Room 13 is a creative initiative to give access to art-making to young people around the world. Today I was the artist-in-residence at the event in HCMC, Vietnam. In a major advertising agency’s office, tables were prepared with paint and paper. I brought along my art materials and some old wood (found on demolished building sites) and some props. After showing some images of my topic and of my work in progress, I spent 2 hours drawing, while the children got creative in any way they wished.
Actor Dustin Nguyen kicked off the first ever Saigon Creative Mornings yesterday with an earnest talk on how he manages his creativity in the midst of the constraints imposed by sponsors in the film making industry. Over coffee, he took us briefly through his Hollywood experience to discuss his more recent Vietnamese productions, with some amusing anecdotes. The sold-out session took place in the airy offices of the TBWA headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City, and brought together a small crowd of interesting people. I smiled at the humourous but creative use of neckties as drawstrings for the rolled-up metal walls that divide the industrial space. This one had a black label that said simply ‘Boss’:
Manhattan residents will remember the Golden Gates art project by the awesome artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude (r.i.p.).
I love Christo’s wrapped art and land art projects, but I have no need to be jealous. Now in my local neighbourghood in Vietnam I have impromptu wrapped ‘art’ and golden gates to look at, and to add meaning to visuals, it will also keep me guessing as to the motives (the motives for the wrap, not of the kitsch golden gate – that’s just nouveau riche syndrome).
I’ve recently moved from London to Saigon, and last night I phoned my grandmother to let her know all is well here. When I told her I was phoning from my computer via the internet, my nan, who has never used a computer, was amazed that technology could do such things. Imagine if we’d used video-link! Her sense of wonder is not out of place. I can safely say that computer literate people also find intercontinental links heart-warmingly extraordinary!
Artist Mariele Neudecker has expressed a fascination for the ability to create art in multiple locations simultaneously, via the internet.
‘Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived’ (2000) is her sculpture of a stretched skull based on the skull in Holbein’s 1533 painting ‘The Ambassadors.’
Holbein’s large canvas is wonderous, so perfect and full of detail, but with that mysterious shape hovering in front of us. Oh, I wish I’d gone to see it one more time before I left London. At least I did visit my revered Carlo Crivelli’s next door… There are so many great things to see in life!
Mariele Neudecker, in awe as the rest of us with Holbein’s floating metaphor, created a 3D digital image of the skull, and the file was used to machine-carve it out of resin. ‘The stereo lithography machine cut that 3 dimensional, virtual object out into resin,’ she says of the new technology, which she sees as ‘a kind of a forerunner of teleportation, I suppose, because in theory, you could have a computer sitting in Cardiff and send all the information and data down to Australia, and have the machine cut out exactly the same object. You can put any object, any three dimensional object, from the computer into reality’
Mariele Neudecker, 2002
There’s nothing like a good dose of culture shock to creativize one’s zest for life. Around the time of the great tsunami, I lived in Thailand for a couple of tropical years and I have consequently developed a soft-spot for the place, as you do for any place you call home – especially if it has cha yen and abundant frangipani.
Regular visits to Bangkok’s galleries and museums were pretty dichotomous: exhibitions of run-of-the-mill, nepotistic hi-so paintings or facile images of buddhas were interspersed with epiphanic journeys to fascinating new artists. Obviously, I adore the frescos of Ramakien stories in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, but there was lots of exciting contemporary art too. I discovered Montien Boonma (thank you!) and couldn’t understand why I’d never come across his sculptures in New York, London, Barcelona or any other famous-for-art city. They are mind-blowing! I guess you have to be in the right place at the right time, and let art own you when it wants to.
I laughed at the Pink Man, and will die adoring Manit Sriwanichpoom‘s totally unbarbiefied use of pink (sorry Schiaparelli, he wins…). Yuree Kensaku is another one to watch. Her small picture below, ‘The Battle of Love’ (2005) is on a 3D support, and is a fantastic mix of luminous and metallic paints with heavily textured, alla-prima oil.
I can’t remember all the names of many other Thai artists that rocked my artosphere, but do read the links on this post, there’s a whole lot to enjoy. Off the elite art world radar there were plenty of other joyous manifestations of visual savoir-faire. From Chalit’s art workshops for children, to the best T-shirt designs in the world (usually combining hilarious world play with unusual craft-collage). Fun stuff.
This month’s Art in America, ironically subtitled Europe Focus, has a special on Thai artists which is a must-read and has great pictures!
My favourite BKK gallery is 100 Tonson, which in August 2010 is offering something pretty special. They’re setting up the first solo show of Rirkrit Tiravanija in his homeland! Yep, that’s the guy made famous by Relational Art and all of that come-dine-with-me before chillaxing in Chiang Mai kinda art…
P.S.: Artist and Economy professor Hans Abbing says that ‘in contemporary Thailand … the artist’s identity hardly matters’ (Why Artists are Poor, 2002). He adduces no reasons for this statement, which I can’t agree with. Maybe the rationale has something to do with the differences in the individual ego versus group ego that Asia and the West are said to be at odds with? If there is truth in this insight, perhaps that helps explain why I had trouble finding individual websites for the artists I mention. There are many reason why artists would have a page on an art portal rather than their own website of course (see my Artexposure research on this), it could also be that all of the Internet that is not written in Roman script is barred to little ingnarmus me… I can’t read Thai characters. Just the art!
Chan shorb silapin Thai!
Unless otherwise specified, text and images © 2012 Cristina Nualart