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Organized
by Chiang Mai University Art Museum, Thailand.
Despite the regalia involved in having an unprecedented retrospective exhibition at the Chiang Mai University Art Museum this September, Kamin Lertchaiprasert (b. 1964) and Rirkrit Tiravanija (b. 1961) will share works that slip through institutional cracks with ideas that can be interpreted on a simple level: They draw attention to and raise questions about the daily experience of doing (only partially, if not at all, related to Art), as well as the personal and cultural exchange inherent in the notions of audience and community. Of course, more nuanced arguments for their works can be gleaned, but we’ll leave that for you, the participant, to tease out when you come and experience their works here in the northern hub of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai University Art Museum presents Nothing: A Retrospective Exhibition by Kamin Lertchaiprasert and Rirkrit Tiravanija which will echo through the two gallery floors of the cavernous museum from September 10-30th, 2004, with a singular opening event at 6pm on September 10th. Kamin Lertchaiprasert was born in Lopburi, Thailand in 1964, graduated from Silpakorn University, Bangkok in 1987, and is now based in Chiang Mai. His prolific works, which grapple with Buddhism, personal growth, and social realities, have been well received regionally and internationally.
Rirkrit Tiravanija is an internationally acclaimed Thai artist, born in 1961 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The mobility of his early years as the child of Thai diplomats has since come to characterize his adult life, as he divides his time between studios in New York, Berlin, and Bangkok. In his twenties, Rirkrit attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Independent Studies Program, New York. He is currently a professor of art at Columbia University in New York. He is known for his generous works, which invite people to interact, not only with his installations, but, also, with each other. The artists’ works will be organized in reverse chronological order, starting from the decade of the 1990s and working back to the 1980s. Kamin will exhibit two-dimensional mixed media works (i.e. Normal and Nature, 1997) and sculptures, executed through a serial process. His use of traditional mediums is subordinate to a conceptual, self-revelatory process of engaging social space, with himself as the central reference. In contrast to Kamin’s more introspective process, Rirkrit plunges into the social sphere with “ready-made” installations that seduce people beyond their mere viewing pleasure and operate beyond himself as a celebrated persona (move over, Warhol). For this exhibition sampling, Rirkrit will feed you (Pad Thai, 1999, 2004 copy), he’ll shelter you (Untitled (tomorrow can shut up and go away), 1999, 2004 copy edition), he’ll even rock you (Untitled (D), 1995, 2004 copy). The retrospective will explore certain links between the two artists’ oeuvres. It will discuss their Buddhist sensibilities. For example, how does the ephemeral permeate their work? The exhibition will also focus on the artists’ approach to collaboration, social consciousness, and the everyday. To what extent have the artists’ engaged their audience? What is their definition of the “everyday”? In what social contexts have they produced their works? Rirkrit is internationally known for his relational situations in gallery spaces. Kamin has provided the young art community in Chiang Mai an alternative space for discussion, activities, and exhibitions. In tune with the artists’ support of local community, the exhibition will showcase paintings by young local artists that share their views about “the land”, an experimental, agrarian space founded by the two artists a short distance from Chiang Mai. By initiating this exhibition, the Chiang Mai University Art Museum hopes to build a greater awareness of contemporary art in the Northern region of Thailand. The show will informatively introduce the local audience to critical concepts linked to a wider international dialogue. It is a firm step in the museum’s engagement with contemporary art as a tool for building social consciousness and community. RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA Rirkrit Tiravanija is a Thai artist based in New York, Berlin, Bangkok and Chiang Mai. He is a groundbreaking artist who integrates his Thai heritage, culture and Buddhist philosophy into his work. Focusing on everyday life, his work blurs the line between art and life by serving as a platform for social dialogue and social activities within the community, bridging the gap between art institutions and the public. He changes the traditional role of the viewer, as the viewers’ participation becomes a major element of the work. Rirkrit Tiravanija was born in 1961 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He grew up in Ethiopia and Bangkok. Rirkrit attended the BFA program in Banff Center School of Fine Arts, Canada, furthered his studies in an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and simultaneously joined the Whitney Independent Studies program in New York. Besides the influence of Rirkrit’s Western art education on his works, the years spent in the kitchen of his grandmother’s Bangkok restaurant were also crucial in his development as an artist. Early in his career, he started incorporating food in his work, first showing an installation of cooking utensils and dish ingredients at a New York art gallery in 1989. He later developed this idea by literally cooking and serving Thai food to gallery and museum visitors for free, shocking Western audiences. His work broke the rules of Western art practice. (First of all, audiences are not allowed to bring food or drinks into museums and galleries. Second, audiences are not allowed to touch the works.) It became a starting point for his site-specific, audience-participatory installations. He began to extend the social dimension of his work in pieces such as Untitled (D) at the 1995 Whitney Biennial, a music room set up for the audience to play musical instruments. Travel, transience, and mobility play an important role in his work. Due to his father’s position as a diplomat, Rirkrit’s family had to move around often in his childhood. A good example of his nomadism can be found in Mai Me Chue (non/redu fon), 1991/2004. Mats and pillows are casually placed on the floor of the exhibition space, suggesting temporary residence. His belief in everyday aesthetics, communication and community led him to construct his important work, shown here as Mai Me Chue (Proongni Ja Yood Pood and Jak Pai, Proongni ja grai pen kae wan nueng tau nan), 1997/2004, a replica of his New York apartment in which audiences can come and experience the space together, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
