Inside the curiosity shop

SHOPPERS AT CENTRAL Embassy are meandering among the world’s fine art, music and food courtesy of Thomas Erber’s famed Cabinet de Curiosites, a sprawling “lifestyle festival” that’s been touring the world for five years, wowing visitors in Paris, London, Berlin and New York.
The grand show continues well into December, and at this stage there are no plans for another stop anywhere in Asia.
Siwilai, the luxury-brand store at Central Embassy, is hosting the Bt200-million exhibition of more than 70 pieces created on commission by both local and foreign artists.
Erber says he has mounted the most ambitious and most avant-garde exhibition to date for its debut in Asia. “It takes about a year to prepare, and this year we have an absolutely remarkable one,” he says. The show, he adds, is all about “the friendship of people from different countries and cultures”.
Barom Bhicharnchitr, managing director of Central Embassy and Siwilai, calls the exhibition “an international affair tailor-made for Bangkok”.
“Central Embassy invites everyone to come and express themselves and engage with one other and their city, in new and unprecedented ways,” he says.
Some seriously good food is being served over the course of several evenings at the Okura Prestige hotel, prepared by chefs with Michelin stars attached to their names – Bertrand Gre’baut, Ana Ros and Virginie Laval. They’ve also reinvented the lunch menu at Siwilai’s Rocket Coffee Bar for the festival.
The ground-level segment of the exhibition, “Showing and Sprawling”, has art and other fine objects displayed inside a multi-storey structure of black plywood linked by a steel connector pod. The sprawling multiple-branch maze “grows” organically throughout the mall, following its curved hallways and vistas and unfolding vertically, with more to explore at every level. Among the brands participating are Atelier Perceval, Ateliers Ruby, Backlash, Bottega Conticelli, Vespa, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Lotus Arts de Vivre, Maison Charvet, Maison Kitsune, Officine Generale and the Only Son.
Erber points with admiration to a Charvet smoking jacket. The eminent French gentleman’s tailor has in the past century made bespoke shirts, evening garments and even sleepwear for heads of state, aristocrats and such literary figures as Verlaine and Baudelaire.
The breast pocket of the silk velvet smoking jacket bears an elephant designed for Charvet by Raoul Dufy, the celebrated Fauvist painter of the early 1900s. Dufy created the textile that’s now been specially stitched on the jacket’s pocket for the Thai exhibition, a tribute to French-Thai friendship.
Among Barom’s favourite exhibits is a table that can pull double duty for dinner or ping-pong, handcrafted in reclaimed teng wood by Thai guest artist P Tendercool. P Tendercool also did the inlaid marquetry lines and borders and had his regular master of bronze, Armando, cast the base, with 1950s-style net-holders to match. Diners can sit on two moulded wooden seats wrapped in hand-stitched leather on hand-cast brass legs. The backs of the chairs are “tattooed” with images of guns.
Dennis Karlsson and Richard Kyle of Half Caste Creations, which turns vintage motorcycles into modern works of art, are represented by a bike that any punk rocker would love to own – a veritable jigsaw of metal, madness and beauty.
The second part of the exhibition, “The Cinema”, occupies the Indoor Garden on Level 2. The “black box” cinema, accessed through a long, dark tunnel, screens art films and shorts that alternate daily. Among those on offer are “Keep Searching”, directed by Francois Rotger, “Momento” by Laurent Segretier and “Singularity” by Elina Kechicheva.
Segment 3 – “The Cabinet” – is in the Siwilai store itself on Level 5. The mysterious cabinet appears to have to no way in, but walk around it and you see hidden side entrances that lead to small, yet no less precious, displays.
It’s a “hide-and-seek” concept that lures shoppers ever deeper and evokes the spirit of discovery embodied in all the famous “cabinets of curiosities” assembled by collectors in the 19th century. Here the highlight brands are Aedle, Alexander Olch, Buddy, Common Projects, Harumi Klossowska, Heritage Paris, James Heeley, Maison Bonnet, Melinda Gloss, JBB, Patcharavipa and Jim Thompson.
The last of these showcases the talents of Jim Thompson’s silk spinners and dyers and Olivier Burel, a French graffiti artist who goes by the name Ogreoner. He was invited to “make his mark” in Thailand and arrived with his spray cans of paint.
More than 50 hours later, he’d brought the Naga Pitak to life, the mythical serpent interpreted in his signature style, but with an eye that pays homage to the late Thai painter Thawan Duchanee. Ogreoner had seen Thawan’s work in the private collection of Eric Booth, Jim Thompson’s deputy managing director.
The naga protectively encircles the brand logo – rendered in a graffiti font appropriated from the Thai alphabet – and, with it, the heritage of Thai silk. Surrounding all is a sea of Siwilai’s Chao Phraya motif.
Erber says his aim is to give more artists international visibility. “When I was a journalist 15 years ago, there were many people I wanted to write about but it would have been very difficult to just write about them. So I decided to create a new way to ‘talk about’ these independent designers and artists, by creating a unique platform of activities whereby creative people could meet and explore the essence of creation.
“People are very clear about what they like nowadays and they prefer collectibles,” Erber points out. “Here the designers and artists receive a new window of international visibility, and meanwhile Bangkok has a very strong energy – it’s a leading international capital city of the 21st century – so I’m sure the interest in this kind of show here is very keen.”
 SPECIAL
EVENTS
- Through December 21: Special lunch menu at Siwilai’s Rocket Coffee Bar by the festival’s gourmet chefs. Call (02) 160 5836.
- Saturday to December 6: Chef Bertrand Gre’baut is cooking at Elements at the Okura Prestige. Call (02) 687 9000.
- December 8 to 13: Chef Virginie Laval is cooking at Elements at the Okura Prestige. Call (02) 687 9000).
- December 11: “Paris Meets Bangkok” with the Cool Kids and Ines Melia. You get two tickets for the concert with a Bt20,000 purchase.
- December 18: “Merci” with DJs Holy Ghost and Hot Chip (two tickets with a Bt40,000 purchase).