The heyday of relentless spending amidst the tidal wave of global consumer culture during the last decade has ground to a virtual halt. The pain of the recent recession has induced a decaying crisis of faith and confidence. Still reeling from the loss – huge unemployment, wage cuts, downsizing and mental stress – we are capsized in a consciousness where the present is wrought with disillusionment and the future is uncertain and unfathomable.

What we know and don’t know, what we hide from or confront, what we will or won’t do from this untenable experience makes one question who is right or wrong? We are, in effect, living in economic and social limbo.

...WRONG PLACE, the new solo exhibition by Kamin Lertchaiprasert, effectually deals with the reasoning behind the current vicissitudes of the region’s political, economic and cultural strife. An installation combining three-dimensional materials with two-dimensional illusionary effects, the artworks were created not just for an audience, but as an internal dialogue, part of the artist’s attempt to comprehend the current global situation.

For the exhibition Lertchaiprasert has produced 24 monochrome paintings and wood sculptures. These artworks were selected and then re-created from his “Sitting series”, a series of 366 charcoal drawings and small wood carved sculptures systematically produced daily over a year. With an intense spirituality, the illustrated figures show meditative gestures corresponding to the artist’s daily emotions and situations.

An installation appears in the form of two pink buffaloes facing off against a painting propped against a large double-sided mirror. The entire gallery floor scattered with colourful flowers, adding an extra element of theatricality to the environment. The artwork was inspired by Lertchaiprasert’s artist friend, Sompoch Aung, who composed a painting of a disoriented running buffalo unable to feed amidst a field of flowers – a case of being in the wrong place. The painting gave birth to Lertchaiprasert’s installation in relation to the present circumstances of a society losing its way.

Structurally, the exhibition manages to be both involved and detached. It takes visitors on a journey, forming a picture of interplays and overlapping meanings, opening broader associations that begin an inner dialogue through the installation’s ethereal experience.

Brief Profile
Kamin Lertchaiprasert was selected as an “Outstanding Young Artist of the Year” in 1987 when he was still only a student in Silpakorn University. Shortly after graduation, he left for New York to further his studies at The Art Student league of New York. Currently based in Chiangmai, in northern Thailand, the artist documents his everyday phenomena and ideas through drawing, painting, printmaking, installation and sculpture etc. The monumental cycle of human existence, particularly his own living nature, the ordinary/extraordinary of the everyday, and other concepts linked to the relationships between art and life, have become an integral part of Lertchaiprasert’s conceptual framework. He has participated in many international expositions, including the 2nd Asia-Pacific Triennial in Queensland, Australia, Artistic Interruptions – Art in Nordland project in Gildeskal, Norway (2005), and the 50th Venice Biennale.

Curator:
Josef Ng