In 1997, Rirkrit returned to Bangkok to work with local artists in Navin Rawanchaikul’s Taxi Gallery Project. In Untitled (traffic), Rirkrit screened a video by Jim Jarmush. In 1998, he collaborated with Kamin Lertchaiprasert to initiate “the land” right outside of Chiang Mai, inviting his artist friends from abroad such as Tobias Rehberger (Frankfurt), Philippe Parreno (Paris), and SUPERFLEX (Copenhagen) to also join the dialogue. He founded an office in Bangkok and started producing the publication (o)VER since 1999. Rirkrit has had solo exhibitions in major art galleries and institutions, including Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, Secession, Vienna, Portikus, Frankfurt, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Kunsthalle, Basel. His has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including the 1993 Venice Biennale, the 1995 Kwangju Biennial, and the 2001 Istanbul Biennial. In the 2003 Venice Biennale, he curated Utopia Station with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Molly Nesbit. Currently, Rirkrit teaches at Columbia University and splits his time between New York, Berlin, and Bangkok. KAMIN LERTCHAIPRASERT “I
believe that art is a process of learning about myself and nature” Apart from working as a prominent artist in Thai contemporary art scene, Kamin Lertchaiprasert also plays an important role as a key figure in contemporary art in Northern region. He initiated Umong Sibbhadhamma to serve as an intersection of art, life and dhamma. It became a multi functional space for art exhibitions focusing on young artists, social activities, meditation and discussion. Later in 1998, he co-founded ‘the land’ with Rirkrit Tiravanija, an international renown Thai artist whom he met during his stay in New York. Currenlty, it became the land foundation with its mission,“ dedicated to be cultivated as an open space, though with creation intentions towards community, towards discussions and towards experimentation in other fields of thoughts’. Kamin Lertchaiprasert was born in 1964 in Lopburi, Thailand. He was trained as a printmaker at the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Arts and Thai Arts, Silapakorn University, Bangkok. During his BFA program, Kamin was interested in photography, and started to working with this media since 1982.His early works were a combination of photography, drawing and etching based on his experience with the loss his mother. After finishing art school, he moved to New York and spent five years there working as a busboy and printer for New York based artists. He gradually became interested in Eastern philosophy. His interest issues of Thai identity led him to look at the Thai language which evolved into the Thai alphabet series paintings, “Kaw Ei Kaw Kai, 1991”, giving a new meaning to the Thai alphabet in contemporary contexts. During his second visit to Thailand, Kamin started working with another series of Bangkok urban landscapes in Niras Thailand, (1992) (a Thailand passage) which included snapshots of city life in black and white photography, with his shoes cast his name in Thai, Chinese and English and poem, Muang-nging Sae Lao, (1993) portraying his life in New York with his child – like, diary based paintings. Kamin returned to Bangkok and began to practice mediation and Buddhism. The Buddhist influence became evidently clear in “what’s in my mind’ 1994. When he stumbled into “U-Palamanee” the biographical book about Luang Poh Cha Supattho (a famous Buddhist monk practiced in the forest and focus on nature) in 1995, became interested in meditation and yoga. Kamin moved to Chiangmai in 1996 and taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiangmai University as a guest lecturer. His interest in Buddhism grew stronger as in Normal & Nature, 1997, Anitjang Thukkhang, Anatta, 1999, Time & Experience, 2000, The ordinary man is a Buddha. Passion is bodhi (the wisdom of enlightenment), 2001. Kamin’s works had been exhibited in major exhibitions including with Boundary Rider, Sydney Biennale, Sydney 1993; Asia Pacific Triennale, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1996; Utopia Station, Venice Biennale,2003, Venice, to name a few. Currently he lives and works in Chiangmai. About “the land” and the Painting Project (On view on the the first floor of Chiang Mai University Art Museum as part of this exhibition.) Initiated in 1998, “the land” (the more direct translation from Thai to English would be, the rice field) was the merging of ideas by local and international artists to cultivate a place of and for social engagement. It consists of two rice fields, located in proximity to the village of Sanpatong, a thirty minute drive from the center of the provincial capital Chiang Mai. Although Kamin Lertchaiprasert and Rirkrit Tiravanija initially acquired these rice fields, “the land” continues to develop without the concept of ownership and is now established as the land foundation (www.thelandfoundation.org). The land continues to be cultivated as an open, potential space, though with certain intentions towards community, towards discussions and towards experimentation in other fields of thought.
