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Kala Ensemble
Multimedia installation Dimension variable Thailand Biennale Chiang Rai 9 December 2023 - 30 April 2024 Wat Pa Sak & Chiang Saen National Museum "Chitti Kasemkitvatana creates his most recent art project, Kala Ensemble, by exploring two representative subjects of Lanna civilization. Both share the theme of ‘face’: that of the Kala Face demon, and that of the Klong Sabadchai, or victory drum (a percussion instrument used in rituals). These subjects are also utilized as the physical ground of the artist’s exhibited art pieces, which survey spiritual artistic creativity in the past and Buddhist disseminations of varied periods, sects and areas. Despite focusing on Chiang Saen city and the Lanna Kingdom, Chitti extends his references to include other relevant areas as far afield as India, Afghanistan, Tibet and so on. The entirety of the artist’s scope aligns with the routes where Buddhism extended in the past. The project’s title, Kala Ensemble, derives partly from Kala Face. In ancient India, this demon was believed to be a guardian of thresholds, as well as a metaphoric symbol of time which devours all things. Inevitably, the repeating visual motifs of this alluded character featured in Kala Ensemble are aimed to convey the notion of time, to which several subjects related to this project are connected. Among them are the concept of time in Buddhist philosophy, the modern visits to ancient Buddhist routes referred to in certain art pieces and accompanying texts, the legend of the Lord Buddha’s journey around the world (Tamnan Phra Chao Liab Loke) and so on. Chitti has endowed these references with pertinent significance by arranging them in the same dimension as the content of his current artistic project. In order to extend his thematic juxtaposition, the title Kala Ensemble is shared by both of Chitti's works featured in this biennale via the employment of video, sculpture and installation art. The former work is located at the museum, where viewers seem to be encouraged to appreciate each art piece individually, one at a time. The latter work, a set of installation art pieces, is situated at an archaeological site nearby. The exhibited set of several standing objects seems to resemble an organic part of the overall landscape, and its content seems to be connected to the site’s historical significance. Nonetheless, despite different locations, both spaces play a pivotal role for the study of art and religious history of the North and the whole of modern-day Thailand." - Pattara Danutra |
Cinematic Ensemble of Kailash
Multimedia installation Dimension variable The 22nd Silpa Bhirasri’s Creativity Grants 15 September - 11 November 2023 Art Centre, Silpakorn University “Cinematic Ensemble of Kailash'' presents a series of entangled ideas in sociocultural and geophysical dimensions of Mount Kailash, which is regarded as the earthly manifestation of mystic Mount Meru – the cosmic axis in spiritual cosmology. The project demonstrates the implication in continuum mechanics of Mount Kailash and Mount Meru in conjunction with the concept of spacetimemattering and a Pali word "bhava” [trans. becoming, (state of) existence], which is origin of the word “ภาพ” [trans. image, view, scene] in Thai. |
SilentDREAM
Multimedia installation Dimension variable Bangkok Art Biennale 2022 CHAOS : CALM 22 October 2022 - 23 February 2023 The Prelude One Bangkok SilentDREAM focuses on string of moments from the eve of Siamese modernity, circa 1830s, to present-day sociopolitical trajectory. It entails an active process of construction of time in Thai society. Along with transmissional signals of void and schism in contemporary social topography, images of the earliest master plan of modernity initiated by Phra Vajirayana Thera (King Rama IV) at ordination hall of Borom Niwas Temple are converted into sound waves. Being encoded as dynamism of forces, SilentDREAM demonstrates the coexistence of different time layers in the same moment, in which multidimensional structure of frequencies and digital waves are constantly diffracting, influencing and working inseparably at the exhibiting site. |
The Tenebrous Spiral Staircase of the -
