It was with a feeling of nausea and disgust that Chiang Mai-based artist Mit Jai Inn spent one month working on his new series of abstract paintings, now on display and part of the exhibition "Wett" at Gallery Ver at N22 in Bangkok. Mit's series is entitled "Junta Monochrome" -- obviously not for the works themselves -- for the art space has exploded with every colour imaginable; rather the title conveys the artist's contempt for the reality outside: a junta-ruled country where things are either black or white, where if you're not a khon dee (good person), the artist says, you are inevitably the bad guy.
Two other exhibitions on display in the city also touch on the heavy issues of politics and the political implications on our state of being in this post-coup period. In "This Is Not A Political Act" at WTF Gallery on Sukhumvit, artist Jirawut Ueasungkomsate has picked up forced disappearance cases to create an experiential setting to explore the issue. Over at Bridge Art Space, Pisitakun Kuantalaeng's "Reflection For Give" is a photography and installation project about the sudden closure of iconic bazaars like Khong Thom, Sapan Lek and Pratunam, which has been taking place swiftly under the military government's orders.
There's a complaint that the art scene in Thailand is slow, if not totally immune, to the gravity of political issues surrounding them, compared to, say, the performing arts. Yet these three shows testify how Thai visual artists also feel the "vibration" in the post-coup society.
The feeling of nausea and disgust that Mit felt while working on his paintings was, he said, for what's going on in Thailand. "For the fact that Pinyo [Pinyo Traisuriyathamma, a former TV host] is now facing lese majeste charges for hosting a debate on role of the monarchy in 2013. And for the fact that there's a number of people showing up in support of the Popcorn gunman" [convicted for his assaults on Feb 2014].
Inside "Junta Monochrome", massive canvases hang wide and high -- the biggest is 12m long -- and are freely, almost insanely, smeared and layered into a colour field of almost every colour imaginable.
"This is the fact, how things really are, a society of polychrome," said Mit of his work. "Now, everything is suppressed. We're in a complicated situation in which nobody can crack the code. A few years ago I was interested in the lese majeste law, but now it's way beyond that and it's no longer the responsibility of just one party."
The centrepiece work in the middle of the space is as much an abstract painting as it is a sculpture with its own narrative. With a framing structure underneath, leaving a shallow rectangular pool, Mit poured oil paint, industrial paint, turpentine oil and water in -- all these ingredients being incompatible -- and the art piece is a work-in-progress with water gradually evaporating and paint slowly spreading on its natural course.
By letting the paint take up the role of creator, Mit not only knocked down the tradition of artist as the sole author in the work of art, but created a metaphor to represent the strenuous yet necessary step of letting things take their natural course.
"Of course, abstraction is in a way a self-censorship on the artist's part," said Mit. "It is through this means that we liberate ourselves from all the concepts, from all the narratives, from all characters, no 'Me', 'You', 'Us', or 'Them'."
For Jirawut Ueasungkomsate's show at WTF Gallery, the sense of censorship is present, even in the design of the space.
With a torch given out to everyone before entering, viewers navigate through the dark to see 15 low-resolution portraits of people who have gone missing; they range from high-profile cases like human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit; Karen community leader of Ban Bang Kloy Pholachi "Billy" Rakchongchareon; to unknown ones like a school janitor.
"I wanted to talk about the idea of freedom and its essence in current situations under the military rule," said Jirawut. "A lot of people feel that it's OK to have no freedom, we can still go eat, go shopping, but it's actually like having one eye closed, and we are in the dark."
The elusiveness of the show is not merely a result of these controversial cases, and the darkness in the space, but also the lack of information pertaining to each person. Accompanying the photographs are just short phrases that provide hints as to the incidents of their disappearances.
Even though none of the cases featured in the exhibition occurred during the rule of the current government, abductions by the military remain prevalent -- the most recent one being the detention of former administrator of an anti-regime Facebook page Sarawut Bamrungkittikhun -- has inevitably made the show poignantly relevant.
"I have to admit that I'm afraid about doing this exhibition, even though it's not directed at the military," said Jirawut. "It was with that fear that I very carefully selected the cases to make them as balanced as possible. The point was to create a conceptual space to raise awareness that forced disappearance is a pressing freedom issue which has yet to be solved."
Pisitakun's show "Reflection For Give", on the other hand, is directed at the military government and is very much a sarcastic take on the military government's key motto "Returning Happiness to the People". On one wall at Bridge Art Space, a large shiny sheet made from gift-wrapping paper hangs. It is with this sheet -- symbolising a gift -- that the artist went to a number of iconic bazaars, including Khong Thom, Sapan Lek and Pratunam, etc, which were shut down all of a sudden during the military rule.
"It started with an interest in these spaces historically," said Pisitakun. "There were attempts to demolish these spaces before, but under civil governments there were always protests and necessary process before the demolition could actually take place. Now, with the interim charter's Section 44, in some cases, people in the area were given only a 15-day notice before having to evacuate." In the photography part of Pisitakun's show, we see people -- their faces censored and one photograph even featuring military officers -- holding Pisitakun's gift-wrapped sheet in front of the spaces in question.
"I just went to these places and talked to people affected by the situation," said Pisitakun. "It's only the first stage of the research but I chose to present these materials through these photographs rather than with documents. The thing is most people in these areas, like around Sapan Lek, were pro-military PDRC supporters and this is the ironic echo they get from all the support they put in."
'This Is Not A Political Act' by Jirawut Ueasungkomsate.
A photograph from Pisitakun's 'Reflection For Give'.