“the land” has had a significant impact on a group of young thinkers, artists and non-artists alike, some of which have their paintings on view in this retrospective. One of the young artists, Kaew (Jirasak Saengpolsith) shares his thoughts about “the land”: “Some of us think it’s real, some of us don’t, some of us think it’s art. For me, it is not just about the concept. It’s about the reality of planting the rice, tending the garden, feeding the buffalo. Above all, it’s about the relationships I’ve formed by camping there, cooking there, painting a picture and discussing it with others there. The bonds I’ve made with my friends through these activities on “the land” have made me realize the potential in myself. Kamin and Rirkrit have been an inspiration to me. But I’m most inspired by the farmer Professor Wai and his wife P’Baan for teaching me and my friends all we know about taking care of “the land” and having fun with it. I am impressed by his knowledge of farming and thank him for his kindness.” Paintings by Chiang Mai-based young artists include: Komol Kongcharoen, Sureewan Boonkum, Yuwadee Chaykit, Ratchanok Kateboonruang, Teparit Nantasakul, Kittitach Jirayuwatna, Preeda Patanamethee, Thongchai Bangkratok, Sukhum Kameesak, Pitsanee Nanthapaiboon, Witaya Sutharat, Jirapak Luemuang, Tatrothai Siripawattankul, Suripan Chaiya, Sa-ngad Ai-duang, Chaiya Pola-in, Saranya Wangsombat, Sujin Piankit, Utain Mahamit, Prajak La-or, Nanida Manee, Kato Ryu, Pattana Nuanyai, Suparerk Tarasri, Suraset Prueksavanprasut, Boonsong Rodtup, Choompol Taksapornchai, Narongrit Asokawattana, Chakree Kongkaew, Sompop Techamangkalanon, Anon Nongyao, Ekarin Orpanya, Waleerat Manojit, Sirasak Choosing, Somkiat Suriyawong, Jatuporn Kaewnim, Jirasak Sangpolsit LIST OF WORKS: Rirkrit Tiravanija None of the works here are original; the works in this exhibition are copies. Typically in a museum retrospective, each of the artist’s major works are gathered and shipped to the host institution. In this case, each piece has been translated from its original form into the version that has been made on site at the CMU Art Museum. For example, in Untitled (pad thai), which was exhibited in New York in 1990, the installation included electric woks, a variation on the traditional charcoal woks you see here. Similarly, the apartment just outside the museum is outfitted with local Thai furnishings, instead of the Western furniture found in the earlier versions which were shown in Cologne and New York. Most of the “copies” found in this retrospective include local materials that relate both more directly to the Chiang Mai community and also to Rirkrit’s own upbringing in a Thai household. Here we cannot help but consider questions of origins and originality, as the “copies” somehow become original. SECOND FLOOR 1.
Rirkrit Tiravanija This photograph was taken by Rirkrit’s father in 1968, and is an image of Rirkrit and his sister, where the artist plays with Plasticine. Rirkrit later re-photographed the image and used it as a documentation of his first sculptural experiment. (Mr. Spock is a character from the popular American TV series, Star Trek, an alien with trademark pointed ears.)