A solo exhibition by Chitti Kasemkitvatana 4 September - 6 November, 2021 Gallery VER Online Journal Online talk series (VDO) Viewing Room List of works The path may be dark but an archangel is on hand to guide visitors through Chitti Kasemkitvatana’s new solo exhibition, The Tenebrous Spiral Staircase of the - at Gallery VER. Kasemkitvatana’s latest show juxtaposes recent events in Thailand’s social-political landscape against a backdrop of Siam’s modernisation, overseen by a forgotten contemporary-art duo from the 1980s and the archangel Cassiel from Wim Wenders’ Faraway, So Close! (1993). These are the characters on a stage on which items operate as devices to trigger each viewer’s own internal play. The exhibition transforms its audience into “directors” as they move from white cube to green-screen room, Cassiel ever-present as a guide on this dark and precarious staircase. Entering the gallery, audiences are invited to interpret a variety of objects. A canvas depicting a collapsed pictorial plane sits beside a sign in Ariyaka alphabet – the centrepieces in dialogue in the main gallery. Off in one corner, veiny river routes flow chemical blue to reveal fragments of things past. Walking through a door, viewers are confronted with the emptiness of material culture, an homage to an artwork featured in Korean drama Vincenzo. In a small room, wax figures of the forgotten artist-duo await to jog your memory. As suggested by its title, The Tenebrous Spiral of Staircase of -- is an open-ended space for viewers to conjure meanings based on their own experience and background. The interpretation is entirely up to you. Excerpt from Phatarawadee Phataranawik's Walking Chitti Kasemkitvatana's Tenebrous Spiral Staircase of the - |
Elliptical Glints on R. Menam, 2019
Research materials and digital print on satin (graphic work by Nattapol Rojjanarattanangkool) Dimension variable Stories We Tell To Scare Ourselves With curated by Jason Wee Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei |
Elliptical Glints on R. Menam highlights moments in the history of conflict between Siam and her neighbouring competitors for regional dominance, a history of mutual antagonism that laid the ground for Siam’s wary encounters with colonial modernity. The work is based on Chitti Kasemkitvatana’s extensive research on Thailand’s modernity, which predominately examines news archives from the 1600s to the early 1900s. The Menam River began as a misnomer used by Europeans to refer to the Chao Phraya, since menam literally means “river” in Thai. The artworks on view focus on the initial conflicts that arose when Thailand first came into contact with the West, including the Siege of Bangkok, the Bowring Treaty, and King Rama V’s visits abroad, which all unfolded alongside this important river.
Amongst these incidents, the Siamese Revolution of 1688 was a coup d'état which led to the overthrow of the pro-Western Siamese King Narai. The Siege of Bangkok was a key event of the revolution, in which the French was ousted, which would cut off all Western contacts with the Kingdom of Siam till the 19th century. The Bowring Treaty of 1855 signed between the Kingdom of Siam and the United Kingdom was, on the surface, a treaty of friendship and commerce. But it was a profoundly unequal treaty allowing free trade by the British in Bangkok and the establishment of a British consulate with extraterritorial powers. Subsequently, King Rama V embarked on international visits in the 1870', traveling to places under British colonial rule, including the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, and India, with the aim to gain insights into colonial operations and administration. All these voyages were undertaken as Rama V determined the future direction of Thailand’s modernization. In the following century, Bangkok quickly developed into a modern metropolis, which also opened the city to extensive influence from the empires in Southeast Asia. The text and photo excerpts from the archives bear witness to the ways imperialism was propagandized by Western media, as well as to the conflicts with Western powers in Southeast Asia that persist well into the next century. Jason Wee |
Untitled for W.P.K., 2018
Canvas-boards and paper in wooden frame 90 x 60 cm Encrypted / Decrypted Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok Photo: Tanatchai Bandasak |
The way these four artists develop their research is individually unique each represents a complete artistic world. Despite the difference in their works and topics that they research, they each develop their own contents keeping an individual artistic dimension. Even though the message is connected either to social or existential topics or it’s a reflection on art, this content lies on a very deep level, it lives in their artistic cosmos and never exits it, never makes the effort of approaching the public too closely, never please the public being more direct, more obvious or more agreeable. This artistic generation is finally detached from the leftover ideas of regional context, on the contrary, their art stands for itself, it’s auto substantial, it’s the kind of art that lives out of time, out of trends and is independent from its specific context. Art operates on a specific level: it lives in the intersection of meaning and sign, and an artwork is an artwork if sign and meaning are interconnected indissolubly. This “encrypted” language speaks loud by itself.
