'Primitive' in Bangkok
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's mixed-media exhibition "Primitive" has been to Munich, Liverpool, Paris, New York and Yokohama and finally made it to Bangkok last week, a little weary but still a delight.
At the Jim Thompson Art Centre until February 29, the multi-channel video installation, photo and sculpture stems from the same research trip that gave birth to Apichatpong’s Cannes-champion film “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”.
“Primitive” is a wide-ranging project that focuses on Nabua, a small town in Nakhon Phanom “where memories and ideologies are extinct”. The show explores and reinterprets the town’s starkly political past in the 1960s, when it was a “red zone” and residents were targeted by the government as communist sympathisers.
Admission is free. The centre is open daily from 9 to 5. Call (02) 612 6741 (02)219 2911 or visit www.TheJimThompsonArtCenter.org.
Snapping points
Photojournalist Chamlong Boonsong leads an exhibition by his fellow news photographers who have memorable pictures in the roving exhibition “Pae Rab Nam” (“Flood Victims from a Man-made Disaster”).
The premier and Bangkok’s governor probably won’t like what’s on view. The 70-plus images underscore government ineptness in tackling the catastrophe.
See them until Wednesday at Sahakorn Kru Thai Village on Srongprapha Road in Don Muang, which itself remains partially inundated. The exhibition will then travel to other still-flooded locales. Find out more at (090) 103 2387.
Super-pricey
A pristine first edition of the inaugural Superman comic book – which originally cost 10 cents – sold at auction last week for a record-breaking $2.16 million (Bt67 million).
The 1938 Action Comics No 1 – dubbed by auctioneers ComicConnect.com “the most important comic book in history” – smashed the $1.5-million record set last year by a copy in slightly worse condition.
The Hollywood Reporter says this one belonged to Superman-obsessed actor Nicolas Cage, though it was stolen from him in 2000 and not recovered for a decade.