2. Rirkrit Tiravanija My
second year in undergrad school...I made a Spirit House…So
when I was making it, I was thinking what does this mean to be making
this here in the west and what would it mean to bring it back to
Thailand. It was about language and identity. All work that I have
ever made is about the position I am in the western world, which
I was trying to understand. Rirkrit’s
earliest work in our exhibition, Mai Mee Chue (kaw for kai) was
originally made in 1981 and points to Rirkrit’s use of architecture
to explore his hybrid place in the world. Rirkrit left Thailand
for college in Canada when he was 19 years old, with the vague idea
of becoming a photojournalist, although at that point his only exposure
to photography came from Life and National Geographic magazines.
His art education began in earnest in Canada and then the United
States, where his learning was framed in a Western art discourse.
His work, therefore, manifests both influences, that of Thailand,
and that of the West, and in it, Rirkrit practices a process of
“cultural retrieval” in the blurring of art and life,
allowing him to fluctuate between cultures. By placing the spirit
house in this exhibition and in the land of his origin, he is, in
a sense, paying respect to the location, according to Thai custom.
The drawing of the first letter (kaw for kai) of the Thai alphabet
as a backdrop for the house can be seen as a way of locating one’s
position through language. In his 1990 painting Kaw Aue Kaw Kai,
Kamin also depicted the Thai alphabet as a way of exploring his
identity. Writer Bruce Hainely touches on the complexity of this
in-between state, saying, “because of his Thai origins, many
have linked Tiravanija’s aesthetic to Eastern philosophies.
This may be…crucial. Yet consider for a moment, that the importance
of wandering, of chance, of duration, of openness, defies simple
national and temporal boundaries.”
3. Rirkrit Tiravanija When
a monk speaks, people contemplate what he says. Rirkrit began practicing art through photography. This early series of photographs reflects his long-standing interest in the medium. Despite his frequent travel, Rirkrit decided, early on, to stop making photographs outside of Thailand, and instead focus solely on images of the daily experiences of novice monks. Also hanging in the space is a selection of photo-based posters by Rirkrit, made in the last five years. His interest in posters arose out of their ephemeral nature and their possibility for widespread distribution. In the same room, Kamin also exhibits his photographic works, which marked a progressive departure from what was being taught in Thai art schools at the time. From the beginning, both artists were drawn to capturing the immediacy of everyday experience through photography.
4. Rirkrit Tiravanija
Time
is measured. I am interested in working beyond this measurement.
I reconsider everything and give it no time. There is no beginning
and no ending, it is just there. Sleep
is an escape from time being measured. In this installation, Rirkrit
lays down mats and pillows typically used for both private and public
gatherings in Thailand.
5. Rirkrit Tiravanija
Music
is something we can all understand. The piece was made for people
to play together or have other people play-an open-ended space.
This piece was originally produced for the Whitney Biennial in 1995. While the relationship between the people playing the guitars, and those not playing is clearly determined by the number and availability of instruments, the relationships determining who will play are not. Regardless, their activities are the most crucial element in the work. The work’s openness embraces the chance and chaos of life in real time performances as exemplified by the concerts of American composer and artist John Cage, and Fluxus events. The play in perception of the handprints on the floor and the footprints on the walls of Kamin’s piece Time and Experience frame Rirkrit’s installation in a visual rhythm. The work is titled after the D-chord, which is particularly easy to learn on the guitar, thus encouraging everyone to play. The cord charts provided give simple instruction, allowing for a continuing stream of visitors to sustain the note throughout the duration of the exhibition. FIRST FLOOR 6.
Rirkrit Tiravanija Basically
I started to make things so that people would have to use them,
which means if you want to buy something then you have to use it.
Although
Rirkrit’s later works revolve around use in an art context,
this early piece displays a conspicuous lack of function. By placing
components of the cooking activity on pedestals, the mundane objects
are given the status of precious museum artifacts. This calls to
mind Marcel Duchamp and his “readymades,” in which the
artist ascribed value not through aesthetic but conceptual criteria,
inviting the interpretation of the viewer to complete the work.
Rirkrit draws particular inspiration from Duchamp’s readymade
Fountain, evident as he removes the culinary objects from their
utilitarian context, revealing, then, something aesthetic in their
forms, and, in turn, something utilitarian in the art these forms
have come to displace. These institutional structures, Rirkrit felt, fostered only a curiousity about cultural objects, and not the conditions surrounding their use. Mai Mee Chue ( ) retrieves objects from the isolation of permanent display and returns our attention to their function in the living world.