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Pont au Double (for Aleks Danko), 2017
Brass plate, photographs, a letter to Aleks Danko and photo-document of Danko's Heartbreak Amid Abstraction (For Chitti Kasemkitvatana), 2009 Dimension variable Our Studio Selves curated by Jasmin Stephens Ideas Platform, Art Space, Sydney |
Our Studio Selves presents ideas about the role of the studio contributed by artists from Australia and Southeast Asia. While it does frame artists in terms of their sites of production, it is intended to be inclusive of those without studios and whose practices are collaborative as well as those who produce and present across material and digital space. For the artists in the exhibition, the studio entails a commitment to reflection and growth which can conceivably embrace the efficacy of the journal, the pool and the laptop. The interior nature of these processes suggests the acquisition of insights that are hard-won and which may not be immediately apparent.
Until the nineteenth century, studios in Western Europe were conducted as workshops staffed by assistants which is a model that today’s large scale project-based studios are returning to. Travel, residencies and co-living are now also viewed as essential experiences which are overtaking the primacy of the studio. Despite these trends, however, there has been a proliferation of studio imagery and a revival of interest in classic texts devoted to the themes of creativity.Australian writer David Malouf offers an historical context for the exhibition. In his 2011 essay The Happy Life, he cites French philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s (1533-92) desire to retreat to a ‘little back-shop’. Noting Montaigne’s aristocratic status, Malouf acknowledges this aspiration as present in Western thinking and as a perspective that can be extended to other philosophical traditions. Any consideration of the ‘creative life’ must include Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929), her celebrated essay in which she argues that women must have the financial independence and the recognition to write in the face of patriarchal and other normative constraints.
At the same time, the exhibition is framed by the emergence of labour conditions that are characterised by the personalisation of work and a greater intolerance of idleness. Traditional notions of the studio are being challenged as much by the corporatisation of space and property as the shifting aspirations of artists.However, as these artists reflect, against the backdrop of the digital evolution of the art market, the internationalising of peer relationships and the diversification of audiences, the ‘veracity’ of the studio persists.
Jasmin Stephens
Until the nineteenth century, studios in Western Europe were conducted as workshops staffed by assistants which is a model that today’s large scale project-based studios are returning to. Travel, residencies and co-living are now also viewed as essential experiences which are overtaking the primacy of the studio. Despite these trends, however, there has been a proliferation of studio imagery and a revival of interest in classic texts devoted to the themes of creativity.Australian writer David Malouf offers an historical context for the exhibition. In his 2011 essay The Happy Life, he cites French philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s (1533-92) desire to retreat to a ‘little back-shop’. Noting Montaigne’s aristocratic status, Malouf acknowledges this aspiration as present in Western thinking and as a perspective that can be extended to other philosophical traditions. Any consideration of the ‘creative life’ must include Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929), her celebrated essay in which she argues that women must have the financial independence and the recognition to write in the face of patriarchal and other normative constraints.
At the same time, the exhibition is framed by the emergence of labour conditions that are characterised by the personalisation of work and a greater intolerance of idleness. Traditional notions of the studio are being challenged as much by the corporatisation of space and property as the shifting aspirations of artists.However, as these artists reflect, against the backdrop of the digital evolution of the art market, the internationalising of peer relationships and the diversification of audiences, the ‘veracity’ of the studio persists.
Jasmin Stephens
One moment into another. An atmospheric immersion. 2016
Mixed media installation Dimension variable Human Alienation curated by Kamolwan Boonphokaew The Art Centre Silpakorn University, Bangkok Photo: Tanatchai Bandasak |
The Art Centre Silpakorn University co-organised with the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University requests the pleasure of your company at the opening ceremony of Human AlieNation at the Art Centre, Silpakorn University Wang Thapra On Thursday 4 August 2016, 6.30 pm.
