During one of the many conversations I had with Panya Vijinthanasarn during my research on the murals at Wat Buddhapadipa in London, he told me, "Art in the present day is always a question. In the past, art was always an answer." His words have echoed in my mind many times, as I have tried to understand how Thai artists think about "tradition" while painting in styles and with attitudes very much of the present moment. Categories that label art as "modern," "traditional," "neotraditional," "Buddhist," "Thai," and "international" often appear simple and straightforward descriptions. In Thailand and throughout the world, artists define themselves and their work by these (or similar) categories, as if they mean the same thing to all who use them. On the contrary, I have found that these categories represent instead complex artistic currents and spark intense cultural debates. As Thai artists became modern artists, and as they have appropriated art theories and techniques of the Chinese, the Japanese, the Europeans, or the Americans in making Thai art, tensions arise out of differing visions of what it means to be "Thai" or "traditional" or "modern." The following thoughts represent some of these present-day questions that occur to an outside observer of Thai culture in the debates about art and tradition.

What does it mean to be "modern?"
"To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the worldand, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are....''

To be modern is always, to some degree, to seek the traditional. I pondered this simple statement one day long ago, as I accompanied a group of Silpakorn University students to Wat Suwannaram in Thonburi. Many Thais had described to me the ideals of temple space: to create an atmosphere of harmony, of peace, of release from the tensions and frantic activity of the world outside. In the bot at Wat Suwannaram, one of many constructed during the reign of Rama III, those ideals had been attained. The wooden ceiling, decorated in red and gold, harmonized with the walls covered in murals of muted and dark-toned greens, blues, reds and gold. The presiding Buddha image-imposing and gold--dominated the space. The space and the objects contained within it balanced in graceful proportions. All the divine beings painted in registers above the windows looked towards the Buddha image; they drew our eyes in that direction. The altar was laden with fresh flowers and candles, a profusion of devotional offerings that clearly set forth the purposes of this space. Along the back wall, a long cabinet stood against, but did not touch, the murals behind it. Glasses and cups, tea canisters, Carnation Coffeemate, boxes of matches and dishwashing soap sat in a neat line. These simple arrangements made this bot a lived space, one in which Buddhist worshippers perform everyday activities. Wat Suwannaram is neither an art gallery nor a tourist space, although it accepts persons engaged in those activities also; it is a religious space.
The carved main door of the bot at Wat Suwannaram looked just like a door painted in the murals within; the inside appeared like the outside. But beyond architectural elements, the temporal dimensions of inside and outside did not match, of course: the activities, dress, and manners of everyday Thai life have changed radically from the mid-nineteenth century. But that morning at Wat Suwannaram, with the windows open to a slight breeze, and Thai music wafting in from the school next door, the unity of the past and the present seemed briefly restored. That day I believe I glimpsed some ofwhat Thai artists learn as "Thai tradition," and also why they seek to preserve a sense of tradition in their art. Why return to the past?

Why return to the past?
Many Thai artists "return to the past" by exploring Buddhist doctrines and the visual conventions of older artistic traditions in order to critique contemporary conditions of Thai modernity. These artists use a familiar visual language (of stupas, lotuses, temple architecture, and Buddha statues, among others) to talk about the anxieties of losing a way of life, a sense of harmony, the rhythms and beauty of the countryside, or the values of community. Portraying the past - even as an imaginary landscape of peace and tranquility that never was - contrasts with the struggles, inequities, and failed promises of the present moment. In their work, such artists also acknowledge and reproduce the authority of the past-often the genealogy of Thai temple mural painting-to attain recognition for their artwork in the present, in Thailand and in the world beyond.

In addition, the globalization of cultures offers both opportunities and challenges. With increasing access to international exhibitions, catalogs, educational exchanges, and collaborations Thai artists gain greater knowledge and the chance to participate in what is happening in art around the world. At the same time they are challenged to make distinctive contributions to that art. Distinctive qualities of "Thainess" - as visual or formal characteristics or social references, as celebration or critique - enables Thai artists to a claim a specific cultural identity and visibility, as well as to engage in conversations about the social meanings of art.

How do artists represent "Thai tradition?"
The many Thai artists I have come to know and respect, through meetings or in viewing their work, make art from a variety of positions and attitudes towards "Thai tradition." For some, Thai tradition simply means the past-often a past remembered from childhood experiences in Isaan or villages throughout Northern and Southern Thailand. The diverse histories of these regions give different shadings to their ideas of tradition; for them often regional identities - Isaan or Lanna, for example - become as important as "Thainess."

Others associate Thai tradition with Buddhism, and seek new ways of reinterpreting the relationship between art and Buddhism. Historians of Thai art most often describe temple murals as visual images that aid monks in teaching illiterate temple-goers the stories of the Buddha's lives. Murals also communicate specific teachings of the Buddha about moral action, attachment to the material world, and the consequences-in this life and in future lives-of bun and bap. In modern times the teaching function of temple murals has waned as Thai children learn to read these same stories in school, leaving mural artists with new choices. Some mural painters continue to paint in "Thai traditional style" because that is the style commissioned by wealthy temple sponsors for the walls of newly constructed vihara and ubosot. While their stylistic approaches may rely on a two-dimensional narrative space, conventional iconography, and elaborate, decorative patterning, palettes of bright color and touches of present-day portraiture often give these traditional-style murals a new presence on temple walls.

