Arts and Culture

This morning I again asked the women at the front desk of my hostel for a recommendation for what to do. I was told that I should go to the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center (BACC) to check out the art there. I made my way to Skytrain and went there. The BACC is a museum of contemporary Thai art. It’s located on the seventh floor of a building that’s pretty much a shopping mall. I wasn’t sure what to expect but ended up really enjoying the art there. the show there was called “The Great Artist of Tomorrow Will Go Underground,” which is a quote from Marcel Duchamp (an artist who has always inspired me and my own artistic pursuits). 

The show was an enormous group show ranging from long manifestos painted on the walls to interactive electronic pieces to Duchamp-esque readymade sculptures. The show appeared to be a continuous work-in-progress as some of the pieces were unfinished and surrounded by art supplies. It was a wonderful show and I spent a lot of time walking through the gallery and playing with the interactive pieces.

If you stepped on the tail a barking noise would come from a nearby speaker. Nifty!

After that, I went to the other show in the Center. It was a show of travel photography by Thai photographers. Most of the photos were kind of unimpressive but that may have been just compared to the show I had just come from.

After leaving the BACC, I made my way to the Jim Thompson House. Jim Thompson was an American who helped revitalize the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and 60s. He built several houses in the traditional 19th century Thai style and filled his home with art and antiques collected from all around Southeast Asia. Thompson mysteriously disappeared on a trip to Malaysia in 1967 but his house has been preserved and turned into a museum. While I would have preferred to explore on my own, I was required to take a group tour which proved to be long and dull at times (our tour guide made a big deal out of pointing out the cat-shaped chamberpot in one of the bedrooms) but the house was very cool and a lot of the objects in the house were hundreds of years old.

So that’s my day so far. I’m tired and my feet hurt a bit so I think it’s time for a nap.