Our Culture Up! art guide is a weekly roundup of cultural events happening around Bangkok.
Check out what’s happening the week of June 23 below.
Ending Soon:
Undocumented children rejected by their adopted home, a mother forced apart from her son and other uplifting stories will screen at the Refugee Film Festival next week.
Organized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and hosted by SF Cinema, the series features six heavy-weight films which explore the lives of refugees in different contexts.
Ends Tuesday
Designer Kritsada “Note” Phakawatsuntorn’s obsession with wolves continues to claim his soul. Formerly of Greyhound and now packmaster of his own shop, Wolfkind Museum, the designer will channel his lycanthropic side in drawings of the fierce, fuzzy beasts at a solo exhibition titled, simply enough: “Wolf.”
Ends Friday
Film Screeing at Sasin: No Impact Man
A quick look at the title of Laura Gabbert’s and Justin Schein’s documentary “No Impact Man” leaves one to wonder why on earth a man like that is worthy of being documented.
Ends Friday
Hansar Bangkok’s poolside bar and terrace Bar will held a charity event to support the Foundation for Slum Child Care of Bangkok. Melanie Gritzka Del Villar and Sath will do a live painting to a rhythmic musical background. If you’re a fan of jazz music, Milestone with smooth your night with all them Jazz tunes.
Ends Saturday
How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster?
As a part of the Foster+Partners: The Art of Architecture event, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre will screen a documentary film about the firm’s founder and his inspirations, theories and projects.
Ends Saturday
For two years an international arts foundation and the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre have sought Asian artists for residencies elsewhere in Asia to produce work that engages the local context. Tao Zhou of China was unanimously selected and he decided to visit Thailand, namely Bangkok, Samut Sakhon and Chantaburi provinces. The exhibition “Green Sun” will display the visual record of his experience in photos, paintings, murals and videos.
Ends Sunday
Ongoing:
For most of the world, a tropical island is a distant fantasy.
Although they’re a commonplace destination for us, illustrator Suthipa “Toey” Kamyam still took to her imagination to create such a place as it exists inside her head.
In “The Isolated Land,” the artist shares a series of such images from her imagination via silkscreen prints to tell the story of tropical living on a remote island.
An innovative collaboration between H Gallery and two U.K.-based galleries, (detail) features extreme close-ups from paintings by each of the artists to provide a peek at their individual efforts while placing them in a greater context. Arists include well-known painters and recent art school graduates whose subjects range from abstraction, landscape and figures in various mediums.
Organized by the French Embassy in Thailand, the annual French-Thai cultural festival “La Fête” will feature a variety of cultural and entertainment events such as Fête de la Musique, Hi-So Full Moon Party, Silence on Tourne and art exhibitions.
Technology and a lust for material stuff affects people in an ugly way, according to the paintings of Prawit Lumjalurn.
In his first solo exhibition Fake Work, Prawit seeks to show how material things have guided people into an illusion of living. The result seems to be a lot of creepy looking, toddler monsters.
RMA Institute offers a look inside Hong Kong’s infamous Chungking Mansions, the tumultuous home for thousands of immigrants and their itinerant lives.
In a new exhibition by Vietnam-based photographer Nana Chen, visitors can explore the mansions in images designed to capture “hiraeth,” which is a Welsh word for “homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.”
Like visual Prozac, nothing beats watercolor paintings to soothe our torrent of barely concealed rage and anxiety.
Works by 116 watercolor artists from 33 countries around the world are showing at the World Watermedia Exposition at the Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Center. Nearly 300 works will be shown on two floors of the art center.
A provocative photographer bares his soul and everything else in an expressive collection of self portraits.
A Shanghai-to-New York transplant, Shen Wei has exhibited in those cities as well as Philadelphia, Moscow and Shanghai. His solo exhibition “I Miss You Already” will demonstrate the artists’ openness and emotional release achieved through self-portraiture.
The colorful whimsy and gonzo typography of designer and illustrator Jackkrit Anantakul is coming to Goja Gallery Cafe. Jackkrit’s solo exhibition “Happy Blue” will feature his signature style of colorful wackiness, humorous illustrations and experimental typography.
What is love? If we get a taste of it, what should we do with it next?
Chayanich Muangthai seems to have an answer to this timeless question at her exhibition “Swallow…The Love”. Affection and passion are portrayed through her printmaking process to which the artist adds her strong feelings and emotions.
Inspired by the loss of his mother, cartoonist and Dudesweet founder Pongsuang “Note” Kunprasop will show a collection of his whimsical paintings. Ungrateful Records is a solo exhibition to feature the artist’s accumulated nostalgia transformed into album covers.
House RCA’s 10 Year Anniversary Festival
To celebrate its anniversary, House RCA next month will look back at some of the best indie hits such as Love of Siam, Last Life in the Universe and Blue is the Warmest Color, as well as sneak previews of upcoming films such as Boyhood. Other secret, surprise screenings await moviegoers.
Following exhibitions in New York and throughout Asia, figurative painter Henri Lamy will show iconic and spiritual disguise of Thailand through his solo exhibition Hope. Influenced by Jackson Pollock’s drip painting technique, Lamy says he loves splashing colors from the pallet knife straight onto canvas.
To mark the occasion of the Siamese Revolution’s 82nd anniversary, artist Chumpol Kamwanna is displaying 82 politicians’ portraits at his solo exhibition “3P: People: Politics: Power.”
Hof Art is back for its ninth anniversary to show off its new art space at W District. Works from over 100 artists including Vasan Sitthiket, Sakwut Wisesmanee, Jitsing Somboon and Jarut Wongkumjantra will be showcased as a part of the celebration.
Hashtags have emerged as a way to make sense of our torrent of information. Anything that tries to make sense of meaning is bound to get the attention of artists and end up on exhibition.
Therefore, #IMWTK. Shorthand for “Inquiring Minds Want To Know,” this hashtag is often used online to signify deep questions and general curiosity.
