Surasi Kusolwong's remarkable UCCA installation focuses on consumerism in a way of human activity that breaks with classic form. People can touch and participate in the artwork in a way that normally never happens in exhibition spaces. By reversing this system of values and the hierarchy of the art market, Kusolwong enables a fever around his work to create a commitment and exchange between art and visitor. He creates no frustrations or distance with visitors as they come together in this field of desires; rather he re-appropriates the exchange form of the consumer society itself and turns it into moments of happiness.

                                                                                                                   - Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director
 
Surasi Kusolwong: The Dissipation of Separation between"Life" and "Art"

"Only when our life is entrusted fully to our own histories rather than catalogued as an object within history's landscape, can we have a meaningful interpretation of the concept of life." (Walter Benjamin)
Thai artists more often entangle their thinking with the loss of spirit in exchange for value, they sharply point out political discord within society, and they rethink the apparently "developed" morbid emotion of society misinterpreted and vulgarized by the public. They tend to explore inner spiritual expression, religious redemption, and consider how to release our minds from the pressure and troubles produced by this complex modern society. Their creativity often originates within Thai traditions, legends and the contemporary experience.

As those with a keen observation of the globalization process, artists refine and express their individuality through art, continuously pondering questions of identity and ethnicity; they probe and define their identity while still preserving their natural instincts to showcase a unique cultural perspective. Surasi Kusolwong is a fine representative in this regard. Kusolwong's works typically encourages public participation by embracing the daily (psychological) experience as an integral component in his artworks, as he did with Thai message and market stall setups in other museums. With this great embrace serving as his artistic theme, it would seem that he pushes art and everyday life into ambiguous territories, but in fact, Kusolwong tears through the bounds that keep people believing what's commonly accepted but not actually understood to discuss the linguistic concepts that extend the psychological experience.

Golden Ghost reflects upon the psychological issues of a consumer society. Kusolwong skillfully integrates traditional tales with our modern narrative; he transforms the exhibition space into a place for thinking and experiencing such issues of consumption. In this space, the artist reveals our "Golden" capitalist desires and the "Ghost" of our hidden human attributes, inciting a subtle disquiet among participants.

Kusolwong's work challenges the common knowledge base and established perception of "art", allowing the complexities of his investigations to brim over with a great deal of creative possibilities. He is an artist widely acknowledged within the international art scene and rightly so.
                                                                                                        - Guo Xiaoyan, UCCA Chief Curator

Artist Statment

An Installation with hidden treasure. A space occupied by industrial thread waste; the meltdown of the world economy. In the middle of the space, three mirrored walls reflect everything happening inside like an ephemeral Rorschach test. Like a ghost that forms and continues changing by its own possibility.

I hide a number of gold necklaces with Golden Ghost symbols. When you enter into the space, you can’t see them, but you know they are there. You can feel them. If you want to, you can try to find them amongst the thread waste landscape. It's good when people can have experience, and if lucky enough, they may get real gold things from this piece. The process - people start to step onto the installation, hunt for the hidden gold, find them and take them away, it will create a ripple of rumors, via word of mouth, that some valuable things can be taken from the museum space. It gives new sense and meaning to the words "missing" or "disappearing" work of art. The missing that makes the completion of the work is by the hands of the audience.

Gold is a cultural value of civilization. It has been connected to the route between East and West since ancient times. Gold is Gold, a great commodity for all time. To work with it and appreciate its value is fascinating, but to let it go is, for me, even more fascinating.

In fact, it is a social game. Action by all for all; a situation in which everyone is active and passive as participant and spectator at the same time. This work creates a situation that shifts temporary and extended perception, not only physical participation, but also with possibilities offered by the artist's intention through aesthetic imagination mixed with direct experience; the tension between necessity, desire, hope, failure or happiness. This is an approach towards the real world..