The life and works of Chatchai Puipia are shown as part of a new online archival and exhibition project
FOUR YEARS ago, artist Chatchai Puipia bid farewell to an art scene that he found "noisy and chaotic" by hosting his own "funeral" in Central Chidlom's Event Hall. The event also saw the launch of a memorial book titled "Chatchai is Dead. If Not, He Should Be" - a massive compilation of his work with laments for the dead written by friends and family.
The self-proclaimed recluse has lived in solitude ever since, refusing to show his work or himself to the public. While several of his paintings, some of them newly created, along with a selection of his sketches and working materials are currently on view at Bangkok's 100 Tonson Gallery, the artist is staying true to himself and keeping away.
The show marks the launch of 100ArtistArchives.com, a new digital resource for the documentation and study of the lives and works of some of Thailand's most progressive contemporary artists.
Funded by 100 Tonson Gallery, this online archival platform is being developed by Thai Art Archives - a non-profit research and archiving centre co-founded by independent curator Gregory Galligan and his wife Patri Vienravi. While the gallery does not represent Chatchai, though it does own many of his works, it has sunk a considerable amount of money into this showcase.
A selection of his paintings demonstrating the development of his work from the 1980s to the present along with curatorial essays are on show in the first part of the project through August 31. Full access to Chatchai's resources including a comprehensive biography and bibliography, related documents and other curatorial essays should be online in September and the second part of the project will be showcased from then until January.
"The show does not attempt to be comprehensive or offer a complete chronology, but seeks to demonstrate, visually, the importance of an 'archival' study that takes into account lesser-known aspects of his life and work, and how those aspects are present in his work throughout his career," says curator Galligan, who founded the Thai Art Archives slightly more than four years ago.
"The second part will take the form of a more contemporary, creative installation."
Chatchai is best known for his self-portraits, some of them showing him with a manic grin, staring and naked with a face contorted in fury and others showing him gloomy, evoking thoughts of loss and despair. All are as playful and humorous as they are cuttingly satirical. Set in a museum-like installation complete with instructive wall labels, the show presents some of his abstract works developed during his years at Silpakorn University (1983-1988) and shortly after his graduation.
Missing from the exhibition is his "Siamese Smile" series that grabbed global attention in 1995, the deranged lunatic grin mocking the notion of a Land of Smiles. Rather visitors will see some of his paintings assailing the high prices paid for art. Based on some of the most costly masterpieces in the world, the artist recreated masterpieces like Vincent Van Gogh's sunflowers and hollyhocks and Paul Cezanne's still life with onions in charcoal and wax and singed them with fire to reverse their values.
Standing at the centre of the gallery is a glass case containing a selection of personal effects, artistic materials and printed matter chosen by Chatchai himself. They includes sketches, a palette and paint scraps and the books that have inspired him like "Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal" by Paul Gauguin and Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". There's also a copy of the arts magazine published by the Leg Up Society, which was set up by Chatchai and his art-loving friends to raise funds for artists keen to produce works that will have an impact on society.
Galligan says Chatchai deserves to be the project's inaugural artist because "his work has not only made a historic impact on Thai contemporary art over the last quarter century, but come to represent larger concepts regarding Thai individual and collective identity in the early 21st century."
"His work encompasses a wide range of expressive and symbolic content, while bringing together both regional and foreign sources. We refer in the current show to his mastery of 'Thai magic realism', because after mastering a form of Thai abstraction, he went on to invent a form of realism and other fantastic imagery," he says.
The website should be widely available to the public within the next few years. No timetable has been set for the selection or documentation of new artists though Galligan says that in the initial stages at least, artists will be selected based on readiness of supporting materials and/or wide demand for comprehensive information.
Evaluation criteria, he adds, include consideration of the artist's development to date, his/her regional and international impact, the availability of materials for documentation/digitisation and the artist's availability for an extended period of collaboration.
"There are a number of challenges and difficulties. The first of these is probably the comparatively recent understanding by artists of the need to preserve such materials for history," Galligan explains.
"Thailand still lacks a public institution dedicated to the collecting of major, progressive (avant-garde), contemporary art works. That contributes to a general lack of understanding of why the collecting and preservation, including digitising, of artistic ephemera is so critically important."
Chatchai doesn't disagree. Speaking to The Sunday Nation on the phone, he is quick to point out that launching this artist archive project was not his idea.
"But if it has to be done, it should be accurate. After countless interviews with Galligan, I decided to buy the copyright to the material database - which is only part of my works - developed by the project team. I'm now the sole claimant of my archives and only I can grant the rights to publish on other platforms. This makes me feel comfortable. My agreement with them also states that I will not show up at the gallery or be involved in any activities."
"I need space where I can breathe freely," adds the artist who divides his time between his Bangkok home, his studio in Nakhon Pathom's Nakhon Chaisri district and Belgium, where his only son is studying fashion.
His recent self-portraits - several of them are shown in the gallery - are predominantly black and white and a butterfly is used as a metaphor for the sensitive soul. They show him lying on the floor or closing his eyes as he is dive-bombed by the butterflies.
"My studio in Nakhon Chaisri is always filled with butterflies," he explains. "But they are very sensitive insects and they die when they touch a canvas covered with toxic oil.
"I call this 2014 series 'Life in the City of Angel' but it's a fallen angel. It makes beauty out of tragedy like a complex poetic structure. The series coincided with the 2014 political unrest although it was not inspired by the conflict. The tragedy of the dead butterflies in my studio led me to look deeper into environmental concerns, particularly how to dispose of toxic paints, and is helping me to be cautious in the way I live," says the 51-year-old artist.
"My eyesight is no longer so good that I can play with different colours. At first, this really annoyed me but now I realise that black and white tell their own story and match my age. The tendon in the first joint of my right index finger has also become worse and affects the way I hold a paintbrush. I can no longer paint continuously for two or three hours."
With his Nakhon Chaisri studio too humid to preserve his works, Chatchai has bought land next to his downtown Bangkok home for storage purposes. He is also planning to build a botanical garden on his 15-rai plot of land in Phetchaburi's Cha-Am district that will be open to the public and allow them the chance to get up close and cosy with nature.
"I want it to be a spiritual sanctuary where people can come for self-analysis. Man should do something to inspire good in others."