7. Rirkrit Tiravanija
Gavin
Brown: Who had the biggest influence on you? This
became a significant factor in my development as an artist. I learned
the arts of sharing and giving…came in the form my grandmother
knew best: the preparation of food and the sharing of meals. In Thailand, the social act of partaking in a meal reinforces the familial bonds that hold together the society’s communal structure. Mai Mee Chue (pad thai) was the first work where food was cooked and consumed in the exhibition and, thus, it is perhaps here that his grandmother’s early influence on his work is most evident. Like his grandmother, cooking is for Rirkrit a way to bring people together, while he can remain in the “kitchen.” Indeed Rirkrit does not conceive of these works as “performances,” insisting that this term puts too much emphasis on his own personal participation. He prefers that it is the activity of the cooking and the eating that occupies the audience. In Rirkrit’s removed stance from the work, he is often compared to Andy Warhol, while his creation of a space where art and life are no longer oppositional, but, instead, complementary, recalls the conceptual focus of German artist Joseph Beuys. At the time of the original work’s installation in New York, the US was experiencing an economic depression; the act of giving out free food then was particularly loaded, and Rirkrit’s exploration of ideas of consumption and disparity in the market served to question the very institution of art itself. On the exhibition’s opening night, pad thai will be cooked and served freely to everyone, in keeping with the Thai custom of generosity when welcoming guests. The remnants of the meal will then be on display for the duration of the show, as traces of the passing of time and activity.
8. Rirkrit Tiravanija I
was interested in the construction of a metaphor at the base level
(formalistic) of cultural hybrids (canoe, dried oriental noodles,
water into a canoe, a boat on dry land and surrounded by water).
On another level, displacement of functions, displacement of cultures/or
multicultures. Originally conceived for the Venice Biennale in 1993, this work was inspired by the voyage of Marco Polo to Asia in 1271 and his subsequent introduction of the noodle to Italian cuisine, yielding the now characteristic Italian pasta. This is, therefore, a work about how culture travels through consumption, often yielding a hybrid version of the original. New versions often arise as much out of misunderstanding as intention. Here, water boils in a plastic canoe, while a ready supply of instant noodles await your ingestion. Consumption and hybridity are culturally charged as Mai Mee Chue (kuay tiaw rua, kor sor nung song jed nung) turns our attention to these common substances here in Thailand, plastics and noodles, this time coming into focus for us through Italy, through the art exhibition, and through the efforts of an ambitious early journey across the world.
9. Rirkrit Tiravanija
The
further you are the more you actually realize where you’re
coming from. Like Mai Mee Chue (pad thai), this work explores relationships, ephemerality, utility, and basic needs through the unremarkable act of cooking and the resulting unlikely consumption of a free meal in the space of an art exhibition. Originally conceived as a performance with two young Thai artists for an event in Turin, Italy, in this version, Rirkrit sees his own role in the event as irrelevant. When Mai Mee Chue (tom kha gai, jed sian samurai, spagetty cowboy) was originally installed in Turin, it explicitly played with Rirkrit’s position as “other,” while here in Chiang Mai his position has changed. What does it mean to serve a Thai dish to a Thai audience in a Thai art museum? How does this alter or add to the work? In this exhibition, Rirkrit gives the Thai participants the routines and necessities they already live with on a daily basis. He positions these activities in the context of an art museum space in Thailand where the concept of such an institution is still a new and developing phenomena, which lends to a flexibility in rules not found in western counterparts. Therefore, Chiang Mai University Art Museum has been a site for every day activities not conventionally placed in a fine art institution: book fairs, vegetable markets, textile stalls. In other words, Rirkrit’s installations and activities situated in this museum is less out of the ordinary here than in professionalized institutions abroad. How this exhibition’s participants will receive his work still remains to be seen. Regardless, his emphasis is in doing away with any distance that hinders the experience of life in the now. The museum is a frame for these activities that surpass the mere spectrum of art. In Thailand, this potential has just begun emerge.
10. Rirkrit Tiravanija
Brooklyn
Rail: Are you a Buddhist? I
always felt that if I was good at something it would be natural,
I never got obsessive. Now I like to do nothing which is sometimes
a lot of work. Art
has many different levels and you have to make your own level. You
have to decide where you want to be, and then just go for that.
It doesn’t have to do with anything else in the world. Just
yourself. You get there, and maybe nobody sees it, but you get there.
It is, at least as I think of it, a spiritual thing. ON MUSEUM GROUNDS 11.
