FROM THE PAST, INTO THE FUTURE
Continuing our series of emerging Thai artists, we go inside the mind of Korakrit Arunanondchai
There are t hree versions of Korakrit Arunanondchai, one of Thailand’s hottest mavericks whose works have been shown internationally in recent years: first, Korakrit in person, who isn’t the most comprehensible of talkers; second, the Korakrit he professes himself to be, which is a jeans-clad, fiery-haired, spontaneous painter and gangster/rapper performance artist.
But most importantly, there’s the Korakrit that you can sense from his body of work — honest, poignant, funny and warm.
The 28-year-old studied fine arts at Rhode Island School of Design and later a master’s degree at Columbia University, where he studied with prominent Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Korakrit’s paintings, installations and video art have been exhibited worldwide, including a major show at MoMA PS1 in New York last year, as well as at Clearing gallery in Brussels and New York, and at the Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery in London.
The engine that drives all of this is a curious hybrid: while his sensibility is largely experimental and avantgarde, and his style influenced by years spent in the United States, the essence of his art is a soul-baring struggle to look into himself and his roots and relate them to a wider context.
“You are a Thai artist but in an American context,” recounted Korakrit of what Rirkrit, an internationally-acclaimed Thai contemporary artist known for his phad Thai- cooking art, once said to him about his early works.
“One day you’re gonna go back and if you show your work in Thailand, people will only be able to access your art at the surface.”
Rirkrit, who knows a thing or two about being a Thai artist in the international context (or vice versa), even suggested the young man become a monk to understand more about his roots.
Korakrit was hurt. When he was a student in Rhode Island, Korakrit sought to learn from Rirkrit by applying for an internship with him. The job turned out to be arranging bookshelves at Rirkrit’s home. Korakrit never got to see his mentor, because Rirkrit was never home. And yet, it was because of Rirkrit that Korakrit went on to earn a master’s degree at Columbia University.
He was going to become a monk if it wasn’t for his grandfather, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. Korakrit instead decided to spend more time with his grandparents in Bangkok. That was also when he took up video as his new medium. It was the beginning of the three-year-long video trilogy — 2012-2555, 2556 and 2557 (Painting With History In A Room Filled With Men With Funny Names), which was to become the core of his body of works and what he’s recognised for today. (The numbers signifies the year, in AD and BE).
At exhibitions, each of these video pieces is shown alongside installation works and paintings, which were mostly produced during the video production. At MoMA PS1, he projected 2012-2555 amid a collage of burnt denim patches, mannequins and bleached pillows. Later this year, the trilogy will be exhibited at the prestigious Palais de Tokyo, alongside new works and a video, Korakrit is currently working on.
Last week he delivered a lecture about his artistic career to a full house at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, and our interview continued in a taxi as Korakrit was on his way to a video shoot at a crocodile farm in Samut Prakan. He wanted “the farm staff to dress in jeans I designed and stand with either a crocodile, an elephant or a tiger while I rap in the front”. This new video is to be an addition to his new show in Paris.
“That summer [when I spent a lot of time with my grandfather] I started to become that annoying friend in a group who takes his camera everywhere and records everything,” says Korakrit. “That was the beginning of a new project I have continued until now. It’s basically a film following the life of an artist for three years, from that summer in 2012 up to 2014.”
Each episode in the video trilogy is about 20 minutes long. The two-channel video in 2012-2555 is very apt. While one channel mostly features footage of past works, at times with himself pondering at his own work, the other channel is footage of the peaceful lives of his grandparents at home, his grandmother would be around in the backyard or cutting flowers in the garden, while his grandfather plays his favourite tunes on the piano. At times, Korakrit would have them look at the television, which features the other video channel which shows him and his works.
Later on in the video, Korakrit becomes a lost man in the jungle, very much reminiscent of the jungle man in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film Tropical Malady. He later dies on-screen and is floated away into the sea. All this is also watched by his grandparents on the other video channel. It is as if he is trying to connect his life as an artist in the US with his roots, with his family and with Thailand. Though some would question the work’s conceptual originality, the pieces are full of bravado of an artist attempting to simultaneously find himself and re-create himself. His grandparents’ still and unresponsive poise while watching his work, has given the video an innocently sad undertone of Korakrit’s art world, which has yet to find a way to connect with his background.
