![]() ![]() It represented materialism as superficial by scraping the ink off 24 countries’ bank notes, and displaying the scrapings of the ink next to the blank bills. QUALITY: quality (2018), by Latthaphon Korkiatarkul, was meant to function in a similar way. When the guidebook wrote about Choi’s Happy, Happy Project and invoked the “world of superficial happiness,” it was claiming that one of the ways we should read the work was as a criticism of the commercial world and the way it seeks to distract us with inferior, “superficial” forms of happiness. We were meant to detach ourselves and focus on transcendental bliss, thus the show’s title, Beyond Bliss.And so, to the extent that the show matched its theme’s commitment to Ajahn‘s form of Buddhism, it would be unable to promote consumerism. The biennale’s central theme, derived from Buddhism, with the show specifically pointing to the teachings of Ajahn Jayasaro Bhikkhu, asked us to turn our backs on sensual pleasure and the material world in order to achieve a higher state of happiness that freed us from physical cravings for sensual stimulation. Nino Sarabutra,What Will We Leave Behind (2012). But making my way through this show, I could not stop questioning the impact of the few works that did fit into its theme, or the effectiveness of the political work in the show, even worrying that some of the biennale’s works simply functioned as boosters for the commercial locations where they were shown. ![]() For some, the show’s politics, uniformly praised in the many reviews of the show, with the Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Peterson writing that the Bangkok Art Biennale’s work “defies Thailand’s taboos, be they social stigma or the political restrictions imposed by the military government that took over in a coup in 2014,” also addressed this question, because many contemporary critics and viewers seemed to see a show’s political engagement as proof that the show is acting in the public interest. More concretely, the show’s theme, based on Buddhism, made it hard for the show to advance commercial interests, since it seemed to ask viewers to turn their backs on the superficial forms of happiness that the commercial world offers. So when Adele Tan, one of the show’s curators, told CNN, that, “The funding might be private, but its effect is set to ripple through the public domain more than if we had government money behind it,” her words seemed to suggest that the biennale intended to act-within the limits of the current political situation-in the interest of the public. After all, its funding was completely private, and much of the work was shown in commercial spaces, malls, hotels, and commercial galleries. Surely, one of the fears that must have gripped the organizers of the first Bangkok Art Biennale was that it would be seen as too closely linked to commercial concerns that the show would seem to advance private interests at the expense of the public good. Sriwan Janehattakarnkit, Nature and Normality (2018). It was “concerned with our paradoxical world of superficial happiness,” yet “its bright colors justmae us smile.” I struggled with this inconclusiveness, with the guidebook’s unwillingness to decide whether the work was critical or not, and then found myself thinking back to a black and white photograph I had seen of another work, from a different time and place, in a similar atrium. The guidebook’s description of it expressed a certain ambivalence. It was made out of colorful plastic baskets that formed a column running up the middle of the center’s atrium. Inside the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, my first experience of the Bangkok Art Biennale was Happy, Happy Project, Basket Tower (2018), by ChoiJeong Hwa. In this commercial wonderland, in the heat, in the swirl of tourists and Christmas shoppers, I briefly wondered if these elevated walkways were public or private spaces, and whether they served the public good. ![]() ![]() On the way to the first Bangkok Art Biennale’s main location in the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, this floating pavement seemed to open up in countless directions, creating paths that went in and out of malls and a world that seemed to flow seamlessly from Siam Square to Siam Discovery, from Siam Paragon to Siam Center, from Centralworld all the way to Central Embassy, with each of these malls hosting the biennale’s works, though sometimes it was difficult to distinguish between the artworks and the malls’ own promotional materials. Getting off the Skytrain at the National Stadium, one descended from the platform to one of Bangkok’s many elevated walkways, still high above the street, suspended over the city’s eternal snarling traffic jam. Choi Jeong Hwa Happy, Happy Project, Basket Tower (2018). It was seeable in three long days and ran from October 19 th 2018 to February 3 rd2019. The First Bangkok Art Biennale was a midsize show that was spread out through twenty different locations. ![]()
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