FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Art lends the buzz of bees

Art lends the buzz of bees

Siam Center hosts a wild pairing of artists, one steeped in nature, the other in urban heroism

Insects are crawling all over Siam Center in the hundreds – but it’s okay, they’re only digital. And the little critters are bringing some fresh ideas and colour to the newly renovated mall.
Chicago-based graphics designer Teeranop Wangsilapakun has installed more than 500 LED screens around Siam Center where the bugs – in the form of motion graphics – scurry and fly about, in what he sees as a reflection of nature’s harmony. 
Meanwhile another Thai expatriate, London-based pop artist Pakpoom Silaphan, has set up an installation at the mall to pay homage to the late American graffiti artist Jean Michel-Basquiat.
It’s all part of “Siam Center Idea Avenue: Collaboration”, an exhibition continuing through August that is in turn one in a series of shows decorating the mall year round.
Two large LED screens on the front doors have a swarm of Teeranop’s insects in black and white. Above them are even bigger screens showing insects and flowers in full, surrealistic and abstract colour. The two-minute, looping narrative video switches between colourless flowers forming a skull shape against a black background to brilliantly hued blossoms exploding when insects alight on them. If you look carefully, you’ll notice letters within the action forming the word “Involved”.
“This work was directly inspired by natural mechanisms like pollination,” says Teeranop, who’s taking leave from his TNOP Design studio in Chicago to take care of his mother. “The beauty we see sometimes occurs accidentally from the collaboration between various creatures and living things. It’s like this project – a collaboration between individuals.”
Yet another large screen perches above an information counter with more flowers in full bloom – swaying in slow motion so that shoppers aren’t annoyed by constantly flashing visuals.
“In commissioned works I can express my distinctive character and style freely,” says Teeranop, a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design in the southern US state of Georgia. “But in collaborative art I have to work with other people in different fields to bring out my graphic designs on a multimedia platform. It gives my work more variety and gives me a new perspective. It’s quite exciting!”
Teeranop also worked with Samsung to design a limited series of S3 and S4 smart-phone cases for the pop-up shop that’s part of the exhibition. He used a “foil colour offset” technique to create prints on the plastic case inspired by Salvador Dali paintings. Each of the four designs conceals a different set of letters that, when assembled, spell the word “involved”. 
“Dali painted a lot of bizarre images of insects and that’s what inspired me to create this set, with the letters defying gravity over a desert landscape. The first design has the letters ‘i’ and ‘n’ from the word ‘invade’, as symbolised by an ant’s habitat. The ant is a social insect that’s respected for its cooperative efforts.
“The second one has the letters ‘v’ and ‘o’ for ‘voice’ to suggest a beehive’s diligent efforts, and Samsung has chosen it for a proper production line. The next one has the letters ‘l’ and ‘v’ from ‘solve’, inspired by Dali’s painting ‘Meditative Rose’, with its floating rose. And the last one has an ‘e’ and a ‘d’ from ‘connected’ and represents termites in their colonies.”

Pakpoom’s tall glass cabinet contains hundreds of spray cans to invoke the life and work of New York graffiti artist Jean Michel-Basquiat. Each one contains a tiny crown made from discarded zinc. Basquait used a crown to designate heroic figures in many of his images. And the repetitive rows of spray cans allude to Andy Warhol, who was Basquiat’s mentor and sometime collaborator.
Pakpoom, a master printmaker schooled at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, says Basquiat inspired many other artists, but says it was “his character and how he applied his style that inspired me. I believe everything is connected, especially in art and culture, so here I’m symbolising the connection between two different genres of art – graffiti and pop. They can be combined to explore new ideas.”
Basquiat became the darling of art critics for his vibrant collages and drawings addressing class struggle and poverty. Famous by age 25, he died of a heroin overdose at 27. “He was a black guy who had to struggle with racism,” says Pakpoom. “I can connect to his work and life because I’m identified as a ‘yellow’ man in London, where I’ve lived for 17 years.”
Pakpoom categorises his own art as “neo pop” because it takes in everyday objects. He’s best known for merging vintage soda-drink ads with images of icons like John Lennon, Che Guevara, Muhammad Ali and Warhol. “When I was a child upcountry I was surrounded by Coke, Pepsi and Fanta signs. They formed an iconic corporate wallpaper that was to become intrinsically linked with my childhood.”
The pop-up store also sells a case for an Acer computer notebook designed by fashion hotshot Wander Anatomie, an attractive Moleskine’s notebook by clothing firm Greyhound and unconventional Adidas Originals by Jeremy Scott. 
The 100 best-loved collaborative products from the private collections of local personalities are also on view. You can see Intira Thanavisuth’s Jimmy Choo punk-print bag featuring Elton John, Amat Nimitpak’s “Karl Lagerfeld for Coca Cola bottles” and Pisit Chongnarangsin’s “Happy 80th Birthday” Swatch wristwatch embellished with a rabbit, the Chinese zodiac sign of His Majesty the King’s birth year. It was designed by HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana.
  
 
LOTS TO SEE
<< The exhibition continues until August 30 on the first floor of Siam Center. 
<< Call (02) 658 1000, extension 500, or visit www.Facebook.com/siamcenter.
 
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