The fields of art and anthropology, despite their different working processes and approaches to practice, share one fundamental commonality: their ability to reflect situations and movements that are currently occurring in society. “Every group is other to every other group.” This statement by Thomas McEvilley, an American art critic, here serves as the point of departure for a dialogue between an anthropologist-in-training and four artists with different backgrounds and creative specialties. The topic of the dialogue is the current condition of Thai society, which is loosely described as a period of social and political transition. During this time of transformation, a group of people on one side tries hard to hold on to the way things have been, while those on another eagerly anticipate the passing of old days and the arrival of new. Ironically, by sharing the condition of being lost inside the labyrinth of cultural change, all are driven to view those living in the same culture as the other. In both the social and art worlds, there is a current effort to revive the mechanism of peer grouping based on political ideology. The act of social labelling, categorizing, and delineation as ‘friend’ or 'enemy’ is experiencing a resurgence. The consequence is the promotion of the voice of the in-group to be heard louder, while that of all others is increasingly ignored. Human AlieNation project does not only present such reflections on what people encounter in contemporary society from artists’ interpretations and perspectives, but also reveals the collaborative practice of its creators. An anthropologist-cum-curator, joins hands with a group of artists giving expression to hidden aspects of cultural politics in modern-day. In this presentation, what is visible may hide something invisible. Meanwhile, what is invisible may reveal something that should or cannot be exposed as well. Kamolwan Boonphokaew |
drift away and fall, 2016
digital prints, metal ring and card lanyard Dimension variable Encounters with Pompidou exhibition within exhibition of Museum On/Off curated by Biljana Ciric Centre Pompidou, Paris Invitation to contribution to this exhibition underlines conditions of production within large scale institutions, opening up question how to be stay independent or whether it is possible to do so within art system today?
What kind of invitation is this and what kind of cracks can actually open? Within this kind of engagement what kind of knowledge can be produced? What kind of situation could be produced? What is our input towards institution that we actually want? What kind of institution do we actually want? Can we think differently? Do we make any differences? During exhibition period number of situations will be activated to open up relations with different institutional framework of Pompidou from collection to audience questioning expectations of display. These encounters will be visible or not during exhibition differing from artist to artist and project to project revealing achievements and failures, publicly sharing and discussing our attempts. Biljana Ciric |
One moment into another. A collision. 2015
Mixed media installation Dimension variable daadgalerie, Berlin Photo: Jenz Ziehe |
For his first solo exhibition in Germany the Thai artist, Chitti Kasemkitvatana merges research and observations of geometry, particle physics, Western and Eastern philosophy as well as the cultural history of Thailand and the current political situation of the country. Various scientific proposals and poetical measurements of space–time such as Kalpa in Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist cosmology are juxtaposed, while the ancient concept of a dodecahedron-shaped universe is linked with recent findings by astrophysicists such as Jean-Pierre Luminet.
