Gallery Ver and Artist+Run at art complex N22 in Bangkok
By David Willis

Thaiwijit Poengkasemsomboon, detail from ‘Classic Trap’, 2020, opening night. Image courtesy of Gallery Ver.

With a sprawling array of mixed-media paintings and sculptures, veteran Thai artist Thaiwijit Poengkasemsomboon has taken over two neighbouring galleries at the N22 art complex in Bangkok. Curated by the renowned artist Rirkrit Tiravanija — who is also the founder of Gallery Ver — the exhibition showcases more than sixty new works produced in the last two years, ranging in price from USD2,000 to USD20,000. In his curatorial statement, Rirkrit affectionately refers to the artist as Pee Mor: the artist’s nickname plus an honorific that could translate here as ‘older brother’. This emphasises Thaiwijit’s venerable status in the Thai art community, where he is well known as a practitioner of what Rirkrit calls a self-conscious form of “naive abstraction”. It is an apt description for these quirky works in particular, which have been crafted from scrap metals and fabrics in an ad-hoc fashion.

A nondescript warehouse off Narathiwat Road, N22 houses about half a dozen art galleries clustered around the edges of a gritty central space. On one side, there are Tentacles Gallery, Gallery Ver and Cartel Art Space, and on the other, there are the Gallery Ver Project Room, Artist+Run and Versus Gallery. Additionally, La Lanta Gallery and Richard Koh Project Space have taken up residence in a building next door. All together, it makes for one of the best places to see contemporary art in Thailand, and young emerging talent in particular. That said, Thaiwijit’s work feels right at home here, thanks to the fact that he is pushing himself in new directions, keeping his practice fresh by branching out from abstract painting into mixed-media assemblage and installation.

Thaiwijit Poengkasemsomboon, ‘The Leftover’, exhibition installation view. Image courtesy of Gallery Ver.

Right within the narrow entrance corridor of Gallery Ver, we encounter sculptures scattered on the floor and hanging from the ceiling. This forces us to proceed with caution lest we trip over a floor-work, or bash straight into the large, ovular mobile ‘Zerohero’ (2019), the hollow center of which frames the rest of the exhibition as we approach the main space. The fact that we must watch our step feels like an intentional decision on the part of the curator, who is famous as an installation artist and instigator of social interactions, as in his 2016 Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission at National Gallery Singapore. With this work, visitors had to navigate a bamboo labyrinth to reach a mirror-plated room at the centre, where they could take part in a zen tea ceremony.

The main room is bisected by an installation titled ‘Moment’ (2020), with 25 small sculptures lined up on a long, low table, which runs across the space and into the smaller side room, connecting the two areas in a dynamic manner. Many of the sculptures resemble stools, hinting at the idea of practical utility, a concept which also figures prominently in the beguiling installation ‘Classic Trap’ (2020). Consisting of a giant metal frame covered by chain link fencing, it is festooned from top to bottom with metal objects, which at first glance resemble a handyman’s tools, but on closer inspection they reveal themselves to be devoid of any practical usage. Another large installation in the rough shape of a human figure stands nearby, or rather, it rests at an angle, anchored by a chain to the wall behind it. Titled ‘More Made’ (2020), which is a double entendre playing on the artist's nickname ‘Mor’, the figure is made up of hollow segments wrapped in multi-hued fabrics, as if the artist were in fact painting with alternative materials.

Thaiwijit Poengkasemsomboon, ‘The Leftover’, exhibition installation view. Image courtesy of Artist+Run, photograph by Preecha Pattaraumpornchai.

Much as the objects in ‘Classic Trap’ play at being tools, many of the wall works at Gallery Ver play at being paintings, as in the three works sharing the title ‘Bone’ (all 2018), which are hollow rectangles made from metal rods. Meanwhile, over at Artist+Run, the presentation consists entirely of paintings, although these too are of the mixed-media variety, with acrylic and oil applied to unconventional supports such as burnt plywood and burlap. One work titled ‘Playground Up and Down’ (2019) features a riot of color, whereas another bearing the same title is almost completely monochrome, yet all of them display a rough material sensibility that unifies the body of work as a whole.

Only one piece at Artist+Run does not hang on a wall, and that is ‘Leftover Painting’ (2018). A large metal frame, its top third covered with a stitched patchwork of partially painted burlap, it leans against the wall, echoing the tilted figure in ‘More Made’, and its incomplete coverage with burlap recalls the negative spaces of ‘Zerohero’ and the ‘Bone’ pieces. By emphasising the theme of hollowness while repurposing the cast off detritus of economic activity, Thaiwijit offers an oblique yet poignant critique of the insatiable black hole that is consumerism within late stage capitalism and is a fitting rejoinder for our wasteful times.

Thaiwijit Poengkasemsomboon’s ‘The Leftover’ remains on view through March 14th, 2020 at Gallery Ver and Artist+Run, Soi Narathiwat 22, Narathiwat Road, Bangkok, Thailand.