Thai Art Exhibition

SUTEE KUNAVICHAYANONT: FLOATING
29 APRIL - 31 OCTOBER 2011
Opening Reception on 29 April 2011, 7pm
Exhibition to be launched as part of What The Festival – 29-30 April 2011

WTF Gallery is pleased to announce an installation of sculpture, Floating, by Sutee Kunavichayanont and the special pre-show offer available from now until 30 April 2011.
Floating is a work that invites you to contemplate beyond the physical realm. The sculptures are detached from the earth — like a consciousness set free. How so? From dreaming, meditating, taking drugs and alcohol or affected by a magic spell? Is it floating because of imagination, reality or deception?
Sutee Kunavichayanont is a leading Thai artist who encourages the viewer to directly and indirectly to participate in his work. Sutee asks the viewer to question, act and react to his works as well as to question themselves and the circumstances around them. Artistic themes that are prevalent in his work are strongly linked to the history and customs of Thailand. Overall his work is sensitive to art, history, politics, his audience and his materials. He uses various mediums including, fiber glass, neon, school desks, metal and gold leafing.
He has had numerous exhibitions in Thailand, Australia, France, Germany, and Korea. His solo exhibtions have been presented by Phuket 346 (Thailand), 100 Tonson Gallery (Thailand), Atelier Frank & Lee (Singapore) Thai Art Foundation (The Netherlands) Optica (Canada) and Musashino Art University (Japan). He also co-curated Thailand’s contribution to the 2005 Venice Biennale. Sutee is also a well known writer and art critic.
Installations of Sutee's have been acquisitioned by H+F Collection (The Netherlands), Singapore Art Museum (Singapore),Thai Farmers Bank PCL (Thailand), Thai Investment and Securities PCL. (Thailand), LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore),Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), Queensland Art Gallery (Australia) and Mori Art Museum (Japan).


Art Work Description:
Year: 2011
Technique: Fiberglass
Dimension: Life size
Material:Fiber glass; Yellow Neon
Edition of 9


Special offers from now until 30 April 2011: Pre-show sale price of 80,000 Baht per sculpture (excluding VAT). After 30 April 2011: 100,000 Baht per sculpture (excluding VAT)


For further information please contact:
Somrak Sila – Managing DirectorTel: (66) 2 662 6246, (66) 89 926 5474
Email: somrak@wtfbangkok.com

WTF Café & Gallery
7 Sukhumvit Soi 51, Wattana, Klongton-Nua, Bangkok 10110
www.wtfbangkok.com
BTS: Thonglor
Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 3pm - 1am
Free Admission

Longing for Siam, Inventing Thailand
by Sutee Kunavichayanont
December 23, 2010 at 6 pm.( Artist live performance)

Exhibition Period: December 16, 2010 - January 15, 2011.Monday - Saturday,10 am. - 6 pm.
Performance: Artist live - Drawing on Black Wall 16 – 23 December 2010 (appointment only)
Exhibition Venue : Number 1 Gallery, The Silom Galleria Bld., Bangkok.

Number1Gallery proudly presents Longing for Siam, Inventing Thailand, by Sutee Kunavichayanont an exhibition of contemporary art that yearns for a past when Thailand, her borders constantly shifting and indeed sometimes contracting even as she sought territorial expansion, was on the brink of becoming a powerful nation.

Sutee Kunavichayanont is a leading Thai artist who first came to prominence in 1998 with his elephant, buffalo and tiger-shaped breath donation sculptures crafted from rubber. A second seminal series, History Class, was begun in 2000. Interactive, the series, appearing in several forms from the turn of the century, is composed of re-appropriated children’s wooden school desks that the artist has engraved with scenes illustrating Siamese/Thai history. Extending an invitation to all viewers to make rubbings from the engraved surfaces of the desks, Sutee is in fact giving his audience the opportunity to produce their own Thai political history text books.

Sutee had participated in several significant international art events such as 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Arts (1999) in the United Kingdom, and the 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia (2006). His works are in the collections of prominent art museums and galleries worldwide including the Mori Art Museum, Japan, The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan, the Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, and the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. In 2006, Sutee received a prestigious Manas Siensing Red Award 2 from the Pridi Banomyong Institute for his outstanding artistic creations and art related contributions.

Longing for Siam, Inventing Thailand, is a solo exhibition featuring Sutee’s latest body of works. With these new works, the artist invites viewers to look back at “Thai Mai” (New Thailand) from the 1930s to 1940s, a period when national unity was being built, the government using art to construct the nation. The show aims to offer a flashback to a time when the Kingdom of Siam’s early borders were being drawn. And during those years when the Kingdom’s physical outline was evolving, the “hats and shoes” were striving to make Thailand a powerful nation and extremely patriotic state.


Longing for Siam, Inventing Thailand is an installation comprising 600 small plaster soldiers, stop-motion video projections, and a video performance of the artist drawing on a huge black wall. The installation is presented in a setting designed to evoke the historical period preoccupied with the leadership’s slogan “Mala Nam Thai Soo Maha Umnaj” [The hats that lead Thailand to become a great nation.]. Viewers will be encouraged to participate in national map-making in an atmosphere that, thanks to old patriotic songs and tunes, recalls those long-ago times.

For more information please contact Khun Korakot Sridee
Tel: 083 445 8333, 02 630 2523
www.number1gallery.com

Half-Truth : Works by Sutee Kunavichayanont

     Synopsis:  Renowned contemporary Thai artist Sutee Kunavichayanaont shows 14 works in an exciting variety of mediums: from lazer-cut metal sheets to resin sculptures, neon light works and gold-leaf paintings.  He develops and re-visits his themes of values, perceptions, culture, and politics and engages the viewer in questioning hard held assumptions about today’s society.

     Bangkok preview cocktail: 2nd February 2010 at 6pm, Met Bar - The Metropolitan, South Sathorn Rd.

     Show moves to Galeria 346, at Phuket 346, Phuket Town, Tuesday 9th February, 4pm until the end of April 2010
Organizer:  Phuket 346   www.phuket346
Enquiries:  phuket346@gmail.com






     Synopsis:  Renowned contemporary Thai artist Sutee Kunavichayanaont shows 14 works in an exciting variety of mediums: from lazer-cut metal sheets to resin sculptures, neon light works and gold-leaf paintings.  He develops and re-visits his themes of values, perceptions, culture, and politics and engages the viewer in questioning hard held assumptions about today’s society.

     Bangkok preview cocktail: 2nd February 2010 at 6pm, Met Bar - The Metropolitan, South Sathorn Rd.

     Show moves to Galeria 346, at Phuket 346, Phuket Town, Tuesday 9th February, 4pm until the end of April 2010
Organizer:  Phuket 346   www.phuket346  
Enquiries:  phuket346@gmail.com