Kasemkitvatana is interested in whether different space-time concepts influence social structures and individual daily life and how these manifest themselves as dialogue or even in the form of a collision. Historical and contemporary sources of his research including models, photographs, diagrams and texts are brought together in the daadgalerie’s installation as a space for thought – its structural basis being the geometric figures pentagon and dodecahedron. In this space the scientific and philosophical theories on the use and meaning of the so-called “Roman dodecahedron”, an ancient metal object which was found at various locations in Northern Europe are discussed, fragments of wall paintings dating back to the period of King Rama IV in the Wat Baromniwas temple in Bangkok and the current resistance movement against the ruling military regime in Thailand are documented. A central role is played by Nattanan Warintarawet, a 17-year-old student from Bangkok, who submitted only an empty exam paper for the subject ‘Civil Duty’ in order to give voice to her protest against the NCPO (National Council for Peace and Order) and their established ‘12 National Core Values’, she later published a statement on her facebook page. Photographs of the mural paintings, which were completed in 1865, show the first depiction of the solar system in Thailand. The painter Khrua In Kong is considered to be one of the first painters to draw in perspective in Thailand. The wish of King Rama IV to bring about progress in the country through intensive exchange with scientists and artists from the Western world is conveyed in this mural by the parallel presence of Buddhist symbolism and Western architecture within an idealized landscape. The dodecahedron wood models, which are also presented in the exhibition, are simplified enlargements of the original artefacts. These objects are partly designed by the artist and stand, inter alia, for the speculative nature of scientific depictions. Bettina Klien |
Blossom out & die… Everyday utensils, 2014
Paintings, digital prints, candle and brass holder in cherry-wooden box and bamboo trees. Dimension variable Seymour curated by Elodie Royer, Yoann Gourmel & Bruno Persat Centre Européen d’Actions Artistiques Contemporaines, Strasbourg Photo: R.Görgen The piece Blossom out & die… Everyday utensils (2014), which was specially created for the exhibition, is based on memories of artworks produced by the artist during his monastic existence in a Buddhist retreat in northern Thailand. Inspired by these works, which were destroyed, the piece consists of two parts : five monochromes made of acrylic painting in a row of bamboo (Blossom out & die) and a handmade wooden box containing printed notes, acrylic paintings, candles and tacks (Everyday utensils), like a toolbox enabling the return to the origin of this work and its reproduction.
Elodie Royer and Yoann Gourmel |
aeon is just a second, 2014
Mixed media installation Dimension variable Never odd or eveN curated by Esther Lu Taipei Artist Village, Taipei |
In a poetic rendering and arrangement, Chitti Kasemkitvatana’s installation provides a soothing walk-through experience for audiences to contemplate upon the concept of space-time, which is illustrated in various forms and languages. Inspired by his mentor Phra Acariya Thanapiboon Rattanapunyo, the artist has been researching different cultures’ knowledge of this subject—from ancient philosophy to recent scientific research—he found that there are many references pointing to the same articulation, which proposes that the universe takes the finite shape of a dodecahedron. Such a discovery offers speculation on the space-time relation that is employed by the artist to develop his expressions and narratives to portray a sense of being.
Another trace of space-time exchange presented here is generated by Kasemkitvatana’s 2012 project One Thing after Another – Series No. 00, which was an action involving the throw of a brass coin into Yves Klein’s The Zone of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility fifty years after the original act. As a historical reenactment, the space of void creates an echo in the stream of time, and is then transferred into a new form of existence in this installation via the photo documentation cube, responding to gazes and encountering lives. The visible diagram, text, document, sculpture and image elements compose intangible relations with the fundamental principles for existence and life. It is among these mesmerizing and continuous correspondences that we come to perceive being and its transformation; history melts into a compressed point, while reality expands boundlessly with an engaging flow of ideas. Kasemkitvatana’s practice bridges a series of interventions and transmissions to address the concept of presence and absence, and permits life from the void. A story-telling action as transmission takes place at the exhibition opening completing the installation, and two dodecahedron sculptures will be sent to the source of inspiration—one to his mentor in Thailand, and the other to the scientist Jean-Pierre Luminet in Paris—to carry on their earthly journeys after the exhibition. The installation stands as a temporary garden of the universe, exuding an embracing charm to live as imprints in memories. Esther Lu |
A matter of light, 2014
Digital print and acrylic on canvas-board Dimension variable #IMWTK 338 Oida Gallery, Bangkok Photo: Tanatchai Bandasak |
#IMWTK is an abbreviation of the sentence ‘(hash-tag) Inquiring minds want to know’, which is widely used on the internet. It is usually placed after the question asked in status or post. This hash-tag system collects questions and makes it possible to retrieve them. The questions collected by #IMWTK are normally questions in general written by people who want answers, but sometimes they are just complaints or ridiculing comments about peoples’ daily lives.
