Catalogue

He(art) of Darkness Art institutions in Thailand continue to perpetuate the hegemonic standard in its Fine Arts teaching conventions. Where installation art has been accepted to the mainstream, new media art forms such as video and photography continue to play a minor role in the curriculum. Although change is making headway with a new breed of art instructors, the institutional infrastructure is still rife with establishment preaching of specific forms and styles over idea and content whereas the latter should function better in encouraging a geopolitical engagement on cross-cultural platforms. To herald the significance of video, photography and digital art should need no new emphasis by now. As a discipline, they have become the new tools for artists to address the conceptual concerns of a more critical art practice. Moreover, the universal significance of photography bridges over the dogmatic prescription on the representation and ownership of styles and techniques in today's contemporary art cross-cultural discourse Conceptual photography may have advanced slowly in Thailand with only a handful of its artists having delved seriously into this expressive discipline. But the lack of available academic training has not stopped the development of this ghettoized art form. An increasing number of young Thai photo-artists have been making progressive strides. Given greater access to the world of mass media today, a more opportune time for conceptual photography to actively insert itself into the Thai arts movement. Cultural identity and its flux is inevitably an issue that has arisen. Sacrifices, good and bad, made in the name of progress; values toyed with to unseat moral boundaries; and human relations in daily life. In a suggestive bid to uncork and expose the undercurrents of obsessions consumed within the drabness of quotidian existence, these conceptual photo-artists unleash a biting parody on varying attitudes of power and hedonism; using the everyday situation as a central setting. The chosen artists have developed tactics to unveil the sub-conscious dwellings in their collective oeuvre, utilising real space and time to evoke psychological contradictions. The exhibition title engenders a common concern towards the inherent symptoms of psychological disposition brought forth from the inescapable changes experienced by the inhabitants of urban society that is and still undergoing a period of structural changes. Specifically, they gesture towards a globalised environment. The total reliance on consumerism within streams of advanced technology has provided spectacles for the society to indulge in. So what if behavioural attitudes have changed within the society's norm? We will prevail and pretend as long as the spectacle last, real or otherwise. Manit Sriwanichpoom's black and white series of derelict and hollow skyscrapers - abandoned and discontinued as far back as five years ago - is a document of the adverse result of insatiable greed in the cityscape of Bangkok. Their haunting presence looms in all corners, within sight of centralised urban activities in shopping areas and business districts. Always apparent but conveniently ignored by the general public, these sites function as a visible/non-visible framework, serving to confront the most explicit attachment concerning urban complexity towards everyday dimension of worldly desires. Kamin Lertchaiprasert's series of computer-generated photo silkscreen on paper is inspired by the teachings of Voi Lang. He kneeled, squatted and in one of the images, stood evenly besides Lord Buddha, staring intently in the direction of the revered Head of Buddhism. With all the arrogance in contemporary society, this set of imageries relates to critical deterioration of truth faith, replaced by material threats posed to it by the outside world. Here, the artist's work is used as a metaphor, allowing us to re-evaluate internal struggles about our own expectation from the religion. Montri Toemsombat is a multidisciplinary artist whose works encompass performances, video and fashion. In some of his videos, we also witness the presence of Montri's real life partner, Jacques Charrier, in various role-playing acts with humor and parody explicitly flashed out. Here, they continue their fictional collaboration with the results feeling like a play of reality and fantasy. Either posing against the background of a dream-like daybreak or acting as lovey-dovey with the artist in drag, the images - in full subversive glory -probe us to re-consider the general prescription of homosexuality existing as only a seedy albeit tantalising underbelly og Bangkok lifestyle. Nothing is more intimate than shooting your own procreators standing before the camera with the child manipulating the lens. That child is Kornkrit Jianpinidnun. Family portraiture is something everyone has in personal albums, functioning as historical records. They are always given way to either sentimental appeal or nostalgic transience. The artist's depiction of his parents bears none of the above principles. Instead of snapping them around their emotions or in accordance to the environments, Kornkrit submerged himself internally by choosing to compose the portraits around two most pivotal representations as a sign of significance. The mother's flabby stomach reveals the scar of delivery and the father's thigh is a constant reminder of labour. While drawing us in, the images themselves become a personal metaphor for Kornkrit - both forming an intense link between the past and the present. Ekkalux Nubturesuk spins his photo-tales around two separate tensions under an imagined reality. Or maybe not so imagined in the context of power perversion hidden beneath the nature of society. Here, we see a quintessential sleaze naked on a bed besides a clean, well-ironed schoolgirl uniform - indication of a docile, virginal seductiveness. An unsettling presentation, it recreates the private scenario that might be between a sugardaddy and his juvenile lover or a buying customer fulfilling his fetishes for uniformed minors. The rise of student freelancers has alerted the political and social circles to take heed but some of those hedonists probably come from these very same forces. This is itself an unmentioned hypocrisy that is highlighted in Ekkalux's work. Yet these photos also gives a sad impression of who is the real victim of consumerism in the end - the materialistic joy-provider or the corrupt domineer Josef Ng