Rirkrit Tiravanija
You have to live with my work, not in an object way but in a conceptual way. The
apartment is like a stage where a lot of different events can happen.
You can have a dinner party or a wedding or live there for a while.
I have no real sense of how it will work. It either works or it
works better. Gavin
Brown: Your work often seems to strive at disappearing, to escape
being named as art in the first place. Do you see any distinction
between an evening at Rirkrit’s home and one in a museum?
Ben
Butler (an art student who resided in Rirkrit’s facsimile
apartment at Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York during the summer
of 1999): Even though I don’t understand the piece, there’s
a level of comfort, like a womb. Rirkrit has referred to his activities as “parallel spaces” to describe the works’ engagement with their immediate art environment and the world beyond, and nowhere is this better exemplified than in Mai Mee Chue (proongni ja yood pood kap jak pai, proongni ja grai pen kae wan nueng tau nan). First executed in 1997 in Cologne and then two years later in New York, the apartment meets a whole set of human needs as a rent-free, working home, providing a total environment for communal engagement. From September 10th until October 15th, the apartment will be situated on museum grounds, open to the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, welcoming the community to simply use it and feel at home. LIST OF WORKS: Kamin Lertchaiprasert 1.
Kamin Lertchaiprasert Self portrait is a series that Kamin produced while he was in New York. It is about himself and his feelings of alienation within a foreign country. In the beginning, Kamin focused on the expression of emotions rather than concepts in his works.
2. Kamin Lertchaiprasert Kamin Lertchaiprasert was trained as an art student at the Faculty of Paintings, Sculpture, and Graphic Arts from Silapakorn University in Bangkok. He started his artistic career with photography, drawing, painting and etching. This series was created during his studies at Silapakorn in his third year. Even though the faculty did not offer photography courses, Kamin started to teach himself by experimenting with other techniques such as etching. He incorporated them in an interesting way by portraying his agony and alienation towards his own society. His studio, the Grand Palace, and Tha Pra Palace were the backdrops for this series. Kamin expressed the loss of his mother from an accident in his photo-etching series, rendering his guilt and agony. In the Chinese funeral, he created a fake leg to burn, as a replacement of his mother’s leg. This experience led him to use the mannequins and the body as a means to portray the notion of death and life.
3. Kamin Lertchaiprasert After
his graduation, Kamin spent five years in New York.There, he was
concerned about the issues of Thai identity. He was seeking Thai
characteristics in contemporary painting outside of traditional
patterns. He began to explore the language as one possibility. He
questioned, “How is ‘being Thai’ reflected in
art? What makes Thai culture “Thai”? Living in another
country, I realized that the main cultural value, which is within
ourselves all the time, is the ‘Thai Language”. * The
Thai alphabet became a starting point in his new series, Kaw Ei
Kaw Kai, which marked an important step in entering into a conceptual
process. He reinterpreted the Thai alphabet in the contemporary
context, minimimalizing and translating them into new meanings of
color and texture. The painting is part of this series which includes
a catalogue in a form of the text book, which is finally being distributed
in the major text book store chain Suksapan in Bangkok. The idea
was double folded, to introduce the children to a contemporary version
of the Thai alphabet, and foreigners to the Thai alphabet framed
in a contemporary art context. The other important component of
this piece was a performance Second Childhood which Kamin performed
at his opening at Visual Dharma Gallery. In the performance, he
used his foot to write the letter and cited some phrases or sentences
related to the letters he wrote. It was a spontaneous piece which
marked his move from an object oriented to a process oriented art.
The concept is more important that the object.
4. Kamin Lertchaiprasert Niras Thailand (Thailand, A Journey) is a conceptual project consisting of five series including photography, poems, drawings, footprints and a drawing to spirit. When Kamin visited Thailand after spending some time in New York, he documented his daily experience during his visit with his camera. Kamin sees himself as having a tri- cultural background, as a Thai born Chinese living in the US. He incorporated that notion in his works by crafting his name in Chinese, Thai and English in the back of his sandals. They are very apparent in this series. His black and white photography are snapshots of urban landscape. These socio–political works explore labor and under privileged lives on the streets. They are fragmented and semi-documentary in style with his sandal prints imposed on corners of the images. On the works, he then wrote poems inspired by each image and stamped his sandals on the photographs. * Live performance was coined by Kamin himself; regarding that life is a performance. And he’s a performer.