The exhibition #IMWTK by Chitti Kasemkitvatana features newly produced work which is based on his related previous works recorded in the form of photographs, notes and memories, and the accumulation of this information goes through the process of translation and interpretation. This process is a transmission of knowledge that arises from the artist’s creativity and is not just limited to the work produced in the studio, which is the materialising and solidifying of ideas, but also includes studying from books and accessible articles, and also by looking and learning through moments of everyday life. The artist’s re-reading and re-interpreting of the past is not indulging in nostalgia, but is a recalling of past events in the premise that ‘no one can become what he cannot find in his memory’. The work this time is a compilation of information and the process of interpretation and revision, blended together with knowledge and current events clarifying present perspectives. It refers to the proverb ‘Knowledge is like a sword, the more often it is honed the sharper it becomes’. |
Untitled (Rebuilt), 2013
Laser-engraved perspex, digital print on paper and online archives Dimension variable One Step Forward, Two Steps Back- Us and Institution, Us as Institution curated by Biljana Ciric Times Museum, Guangzhou |
Biljana Ciric: You were invited for exhibition to come and do research in Guang Zhou to produce new piece. I remember at the very beginning before actually coming to Guang Zhou you were very interested with an idea of everyday. How did it “Untitled (Rebuilt)” project develop?
Chitti Kasemkitvatana: “Untitled (Rebuilt)” project is constructed from my observations and readings of Guangzhou. During 3 weeks stay, I took a position of a wonderer / a mute tourist, drifting though the city from one place to another. By doing so, I started to accumulate pieces of its urban tectonics, its history and its “everyday”.
I’m pretty much interested in the process of viewing, reading/interpreting and interacting with space/place and how these experiences alternate our perception and understanding. Moreover, how to transmit and articulate coherently the outcome of this process in a work of art.
With a group of volunteers at Times Museum, I have shared my observation and experiences, which is an extension from a monologue to conversation. My process to construct this piece for Times Museum is, firstly, creating meditative space for myself; exchanging viewpoints, then creating an open platform for discussion.
BC: “Untitled (Rebuilt)” has two parts and somehow it is going to be developed into the ongoing project hoping to provide new dynamics within the museum as well as creating kind of community around it. Can you tell us about your thinking behind it?
CK: It started from my curiosity and doubt whilst visiting Guangxiao Temple (Temple of Bright Filial Piety) and other places. I have learnt that during the Cultural Revolution in China in the late 60’s, religious artifacts and places had been destroyed, many artifacts had been dumped into the sea, etc… It lead me to question whether what stood in front of me was the real/original or it was a duplicated version that rebuilt after that period. Beside, whilst surfing on internet for more information, I found nothing to fill the missing piece of history. Even on-site info-board, the timeline of many places seemed to leave out the 60’s. Once in a meeting with volunteers and talked with few persons, I have learnt that this doubt was not mine alone.
So, I proposed the volunteers, then the curator to construct an archive of oral history/story of Guangzhou. It may be pass-on story within family, rumors, some story that has been around but never be official or recorded, or, some thought/reflection of curtain subjects and/or places that might be muted. The archive could be materials for interested body for further research.
BC: Most of your works touches on different levels upon void. Where does interest come from?
CK: I have been interested in the idea of space, spatial idea and its narration from the beginning of my art practice. Later, positive and negative connotations of “void”, especially in the linguistic and philosophy. The idea of empty space is not null; empty room is not void; everything which is solid and tangible lie upon “emptiness” / “void”; room filled with furniture could be seen as empty; void as interval, void as an open-space/platform… all these ideas, for me, are pretty much related in Buddhist practice.
I’m particularly interested in the idea of porosity of things, namely, the tangible and the intangible; form and non-form; the politic and the poetic; the mimesis and the real. More importantly, space in between of those and space that hold those together. All these ideas are not only critical in my art practice but tools for interpreting life.
BC: How will “Untitled (Rebuilt)” be presented? What are references?
