The striking feminine faces of Bangkok art biennale

The fourth edition of the Bangkok Art Biennale (abbreviated as BAB) is in full flow, and has already attracted more than 500,000 visitors. It opened on October 24 and will continue till February 25.

This year boasts of 76 dynamic artists from 29 countries, whose works are on display at 11 diverse venues in the city.

Indian artists have always featured in the four biennales, as the artistic director of Bangkok Art Biennale Prof. Apinan Poshyananda has a close connection with Indian art. In fact, he visited the Kochi biennale last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.

“My interest in Indian art goes back to more than three decades, when I was teaching art at Chulalongkorn University,” said Dr Apinan who has personally selected the Indian artists for the four biennales, although he has other curators. Dr Apinan is the most respected art curator in the country and has served as the permanent secretary in the ministry of culture. He is currently associated with Thai Beverage Co, the chief sponsors of the Bangkok Art Biennale. It’s Dr Apinan’s invaluable experience of working with both public and private enterprises that has led to the success of the four biennales in Bangkok.

Apart from his selection of dynamic artists from many diverse countries, the Thai art curator has also introduced art to venues where it was never featured before, including Buddhist temples, and this year the iconic National Gallery of Thailand. It’s not every day that you see grand antiques sitting side by side with avante garde art-works, as in BAB 2024. Again, it’s not every day that you see/hear an old Buddhist temple resound with Western opera music from a video installation.

In many ways, this year’s BAB has raised the bar. This has a lot to do with its encompassing theme, “Nurture Gaia”. Gaia is the Greek goddess of the earth, so this year’s BAB covers a wide array of subjects, viz. feminism, mythology, nature and environment. Thus, we have tremendously diverse images, and also an amazing range of styles.

“The biennales have energised the art scene the city” said Dr Apinan with pride.

Among the four Indian artists taking part in BAB 2024, the best-known is British-Indian Anish Kapoor, who was also at the 2020 edition with his two spectacular installations.

Kapoor has another striking installation, again made of stainless steel. Called S Curve, this mega installation’s convex and concave edges magically reflect all the people around it. S Curve has been placed on the outside gardens of the much-talked about, new commercial complex One Bangkok, together with the stainless installation of another globally renowned artist Tony Cragg. Both will be permanent exhibits at this new luxury building.

The other Indian artist whose work features prominently this year is well-known sculptor Ravinder Reddy. His signature images are of women with bright faces and buxom bodies.

“My figures are of ordinary people full of life, who spread goodness and happiness around” stated Reddy. He has three gold-embossed, nude female sculptures at the Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre (BACC), plus the blue-coloured head, Parvathi, in National Gallery.

One of Reddy’s striking sculptures called The Head was placed outside the popular Central World mall some years back. Reddy confessed that he has never exhibited his art-works at a mall before. “It’s an experience to be felt physically,” he said.

What he did not enjoy, however, were the political rallies outside the mall in 2010, when some of the protestors mistook his Head for Kali and tried to damage it, and so it had to be removed from there.

An artist producing different, but equally striking feminine images, is K. George, noted for his fiberglass Hijda transwomen, which created waves in India and many other countries. Dr Apinan met him at the Kochi biennale, and invited him to BAB 2024.

The self-taught George is a former banker who while in Chennai got swept away by the 2004 Indian Ocen tsunami. When he recovered, he developed a new perspective on life. It was during a trip to a temple festival at the village of Villipuram in Tamil Nadu that he encountered the Aravanis, a traditional community of transgenders, and was moved and mesmerised.

George’s sculptures of the Hijda have made waves in Parliament and gone overseas to Paris and Sydney. His three sculptures on display at the National Museum in Bangkok are stunning, not just for the attention to their physical details but also for the power and emotion on their faces.

The last Indian artist at BAB 2024, is Chitra Ganesh who lives in New York but is totally inspired by India. A graduate of semiotics, the study of cultural symbolism, Chitra is inspired by comics, poster art, science fiction and mythology including the Amar Chitra Katha. She plays with mythological symbolism to raise questions about contemporary realities of conflict, power, desire and especially the precarity of balance between humans and their environment.

Her large and striking works on display at BAB are studded with these symbols. She also has an animation film, Coherence, which studies the art of breathing and meditation. In it, in characteristic style, she sets humans against a heaving environment. Chitra created a mega art-work, Regeneration, at the Penn Station in New York, which was described as “larger than life” by Time Out.

While Chitra loves Brooklyn and its throbbing art community, she comes regularly to India, and takes part in the big shows there, including the Kochi biennale, India Art Fair and gallery shows.

The four Indian artists participating this year showcase the diverse range and dynamism of this year’s Bangkok Art Biennale.

The venues of BAB 2024 include everything from malls and commercial venues to cultural centres and huge convention complex, riverside spaces, and a variety of wonderful temples.

With Indian tourists pouring into Thailand (a record two million Indian tourists visited Thailand this year), it’s a great opportunity for them to view world art.

BAB has arranged regular art tours and lectures, for details check https://www.bangkokartbiennale.com.