5. Kamin Lertchaiprasert When he returned to New York after his trip in Thailand, Kamin was confused about the meaning of art. He started to compare art with other disciplines and raised interesting questions. Art Series consisted of images of Albert Einstein, Pope John Paul II, Naked Girl, and himself. Einstein represented science, which he questioned in relation to creativity, “If art is creative, won’t science be more creative than art?” He also questioned Pope John Paul, who represented the spiritual world, “If art is spiritual, what about religion? Should it be more spiritual than art? The girl performing oral sex rendered the idea of the everyday. While Eastern people believe that art is part of their everyday experience, what about oral sex, it’s created out of necessity, but only for pleasure? Is it more creative than art? The fourth one is his self-portrait screaming and confused.
6. Kamin Lertchaiprasert Two decades ago, National Art Competition was considered one of the most important forums for young and mid–career artists in Thailand. Most of them waited to join this annual competition and hoped to win the ‘gold medal’ from the ‘National Competition”. Kamin sent this piece to enter the competition in attempt to mock, and critique this competition system. It was a straight forward massage to the jury, candidates, and competitors, as well as audience. This piece is a site specific work, which reflects its content and site. His satirical and humorous statements have a hidden agenda. He spoke honestly about human desire. It is also a critique of the art community’s mentality that institutions need to ‘endorse’ their artistic career.
7. Kamin Lertchaiprasert
Kamin
referred to Albert Einstein on the notion of time, “I am impressed
by a quotation from Einstein in which he wonders how we acknowledge
‘Time’ ; we perceive time through experience ; everybody
conceives ‘Time’ differently, depending on their state
of mind. This concept made me realize the value of ‘Time’
as related to my own state of mind and my experience in everyday
life”. * This is the first series of his famous one year works.
Kamin started to work everyday, one piece a day, experimenting with
painting by hand and foot. It was produced at the same time as the
Kaw Ei Kaw Kai series, while he was in New York, to prove his own
existence. This piece was also considered as his self–therapy.
Kamin displayed the series by placing them on the floors and walls.
Hand paint was laid on the floor and Foot print on the walls. Kamin
allowed people to step on the works in an attempt to change the
perception and behavior of the audience. He wanted audiences to
consider the value of the works, instead of the objects. In this
show, the pieces will serve as a ‘floor’ or ‘carpet’
for Rirkrit Tiravanija’s installation Untitled (D) which are
musical instruments set up to be played by the audience.
8. Kamin Lertchaiprasert
Inspired by Chinese yin and yang philosophy, this piece focuses on the balance of nature. The forms are comparable to amoebas and other natural forms. He considered this process, as a self–study, a nature study, and an art therapy. During the show, he went to the gallery space every day, and burned a drawing every eight minutes. In Chinese tradition, burning fake money or other materials is a means to make merit and pay respect to the spirit of the dead body. Kamin used this ritual as a means to pay respect to senior, creative people who have passed away. This piece marks an important step for him again, in terms of using ritual, culture, and then moving on to ephemerality and emptiness. It was his manifesto not to cling to the object, but to gear them towards spiritual value. He stepped forward to do more process oriented works.
9. Kamin Lertchaiprasert Also inspired by yin–yang philosophy, Kamin created a void in these works as a metaphor for emptiness by actually cutting a hole in the paper. Another hole was drawn alongside this void, to symbolize invisible natural forms like air. He’s interested in the relationship between the visible and invisible aspects of nature. The vertically oriented forms and lyrical paint strokes of his poems written in Thai is reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy. Trained as a printmaker, Kamin transformed his real life experiences into these pieces by using his sandals (crafted into three languages) as print blocks with himself as the printing machine and the ground as paper. As a live performance, he printed his sandals onto the paper and wrote a poem on the work inspired by his daily experiences each day. As part of his journey, Niras Thailand in Photography represents his physical trip through the urban landscape of Thailand, while this series Niras Thailand in Poem is an internal trip through his mindscape. 10.