CK: This piece has two parts, first, an installation at Time Museum. This part consists of blow-up footpath sign commonly found in Guangzhou. This sign is used to indicate what is underneath, normally made of stainless steel. I used laser-engraved Perspex in order to create weightless / mute sign engraved “fill the void” in Chinese. It came from my expression in words when trying to inform others regarding this project. Next to Perspex sign, an A2 poster lies on the museum floor. It consists of stories and image from my research, which will link to online blog.
The other is an online blog 补空, which will be an archive of stories collected and produced prior to the exhibition. Hopefully, it will be added up and develop as part of the Museum project.
Untitled (Rebuilt) - interview, first published in the exhibition brochure, Guangdong Times Museum, 2013
Chitti Kasemkitvatana: “Untitled (Rebuilt)” project is constructed from my observations and readings of Guangzhou. During 3 weeks stay, I took a position of a wonderer / a mute tourist, drifting though the city from one place to another. By doing so, I started to accumulate pieces of its urban tectonics, its history and its “everyday”.
I’m pretty much interested in the process of viewing, reading/interpreting and interacting with space/place and how these experiences alternate our perception and understanding. Moreover, how to transmit and articulate coherently the outcome of this process in a work of art.
With a group of volunteers at Times Museum, I have shared my observation and experiences, which is an extension from a monologue to conversation. My process to construct this piece for Times Museum is, firstly, creating meditative space for myself; exchanging viewpoints, then creating an open platform for discussion.
BC: “Untitled (Rebuilt)” has two parts and somehow it is going to be developed into the ongoing project hoping to provide new dynamics within the museum as well as creating kind of community around it. Can you tell us about your thinking behind it?
CK: It started from my curiosity and doubt whilst visiting Guangxiao Temple (Temple of Bright Filial Piety) and other places. I have learnt that during the Cultural Revolution in China in the late 60’s, religious artifacts and places had been destroyed, many artifacts had been dumped into the sea, etc… It lead me to question whether what stood in front of me was the real/original or it was a duplicated version that rebuilt after that period. Beside, whilst surfing on internet for more information, I found nothing to fill the missing piece of history. Even on-site info-board, the timeline of many places seemed to leave out the 60’s. Once in a meeting with volunteers and talked with few persons, I have learnt that this doubt was not mine alone.
So, I proposed the volunteers, then the curator to construct an archive of oral history/story of Guangzhou. It may be pass-on story within family, rumors, some story that has been around but never be official or recorded, or, some thought/reflection of curtain subjects and/or places that might be muted. The archive could be materials for interested body for further research.
BC: Most of your works touches on different levels upon void. Where does interest come from?
CK: I have been interested in the idea of space, spatial idea and its narration from the beginning of my art practice. Later, positive and negative connotations of “void”, especially in the linguistic and philosophy. The idea of empty space is not null; empty room is not void; everything which is solid and tangible lie upon “emptiness” / “void”; room filled with furniture could be seen as empty; void as interval, void as an open-space/platform… all these ideas, for me, are pretty much related in Buddhist practice.
I’m particularly interested in the idea of porosity of things, namely, the tangible and the intangible; form and non-form; the politic and the poetic; the mimesis and the real. More importantly, space in between of those and space that hold those together. All these ideas are not only critical in my art practice but tools for interpreting life.
BC: How will “Untitled (Rebuilt)” be presented? What are references?
CK: This piece has two parts, first, an installation at Time Museum. This part consists of blow-up footpath sign commonly found in Guangzhou. This sign is used to indicate what is underneath, normally made of stainless steel. I used laser-engraved Perspex in order to create weightless / mute sign engraved “fill the void” in Chinese. It came from my expression in words when trying to inform others regarding this project. Next to Perspex sign, an A2 poster lies on the museum floor. It consists of stories and image from my research, which will link to online blog.
The other is an online blog 补空, which will be an archive of stories collected and produced prior to the exhibition. Hopefully, it will be added up and develop as part of the Museum project.