As an alternative, a number of artists have sought to transform temple murals into modern art, endowing familiar themes and scenes that have been reproduced for centuries with some of the energies of twentieth century art - in color and technique, in abstract or expressionist styles. Wat Buddhapadipa in London remains one outstanding example, where artists Panya Vijinthanasarn and Chalermchai Kositpipat utilized this approach, bot artists at temples in other parts of Thailand also have explored innovative approaches to older artistic conventions.

Panya Vijinthanasarn, with some of the artists who worked at Wat Buddhapadipa and recent students from Silpakorn University, have taken murals into new public spaces. In their public murals, they explore contemporary versions of the Thai "conceptual" approach while still using their skills in developing individual ideas and styles. These forms of "public art" continue older Thai practices of communal art making, of training young artists through apprenticeship on mural projects, and of learning to live the Thai "artist's life" in which painting and making art was the central activity of life, not one divorced from other everyday practices. At Wat Buddhapadipa in London, their murals expanded a Thai Buddhist world to encompass the entire globe - including Western spaces, political figures, and icons of popular culture. In contrast, their murals in Thailand locate Buddhist places (Daowading Heaven or the Himaphan Forest) as scenes accompanying the emergence of the modern Thai economy, where people who might not visit temples often can see art every day where they work. Such "public art," based on mural styles and references the Buddha's teachings, may seem out-of-context and even startling when appearing at a McDonald's, or at the headquarters of a bank or corporation. Critics claim that such art serves to legitimate new corporate (and material) interests, endowing secular corporate spaces with the aura of the sacred. However, such murals also maintain an important connection between art, Thai people, and the spaces of everyday life. After all, "Thai art" was never confined to museums and art galleries in the past. Should it be confined there in the present?

Where is the boundary between "art" and "religion"?
A number of artists working in abstract or expressionist styles of painting, in performance, or in installation art have continued to explore the doctrines of the Buddha and how they might be understood in times of rapid and unsettling social change. The outward form of such art might seem familiar to Western eyes, and appear imitative or derivative of EuroAmerican styles and concepts. However, when done with skill and integrity, such art can touch deep inner reservoirs of meaning, understanding, and appreciation for Thai viewers deeply familiar with certain symbolic concepts and forms-the stupa for example. Many Thai artists deliberately attempt to redefine a new relationship between religious space and contemporary art, rather than divorcing the two. Their work engages highly educated, urban, middle-class audiences, and it also encourages older monks and temple-goers to expand their awareness of art in the present day. To find such art outside of the temple expands the reach and resonance of Buddhist concepts, often introducing them to new audiences. A number of the late Montien Boonma's installations-both in Thailand and abroadexplore ideas about space, sensation, Buddhist symbols, and possibilities of meditative consciousness, but in contexts not explicitly marked as "religious." During one of my first visits to Wat Buddhapadipa, Sompop Budtarad showed me a number of ways in which he had altered the mediation garden at that temple, small changes in trees or earth that, while acts of making "art" more significantly altered a familiar sight to meditators and encouraged deeper reflection on the nature of reality. Other works at temples-including some of the performance pieces of the Chiang Mai Social Installation group attempt to claim temples as legitimate venues for new forms of art, as well as old ones such as Buddha images, architecture, and mural painting.

Some art historians and critics have pointed out that Thai temples, with their multi-sensorial combinations of painting, sculpture, the fragrance of flowers and incense, and the sounds of bells and chanting are themselves localized Thai Buddhist versions of installation art. However, in an article comparing international to local forms, Ajarn Somporn Rodboon raises also this issue of context and draws another boundary between "art" and "religion," as she writes, "...installations have existed here for many centuries, concealed in the trappings of religious and other kinds of ritual ceremony. This idea can be defended in purely formal terms, but it must also be remembered that Western installation art and traditional Thai ritual are radically different in purpose and concept. To conceive of them as installations is to extend the installation aesthetic in a specifically Thai direction."2 From another point of view, is this not exactly what globalization offers-the opportunity to give local meanings and understandings to forms introduced from outside?

Does traditional or Buddhist art lose meaning when it becomes a commodity?

Ever since the 1960s, the Bangkok art world has expanded enormously. Silpakorn, Chulalongkorn, Chiang Mai, Poh Chang and other universities now train artists that fill a number of roles within Thai society. Thai artists are developing their individual artistic visions, which in terms of the Thai past constitutes a "modern" act, regardless of where their art is located or whether it is bought and sold. Many Thai artists now use the business techniques (catalogs, exhibitions, sophisticated promotional and marketing brochures, media coverage) of the international art world. To the extent their work can command public attention and high prices, artists gain stature for themselves and for artists in general, beyond their positions in the past as chaang. As their paintings have become consumable commodities that enhance the social position of their buyers, new debates arise about materialism, exploitation, and the failure of such art to address social issues and problems.