Kamin Lertchaiprasert
Muang – nging Saelao was the former name given to Kamin Lertchaiprasert by his family. Changing his name into ‘Thai’ was one step to changing his identity. After finishing his Kaw Ei Kaw Kai series in New York, he began this series with a child– like, cartoon version. To search for a ‘Thai identity’ in the works of art is problematic. He considers how languages and the search for national identity lead to a nationalism that nurtures the ego and produces political conflict, racism, and in the worst case, war. Hence, he was looking for something more ‘universal’ in his works. A new possibility in his approach to art drew inspiration from children’s art which is free, innocent, and honest with no allegiances to nationhood. He used spontaneous, childlike drawings in his ABC series to make fun of the art world. Kamin expanded this technique to Muang-ning Saelao to express his thoughts in 1991–2 when he was in New York and Bangkok. This series was divided into two parts. In the first, he dealt with social problems and in the second, his personal problems. In this work, Kamin neither cares about aesthetics nor art theory. He plays with his own identity on many levels, as a child and as an adult and with his three cultural backgrounds. In this project, he realized that honesty and straightforwardness allows himself to release the art theories and restrictions which he learned in his career. His understanding of art and individual freedom in expression was increasing.
11. Kamin Lertchaiprasert What’s
in My Mind is a continuation of the series Niras Thailand in Poem.
This series and another project called Art is not Silpa deals with
the notion of ‘Time’. Kamin started this project in
August 1992, and finished it 365 days later. This project is a continuation
of the philosophy found in his previous works. Kamin ‘still’
makes one piece per day. – The work ‘still’ deals
with daily experiences. In this project, Kamin still evaluates his
experiences and tries to understand them in order to see whether
they were right or wrong, suitable or not. He ‘still’
writes a short sentence that summarizes his thoughts, together with
his signature and the date of the experience.
“I
was searching for the meaning of life and the value of art, until
I read this book. It made me understand that Buddhism is a way that
led to the ‘Ultimate Truth’, with very clear directions
on the various steps towards that ‘truth’ and how to
practice. When I understood what this book communicated to me in
writing, I decided to put the Buddhist method into practice”.
* Normal and Nature is a continuation of Kamin’s masterpiece,
Problem – Wisdom. The influence of Luang Pho Cha, (the famous
Monk) led him to practice mediation and yoga. This is the most important
turning point in his life and artistic practice. Kamin works with
his daily experience as simple as it can be by using charcoal on
paper. He summarized his thoughts and put them on the paper. The
series is part of a learning process in trying to understand nature
and himself. The series looks and sounds didactic, but it is intended
for himself, not the audience.
13. Kamin Lertchaiprasert There are many ways to do meditation such as sitting, walking and staring. However, Kamin created his own meditation method through drawings, based on his experience and training as an artist. Amidst his busy schedule at his alternative space Umong Sipphadhamma, doing his own works, and taking care of his family and the Land, Kamin spared some time each day to make a drawing in order to let go of himself into nothingness. He pays attention to his breathing, in and out, and empties himself of thought, by drawing on handmade paper. When he’s done with each one, he places them in a glass box. Kamin ‘practiced’ these pieces from 2000 until the present. This work is still in progress. It emphasizes the necessity of the present. His working process reinforces the notion of art and life. He considers the value of art making in the process of each activity. Time, ephemerality, and the direct experience of the everyday are important elements in his work as they are in Rirkrit’s process.
14. Kamin Lertchaiprasert Sitting is one of the two series that Kamin is working on at the moment. Both works in progress are displayed in this retrospective. By showing this work in progress, Kamin shows that time plays an important role in his work. “Sitting” for him is to stop all activities in order to examine oneself. ‘When your body stops, your mind starts to stop’, he said. He’s trying to learn the core and value of life through seeing things as ephemeral, anitjang, tungkang and anatta. From his experience with sitting, Kamin consequently draws on paper. He will continually put his drawing in the remaining empty frames now hanging in the space for the duration of the show. Like the works in Nothing, he shows us that time, experience, and daily life is important to his life. Art making is a process of improving and balancing life. It is about sharing and nature. It is as significant as his learning process through Buddhism, by using art to reshape his own soul.
15. Kamin Lertchaiprasert A
continuation from Normal and Nature, this piece clearly shows how
much Buddhism has influenced Kamin’s work. The process is
similar to Normal and Nature, but the difference is that he did
not draw from just everyday experiences. He picked the subject matter
from both external and internal experiences. He practices meditation
in order to understand things with detachment. Everything is nothingness,
empty and ephemeral. In the works, he wrote three words of Buddhist
wisdom: anitjang (uncertainty), thukang (suffering) and anatta (Ephemeral).
This work addresses the issues of uncertainty in the life cycle:
birth, old age, sickness and death, by using two images, one of
his father in wheelchair, and one of his son in his clip. |
