Contemporary Art Tokyo to feature Thai Artists (and Adamu, sort of)

Translated from the museum’s official site (edited as needed):

The First Exhibit to Offer an Expansive Look at Thailand’s Modern Art History

mitemithai-644_1_3.JPGFrom April 18-May 20, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo will hold Show Me Thai, an exhibit jointly produced by the Kingdom of Thailand’s Office of Contemporary Arts and Culture, to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Thai-Japanese friendship.

This is the first attempt to take an expansive look at Thailand’s contemporary art history. The exhibit will take visitors from the country’s early contacts with Japanese culture, which started before World War II and progressed through Japan’s era of high economic growth (1955-1975), to the time of high GDP growth in Thailand (1986-1996), when the Buddhist kingdom absorbed massive amounts of Japanese pop culture, including manga, music, and fashion, all the way to the present day.

A diverse array of pieces, including paintings, sculptures, mixed media, video, installations, cinema, animation, and music will be displayed throughout the museums’s exhibition space. And that’s not all – the artists themselves will be there to participate in performances and panel discussions.

Among the 60 artists and groups participating (Links lead to samples, mostly, or at least a picture of the artist):

Pinaree Sanpitak (painter)
Rirkrit Tiravanija (installations/mixed media)
Nobuyoshi Araki (photographer)
Sutee Kunavichayanont
Navin Rawanchikul (mixed media, lives in Fukuoka)
Wisut Ponnimit
Yasumasa Morimura
Ichi Ikeda
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (filmmaker whose filmography includes “Blissfully Yours,” a romance that was showcased in a non-competing section of the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the more interestingly titled “The Adventure of Iron Pussy”)
Yoshitomo Nara (pop artist who has done Shonen Knife album art and is the subject of a recent documentary)

The museum is open from 10AM-6PM, and will be closed on all Mondays save for April 30. The museum is easily accessible by Tokyo Metro, Kiyosumi-Shirakawa (清澄白河) Station on the Hanzaemon and Oedo Lines.

Disclaimer/self-promotion – I learned of this event because a translation I did about Thai-Japanese contemporary art exchange will be featured in the exhibit’s ‘art catalogue,’ with full ‘translator’ credit! This doesn’t exactly mean a whole lot, but I’m pretty excited to go see this, not least because this is my first time being published but also because I just might get to take in more Thai culture in Tokyo than I did when I lived in Bangkok.

4 thoughts on “Contemporary Art Tokyo to feature Thai Artists (and Adamu, sort of)”

  1. You’ve got to be kidding me. That seems like the most overblown bunch of crap ever, but they were broadcasting that nonstop on Fox news (only US news site at the beach) when the goddamn Iraqi parliament was on fire.

    I will board the plane to Japan in 5 minutes!!! Cant wait

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