Pattara Chanruechachai
Kornkrit Jianpinidnan
Arin Rungjang
Curated by Pier Luigi Tazzi
Opening Wednesday June 23, 6 pm
From June 25 to September 15, 2011
Via delle belle donne, 39r - Firenze
tel. +39 055 214757
galleria@florenceartbiagiotti.com
http://www.artbiagiotti.com/
Through "Bangkok Density" the Biagiotti Arte Contemporanea Gallery aims to provide a survey of the Thai art scene through the research of three young artists, whose work has been developing since the last decade.
A new generation which, unlike the previous one, that imposed itself on the global art scene since the mid Nineties -from Rirkrit Tiravanija to Surasi Kusolwong, from Navin Rawanchaikul to Manit Sriwanichpoom- does not establish its work on the difference and specificity of the Thai thing compared to the rest of the world, but draws instead from many influences and imaginaries, which characterize the current Thai cultural situation, in particular the Bangkok one, in its diversity.
In this scene, a predominant value becomes the visual culture of mass consumerism, fashion, film, the star system, the international pop music, the economic development and the local political situation, in their mutual ad-spectacular events, together with the flow of information through the internet and the more or less temporary presence of Western and Asian, Japanese and Indians in particular, that for the insiders mingled with mass tourism.
The title of the show is an explicit reference to the first three titles of the four novels by John Burdett set in Bangkok and helps to introduce the new artistic scene that has emerged in the Thai capital during the last couple of years, which clearly differs from the previous situation.
The "density" evoked by the title, qualified as a dominant feature of the city to which it refers, moves from the current social and political situation in Bangkok, where tourism, cultural exchanges and products of globalization mix with the local cultural context, giving rise to a sort of "magmatic material”: the density is to be conceived more as thickness than heaviness, a sort of fullness that resists any attempt of adaptation and definition.
The three artists on show, Pattara Chanruechachai, Arin Rungjang and Kornkrit Jainpinidnan, while pursuing different researches, have set up their work on the current reality of the "substance" of Thailand, which is here illustrated through three different lines of research: the private and collective memory, the personal experience of places and situations and the image, meant as narrative and conversational component.
For "Bangkok Density" Pattara Chanruechachai (Bangkok 1971, lives in Bretagne) presents a continuation of the project One Day Another (2009-2011), a work in which the process of photo printing is developed on sheets of recycled paper. In this case the artist's interest aims to the understanding and representation of a "current time" through the composition and decomposition of images and messages, that in their juxtaposition reconstruct urban environments, emptied of human presence, whose traces, however, are reinserted through the use of tools of mass communication, such as the photographic image and the recycling of printed pages of newspapers.
Arin Rungjang (Bangkok 1975, lives in Bangkok), develops a research that moves from the transposition of personal events and a conscious political and cultural elaboration. In the spaces of the Galleria Biagiotti he presents The Scars of Your Love, They Leave Me Breathless (2011), an installation where sculpture, photographs and audio materials interact with each other, staging a personal memory that, in the act of its revival, brings back to a narrative of shared cultural signs and symbols.
In Kornkrit Jainpinidnan’s (ChangRai 1975, lives in Bangkok), photographic work the image is captured not in its aesthetic significance, but in the possibility of creating an opposition between reality and its indefinable and unanalyzable substrate; in Worry and Love (2006-2011), as well as in the series The Strange Story Night Part. 1 (2006-2011) and in I Wish, Bangkok Version (2011), the artist highlights the contrast between the narrative and descriptive element offered by the medium of photography and the “the shock with reality”, causing an internal friction of the image in relation to the density which it spreads, and the possibility of offering at the same time an internal and external look at the environment which is depicted.
Mixing personal and social, memory and desire, the opposite positions of the outsider and the insider, the three artists intend to outline a vision of what is now the urbanized environment of the global metropolis through the cultural specificity of the city Bangkok, where density, drama and inconsistency are inextricably joined.
Pattara Chanruechachai, lives and works in Bretagne, France.
Solo show: “Glance left and right”, Galleria Ver, Bangkok (2010). Among his group shows: “Voici ma Carte”, Porsalen @rt visuel, edition et exposition pilotée par Harvé Le Nost, Arvest, Pleyben, Francia (2010);“Young Ladies, old chaps, and some Thai friends”, Galleria Spazio A, Pistoia, Italia (2009); “Fifteen” Collectif Nai, Francia (2008); Eternal Flame: Imagining a Future at the End of the World, Gallery at REDCAT, Los Angeles (2007); Belief, Singapore Biennale, Tanglin Camp, Singapore (2006).
Arin Rungjaeng, lives and works in Bangkok, Thailandia.
Among his solo shows “Lets make sense” Galerie West, Den Haag, Olanda (2011); “Russamee Rungjang” Ver Gallery, Bangkok, Thailandia (2009); “Would you care to come into my place for a cup of coffee..” About Studio/ About Café, Bangkok, Thailand, with Sylvain Sailly (2009). Among his group shows: Singapore Biennale “Open House”, Singapore (2011); Valentine Willie “Itineraries”, KL, Malaysia (2011); “Imagine peace” (curated by Rirkrit Tiravanija), Bangkok Art Center, Bangkok (2010); “No Money, No Love”, The Third Guangzhou Triennial [Farewell to Post Colonialism], Guangzhou, Cina (2008); “Santarcangelo International Festival of The Arts", Rimini, Italia (2007).
Kornkrit Jianpinidnan, lives and works in Bangkok, Thailandia.
Among his solo shows: “In the white Field. “I long for a zebra””, Ver Gallery, Bangkok, Thailandia (2009); “Worry and Love”, F Gallery, Hatena Bar & Restaurant, Chiang Mai, Thailandia (2007); “A ghost story”, Art center, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailandia (2006). Among his group shows: “Itineraries” three young contemporaries, Valentine Willes Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2011); “Re-Reading”, Khun Chang Khun Phaen, Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, Thailandia (2011); “AS YET UNNAMED Taipei station”, Taipai Artist Village, Taipia, Taiwan (2010); “CUT: New Photography from Southeast Asia”, Valentine Will Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2008).