle to late 1990s.

The medium is acrylic and gold leaf on canvas and I quite like it.

I am not known as a big fan of Buddhist related art but Alongkorn is very skilled at it.

I like the fact that he is willing to experiment and test the edges of his art.

I like that he is not constrained by the Buddhist influence, using it as inspiration rather than limitation.

I also like way his style has developed over the years, though my favorite period would be the work he created between 1998 and 2001.

Retropsective runs until March 1, 2007 at Number 1 Gallery in Silom. It's worth a visit.

You can find more details at the gallery website, Number 1.

You can also find more pictures from the exhibition on the artThailand website, at Retrospective.

Link: http://www.blog.artthailand.net/?p=62

Monday of this week we shipped off to Silpakorn University to see a new solo exhibition by Tintin Couper. Clearly I don't know Tintin's work well because somehow we ended up at a completely different exhibition, the Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grants 2006. For those who don't know, Silpa Bhirasri is the Thai name of Corrado Feroci, the Italian born father of Thai modern art. With respect, I hope he is spinning in his grave about the "crap" on show.

Don't ask how we ended up in the wrong place! The Tintin invitation looked interesting and I was quite enthusiastic about covering it.

But I guess we were on autopilot when we arrived at Silpakorn. It had already been a long day.

There are five galleries there and somehow we just wandered into the wrong place!

What we saw made me feel depressed and honestly questioning whether there is any point to promoting Thai contemporary art.

Let's cover a few basics first.

Corrado Feroci was an Italian sculptor, invited to Thailand by Rama VI in 1923 to teach modern sculpture.

He remained in Thailand for the rest of his life, founded Silpakorn University and is regarded as the leading influence on Thai modern and contemporary art.

He died in 1962 but continues to be revered by the Thai art establishment.

The Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grants were first awarded in 2001. The grants are given to between five and seven artists, "who have superior and different capacities in continuous artwork creation".

The quote is from the forward to the 2006 grants directory. The forward goes on to say that "the main purpose of this fund is to sincerely encourage all artists having more self-confidence in an art creation....".

Well great. I love the fact that money is being channelled into creative art. Sorry, what I really mean is that I love the principle of money being channelled into creative art.

The problem is that the grants mostly appear to be given to art that has almost nothing to do with creativity. Yet again we see a huge bias against genuinely innovative contemporary art and towards contemporary renditions of traditional Buddhist and peasant culture.

Let's deal with a few disclaimers before making any more negative comments.

First, I have ranted on this subject before, notably in Young Artists Awards. Any comments I make are mine and mine alone.

Second, I do accept that many Thai people like and admire traditional Buddhist and peasant art, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Third, as I made clear in Is Censorship Right? my real argument is less with Thai artists, more with the Thai political and cultural elites.

So what is my argument?

Awards and grants are a very important source of funding for working artists. Thailand invests relatively little in cultural arts, so any sponsorship has got to be good.

The problem, as I see it, is that these "competitions" are judged by the established elites. There is nothing inherently wrong in this, except that those elites tend to be very partisan towards traditional media and styles, basically meaning painting, sculpture and Buddhist/peasant themes.

There are thousands of hugely creative and talented contemporary Thai artists doing some wonderful work. Some of that work is Buddhist and/or peasant related. Most of it is not. How depressing it must be for the majority of artists to see almost all funding going to "traditional contemporary art" (that phrase might be a self-contradiction).

I also note that the average age of the 2006 grantees is almost 40 and that they are all male. Are there really no women and no young artists below the age of 30 deserving of funding?

One could argue that it is the responsibility of artists themselves, together with gallery owners, to do more to promote Thai contemporary art, and I would not disagree.

However, it is not easy to promote anything when you have almost no support within the establishment and where the very art schools that should be working to promote innovation remain largely reliant on the skills and philosophy of a man who has been dead for over 40 years.