The boom in the art market of the late 1980s/early l990s was itself part of the unsettling changes of the past two decades. Art critics accused many prominent artists of exploiting familiar cultural motifs, for relying on easy references to Buddhism and the Thai past to sel1 work to a new art-buying public most comfortable with paintings that were easy to understand and beautiful, but unthreatening. In many venues - from Thai English-language newspapers, Thai interior design magazines, to foreign art journals and exhibition catalogs, writers about Thai art have mounted attacks on much of the "neo-traditional" painting produced in the last decade as "bad art" from several overlapping critical positions. Some attack such art for its support of the status quo in Thailand-which includes problems of poverty and public health, social and political corruption, and environmental degradationand the ways that such art might encourages avoidance. One critic finds disturbing trends in art that encourage students to "work harder at producing superficial fantasy-gaudy products that float above reality,"3 rather than addressing the social problems of that reality

Critiques based on the aesthetic qualities of contemporary Thai painting fault many artists for relying too heavily on a supply of familiar Buddhist symbols, rather than undertaking a more innovative and daring exploration of artistic (and cultural) possibilities.4 Still others observers claim that neotraditional painting degrades "authentic" Buddhist art, believing that Buddhist art loses its spiritual aura once removed from a religious context and placed into a commercial one. For whatever the faith or intention of the work's maker or the origin of the themes and motifs, art attains spiritual value only in actual religious contexts. Certain traditions of religious artthe casting of Buddha images, mural painting, woodcarving, and plasterworkalthough often dismissed as repetitive or copies of older forms-continue on in contemporary temple construction. However, the art market lies outside those contexts, as one argues, When symbol is encased by re~gious context, it manifests a specific boundary and intention. Once the context shifts, a redefinition inevitably takes place. Within the primary context of the art market today, we may wonder if the artists aTe not making ta11 claims in ca11ing their pseudoreRgious works a Buddhist endeavor 5 I would argue that assigning religious authenticity-where an artwork or image representation or manifests an act of faith or devotionto the work's location alone presents many problems. Do amulets and statues traded in the Thai marketplace lose their power in the same way as "pseudo-Buddhist art"? They are also commercialized, produced in mass quantities and sold for profit. Another example that raises the difficulty with this position is Sompop Budtarad's installations in the meditation garden at Wat Buddhapadipa, objects and creations that involve trees, ash, earth, or shadows and that invite reflection upon the doctrines of impermanence and change. Sompop has exhibited the same (or versions of the same) installations in art galleries, contexts for the promotion and sale of art, not religion. These objects would appear to move back and forth across the boundaries between art and religion, depending on their location at the moment. Montien Boonma made many complex installations in art spaces; each installation invoked fundamental Buddhist doctrines or questions, and offered viewers multi-sensorial experiences that combined art and meditation, or art and healing. The relationship between a piece of art and its viewer can never be assumed-art with Buddhist themes may or may not evoke a spiritual response, depending on the viewer as much as the context. At Wat Buddhapadipa, many nonBuddhist visitors admire its obviously religious murals without understanding the stories or the teachings the murals present.

Some of the tensions in these debates may be resolved by understanding how individual works of art (including collectively-produced murals) travel across boundaries of categories ("Buddhist narrative," "art," "history," "heritage," "Thai identity") through exchange, display, and critical interpretation. Value, however, does not travel. Value remains to be determined from within a specific social world, according to a given set of terms and by participants in that social world. The production of art with Buddhist content, imagery, and intention, the market in such and the critical discussions about "neo-traditional" and/or "neo-Buddhist" art in Thailand indicate that the relationship between religion and art, art and society is far from stable and continues to be negotiated and understood in different regimes of value.

What is the future of the past?
Art historian Stanley J. O'Connor suggests we view tradition in art "never merely a set of transmissible practices but rather a way that consciousness is caught up in things."6 The consciousness of being modern always includes attention to the past, and always involves struggles to control how that past is represented. As Thai artists grow and change, becoming increasingly involved in global cultural forces and the international art world, these debates about tradition become inevitable.

The categories of "traditional," "modern" and "neo-traditional" will continue to animate Thai social relations. They do not really exist as external objective categories, but remain subject to on-going negotiation and performance. These categories are deployed in numerous social contexts: in selfpresentation, at exhibition openings, in media interviews, exhibition catalogs, in classrooms and on field trips. Artists draw upon these diverse cultural notions to seek higher social status for themselves as artists within Thailand, as well as to claim value for their work in public arenas that extend beyond Thailand. These multiple meanings of the past and the present are absorbed into the histories of Thai contemporary art, proposing qualities of "Thainess" that diversify our understandings of modern art.

Dr. Sandra Cate
San Jose State University
Silicon Valley, California