It’s either very enticing or discouraging to viewers when curator Andrew Stahl says that his new exhibition “illustrates nothing” and that “we expect an electric conversation with excitement and perhaps even failure”. The show is called “Monologue Dialogue 3: Fragility And Monumentality”, currently on display on the ninth floor of Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and the works from various artists shown together are just as overwhelming as the exhibition’s title itself.
Jedsada Tangtrakuwong’s Hill.
The show is the third instalment and it’s a continuation of “a conversation” by means of exhibition between a group of British and Thai artists in both Bangkok and London, which was initiated eight years ago with support from the British Council. The first show was in 2006 at Bangkok University Gallery, the result of a six-week residency of a group of British — including Andrew Stahl — and Thai artists. The second show was when Stahl returned to England and decided to arrange a “return exhibition” at the Bischoff/Weiss gallery in London.
That the element of “monologue” is also part of the dialogue seems very apt. At times, each work seems to have absolutely no connection to other works at all. After entering on the left, there’s a gigantic sculpture, Inside Out Of The Spirit by Atsuko Nakamura. It’s made of pieces of wood with a shape resembling that of some beast’s horn or two hands put together to wai. At the tip of this hung a monk’s rope draping down to the floor. Further in, there’s a structure made of neon flex and steel rope by Nathaniel Rackowe.
Inside the exhibition’s vast space there are more works with a variety of subjects and techniques from many artists such as Tuksina Pipitkul, Tintin Cooper, Nipan Oranniwesna, Miranda Housden and Jedsada Tangtrakulwong.
There’s a painting placed near an installation work in the form of cotton cloth hanging on steel cables with clothes pegs, a common sight in anyone’s backyard. There’s a site-specific installation in the form of stairs inviting viewers to climb up with a video installation of another artist nearby. This sense of seemingly unfitting combinations pervades throughout the show and it’s going to take a few hours, if not half-a-day, to take all in.
In a recent interview with Life, curator Stahl, who also has his own works on display, talked about this concept of fragility and monumentality and how this unpredictable dialogue between artists has developed over the years.
Eric Bainbridge’s The Ghost Of Jimmy The Nail.
Why “monologue” and “dialogue”? How do these two ideas shape the concept of the exhibition as a whole?
The key thing was to get a brilliant bunch of artists together and see what they could do. Ours was about the idea of dialogue through working together, a dialogue between all the Thai and UK artists and their respective artworks and art worlds. We have kept the title for the two succeeding shows because in fact I believe art is not only about monologue or dialogue; it is both a conversation with yourself and a conversation with others. I think all the works in the show have both aspects but most are more geared towards dialogue of varied types.
You said in the statement that “this show illustrates nothing”. What do you mean by that?
The interesting thing for me is that often I come across shows where in the catalogue there is a paragraph that says “concept” and this is then followed by a photo of a work, or a piece of work in a show with an explanation of the “concept”. The work then just becomes an illustration of a text. I reject this wholeheartedly — art should not always be an illustration of an idea. It has to be richer than an illustration of the written word. People are clever — they don’t need to be told what to think, they can attempt to understand if they are interested.
Why “fragility and monumentality”?
Fragility and monumentality struck me as representing the situation and these artists in an excellent way. Firstly, some of the artists were attempting to build something in two weeks from nothing. This suggested failure as a possibility. This, for me, is interesting — the idea that the process of making is more important than the result, the collapse [fragility] perhaps if someone’s work doesn’t make it that is exciting, a collapsed sculpture [after all, perhaps we all turn to dust in the end].
So the emphasis is on the process of making art as much as art itself?
Artists often concentrate on the process more than the results. They often enjoy the making. The interviews that Nipan made for his video, the endless labour of all the helpers constructing Miranda’s piece, the huge numbers of helpers that Be had to install his tunnel installation and the collecting of the wood for Atsuko.
We can embrace failure in painting — painting as mud, painting not turning completely into something else [illusion], but remaining stuff smeared on the canvas, the celebration of ‘stuff’. The fragile work seems to also have monumentality — Atusko’s fragile [they look like they could collapse] but monumental sculpture [large with gravity and gravitas], Jedsada’s monumental staircase brimming with presence — heavy and dominating but strangely see-through, and certainly people seem fragile when they climb up the sculpture.
Miranda’s sculpture Monkey’s Cooking Pot [fragile] is also a collapsed chandelier. Her work is on the floor like a wounded animal. Eric’s work... is so monumental but it is teased buy a delicate fragile little towel draped over it. His Ghost Of Jimmy The Nail is so fragile it hangs precariously across the centre space while masquerading as a nail.
There are quite a few new artists featuring this time. How has the project developed over the years?
A few of the previous artists could not participate this time. A key feature of the show was that it should be unpredictable if we were going to do it again. I also thought that we should rebalance the group by adjusting age and gender. I also thought variety was key and that should include artists such as Panya, who focuses on more traditional Thai painting but with a forward-looking approach, with an artist such as Eric Bainbridge, who represents the kind of sculpture that pushes and challenges modernism.
It is the variety of medium, intention and physicality that were factors in choosing the artists, but the most important is that they have tremendous conviction as artists.
The choice of who should participate was made on the basis of what kind of artist they were and how varied they were, rather than the individual work they were going to make, because it was a ‘dialogue’ show and a lot of the work was going to be made during the two-week installation period. The key thing was to get a brilliant bunch of artists together and see what they could do.
“Monologue Dialogue 3: Fragility And Monumentality” is on display until Aug 24 on the ninth floor of Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
Atsuko Nakamura’s Inside Out Of The Spirit, left, and Nathaniel Rackowe’s Platonic Spin.