Untitled (Rebuilt) - interview, first published in the exhibition brochure, Guangdong Times Museum, 2013
One thing after another, 2012
Series of intervention in Paris Series n° 00 (above) Series n°01 (below) Dimension variable Mount Fuji Does Not Exist curated by Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel Le Plateau, Paris Photo: Martin Argyroglo |
being trying to understand itself, 2011
MDF, acrylic, white paint and orange Dimension variable The Feeling of Things curated by Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel Le Plateau, Paris Photo: Martin Argyroglo |
mo(nu)ment / […] / memor(y)ial, 2011
Mixed media installation Dimension variable The Feeling of Things curated by Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel Le Plateau, Paris Photo: Martin Argyroglo |
“Ranjeet, could you be our guide to that mountain in front of us?” K asked one of villagers. “Can we walk up there?”
“Yes, guruji.” Ranjeet replied with doubtful voice. “There’s a shepherd’s track, sir.” He added. “Where do you want to go? There’s nothing up there, unless guruji want to see the view.” “There’s a stone pagoda on a cliff with a cave nearby” K said with a smile. “We have to find the place.” “How do you know?” Ranjeet wondered. … Cold breeze touched his skin, K felt something exhilarating in his vein and rushed to his heart. On a gigantic rock, he stood still, speechless. At that very moment, K felt gentle wind coming out from a crack on a rock nearby. He moved closer. “What a pleasing scent!” He uttered. Then, he moved toward a shrub next to cedar tree. “No, it’s not from this plant.” “what’s that scent from?” K wondered. And, suddenly, it’d gone… He sat there under cedar tree looking out to the view. K felt so light. His body was weightless. The air was so thin, he couldn’t feel his breath. Right at that moment, he felt inside his body was hollow, as if his body was porous. … K closed his eyes. Suddenly, refined grids appeared upon the darkness within his vision. An image of a stone pagoda on top of a mountain appeared. Next to it, snowed up cedar trees. K slowly opened his eyes, that image’s still in sight layering on top of what’s in front of him. … Sangla Valley, Himachal Pradesh February, 2010 |
Fall Silent/Mysterious Flights, 2011
Mixed media installation with an intervention by Henry Tan Dimension variable curated by Brian Curtin H Gallery, Bangkok Photo: Kornkrit Jianpinidnan |
On long flights across continents we are typically informed of the times at our origin and destination by a digital screen. The places below us as we travel, however perceptible or imperceptible, exist without time and seemingly disappear, becoming void. Space and time merge and place becomes non-place. We are contained above and experience our journey as a state of in-between-ness; the experience of void.
Love is also the experience of such. Love for an object, an experience or a person. Much can disappear in view of a loved other. In the practice of meditation, void is a state that occurs when we detach ourselves to a profound degree. By maintaining stillness we experience timelessness and non-place. Void is emptiness, detachment and an interval. |
Untitled (when 2 becomes 1 book), 2011 (above)
Mixed media installation Dimension variable Public Collection, 2011 (below) Mixed media installation Dimension variable Tomorrow was yesterday Williams Warren Library, Jim Thompson Art Centre, Bangkok Photo: Punsiri Siriwetchapun This Exhibition responds to Aleks Danko’s installation piece entitled HEARTACHE AMID ABSTRACTION (For Chitti Kasemkitvatana), exhibited at Sutton Gallery in Melbourne, 2009.
MISSION / PROCESS In this exhibition Kasemkitvatana wishes to respond to inquiries on his art practice, as an artist and curator, in relation to his practice as a Buddhist monk. Essences and ideas of various pieces produced during 1992 – 2000 will be transmitted and given another forms. It’s not his intention to duplicate works from the past. He would rather work with ideas and experiences accumulated through years in both the arts and monkshood. The outcome of this approach will be the crystallization of artistic and spiritual life. He believes what we have done in life is our own approach to spiritual construction. In fact, he feels there is no boundary between artistic and spiritual lives. If there is a boundary, that boundary is porous. |