It's interesting to make a comparison with contemporary art from the Philippines, much of which is also rooted in religion (mostly Catholic of course) and peasantry. Somehow, Filipino artists manage to create much fresher work than the majority of their Thai contemporaries.

My suspicion is that, were he alive today, Silpa Bharisri would be looking at contemporary art from all over the world and concluding that the Thai arts system remains captured in the 1950s and in urgent need of an overhaul.

I don't deny that my commentary is harsh, maybe even unfair. There is plenty of very high quality work based on Thai traditional culture.

I happen to find it not especially interesting, that is my bias and many will not agree.

Yet I look at some of the younger talent in this country, struggling to make enough money to eat, and I sometimes despair.

There is a very talented artist that I know who works out of the JJ Market. His work sells for about 10,000 baht a piece. He paints about five new works a week, all based around the same theme.

Two years ago, this theme was interesting. 500 or so paintings later it's getting a little tired, but as he says himself, he has almost no time to think and to create new ideas. He needs to sell and eat.

The issue is not just one of funding, though a better funded Thai cultural arts program would be welcomed by most.

The issue is mostly about attitude.

With the elites determined to preserve Thai traditional culture almost to the exclusion of contemporary art it is extremely difficult for emerging talent to get the recognition needed to establish reputations and sell work.

Thailand, today, is almost absent from the contemporary art world map. "Who cares?" you might say. I do, for one, and many others too.

In "Losing my way...." on Monday night I was reminded once again how hard a battle we fight to promote what is genuinely a wonderful variety of highly talented Thai contemporary artists.

Link: http://www.blog.artthailand.net/?p=61

Zen-erQi is the unusual title of a new exhibition by Danish artist, Marianne Hvass Kure, that opened on February 2nd at Hof Art in Bangkok. The exhibition features oil and mixed media works from the last year, merging East and West perceptions of art and life.

Marianne Hvass Kure works beside the sea in Pha La, a small fishing village near Sattahip.

She creates mainly abstract art, inspired by nature, people and the essential themes of life and death.

Zen-erQi reflects on the synergies between East and West.

The artist has been influenced by modern Eastern methods of "ink and wash", together with traditional Chinese brush painting and calligraphy.

This has enabled her to experiment with Western abstract techniques, using the blue and metal colors of her Scandinavian background, in combination with the simplicity of Eastern artwork.

While synergy might be the correct technical term for the fusion of Eastern and Western art, the artist preferred to use a more spiritual and philosophical word.

Zen-erQi sounds like synergy but it has greater meaning too.

Zen is a fundamental facet of Buddhism. Qi, pronounced Chi in English, is the energy flowing through everything in Taoist and classical Chinese thought.

For more pictures from the exhibition, click on Zen-erQi.

Marianne Hvass Kure can be contacted at marianne@hvasskure.dk.

Her website is www.hvasskure.dk. The site is worth a look.

There is a particularly interesting series called "Cross Culture Icons".

HoF is also host to a second exhibition, Land Art: from the Golden Triangle to the great river Khong, by Pin Sasao.

The artist spent more than six months travelling between Thailand and Laos along the Khong River.

His medium is photographic but the style is very unusual and somewhat compelling. This is much more than taking pictures. Khun Pin creates interesting imagery to express his landscapes.

I would love to talk more about Pin Sasao. Unfortunately, all the literature I have about him is in Thai and my reading of Thai is limited.

All I can really say is that he is young, has a beard and appears to have made his trip by bicycle!

It is also very difficult to take photographs of photographs, so I don't have much of his work to show but you can find some examples at Land Art.

HoF has a good reputation for encouraging photographic art and usually runs a photo exhibition together with more traditional media.

For those who live in Bangkok and have time, I recommend a visit to HoF, which stands for "Highly Optimistic & Friendly Art". They can be found close to the Ratchada MRT, next to a 7/11 store. The building alone is worth investigation.

Hof's website is www.hof-art.net. Unfortunately, the site is currently available in the Thai language only.

Photos by Suttida Kanchanapiphat