“This was my thesis for Columbia University,” says Korakrit. “The installation work accompanying it was Thai funeral altar-like and that was me dying to be reborn. The video features my past works back to 2009 up to 2012, and this is me looking back in order to go forward. The video is to create a form for the formless like memories and feelings.”
Korakrit says the video 2556 is the “purgatory” stage during which he was waiting to be reborn. It’s the period of time when he’s deciding what to become, what kind of artist he was to create of himself. The video humorously refers the Thailand’s Got Talent scandal three years ago when a female contestant bared her breasts and painted on a canvas with her body. The news footage of the controversial incident is alternated with Korakrit trying discover himself as an artist in a forest near a lake. After a series of surreal and humorous incidents that have no fixed logic, the episode ends with Korakrit painting on a canvas with his body — like that contestant.
“The production of my art is very systematic, except for the video editing part,” says Korakrit. “I would sit in a studio one whole week, with coffee and all the footage I took that year and start working on it like how you would with paint on a canvas in a very romantically artistic sense. It’s the only process in my art production where you can say I’m being most random, following wherever my emotions lead me.”
Like the first episode which features his grandparents, in the final instalment 2557 (Painting With History In A Room Filled With Men With Funny Names), Korakrit is joined by his twin brother, Korapat. They travel together, in the US and in Thailand, including a visit to Thai Buddhist-traditionalist artist Chalermchai Kositpipat’s Wat Rong Khun, where the brothers are inspired by the temple’s contemporary and unconventional style.
This video, along with paintings and installations work, were presented as 2557 (Painting With History In A Room Filled With Men With Funny Names 2) at the Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery in London last year. His more recent exhibition include “Letters To Chantri #1: The Lady At The Door/The Gift That Keeps On Giving (Feat. Boychild)” at The Mistake Room in LA, where many of the elements for his installation works were drawn from the same video.
The New York Times called him “a kind of countercultural sprite, particularly when he’s disrobed and using his body as a paintbrush”, while the Huffington Post described his show at MoMA PS1 as “calming, meditative, and mesmerising”. That and more. With a few international shows lined up this year, including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Art Basel in Hong Kong, Korakrit has come a long way from a teenager who told his parents he wanted to study design so he could come back to Thailand and make clothes.
As a young boy at Bangkok Christian College, Korakrit loved to draw cartoons “even when we were getting too old and all my friends had quit”. He played cover versions of Bodyslam songs and tried songwriting to impress girls. At the Rhode Island School of Design, he first studied graphic design but soon changed to printmaking.
It was when he enrolled in the fine art course that his career path dramatically shifted, since the course taught him about the freedom and limitless possibilities he could do with art.
“Clothes design and sale has then become a source for my art productions, those big installation works that needed a lot of funding,” says Korakrit. “During my second year, I took an internship with a graphic-design company and they suggested I become an artist instead. They said it’s because I did best when I did something for myself and that I woke up late. So in my third year, I took up painting and concentrated more on art.”
Before enrolling at Columbia University, Korakrit spent a year struggling with his fellow artists in New York, living frugally to pay for a shared studio where they worked and organised artist-run shows.
“The experience taught me a lot,” says Korakrit. “I had to fend for myself, finding opportunities for myself. With the depression and no connection, it was impossible to sell your works.”
At Columbia University, Korakrit simply learned that art isn’t about burying oneself in a studio and then emerging with a great piece of art as he used to think.
“I read a lot more, theories and art history, and I watched a lot of films,” said Korakrit. “I learned that a good artist connects himself with time, it’s no longer the romantic concept of the talented, it’s all about perseverance. It’s about how to be the best creator in your own context and that’s my role and my job.”
It was with his thesis work that he started to catch attention from curators, including one from the Sculpture Center, which later included Korakrit in a group show. Later, it was only a matter of time before Korakrit started to be recognised. At 5am one fateful day on a yacht, Korakrit got to meet up with a renowned curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist and show him his work on a laptop. Later that day Obrist took the director of MoMA PS1 to see Korakrit’s works at the Sculpture Center. A year later, Korakrit had a solo show at MoMA PS1. That was the beginning of a lot more opportunities to come.
“I don’t spend a lot of money these days, what I can save up, it’s all for my art,” says Korakrit. “My paintings can usually sell but my art is never about an individual object, but the experience of being in an exhibition among all elements — the videos, the installations and the paintings.”